Auto Manufacturers

California will set another national precedent for tough smog control laws if, as expected, it orders auto manufacturers to produce electricity-powered cars and mandates the production of "ultraclean" cars and less-polluting fuels.The state Air Resources Board is expected to approve the measures, which include the nation's first standards for "reformulated" gasoline, requiring cleaner-burning, everyday gasoline in all grades for all cars.In the past, California pollution-control laws have served as models for federal legislation and for other states.

The port of Baltimore's largest handler of automobiles was sold to a New York equity fund that also owns a rival auto processor in town. Together, the firms will make sure dealerships around the country and globe have stocks of such makes as Ford, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Jaguar, Nissan, Hyundai and Porsche. An affiliate of New York-based Lincolnshire Management Inc. bought Jacksonville, Fla.-based Amports, the processor, for $107.8 million from Associated British Ports, the United Kingdom's largest terminal operator.

HERE'S the view from our neighbors in Delaware, courtesy of the Wilmington News Journal's editorial page:"The Maryland General Assembly, after three years of battling auto manufacturers and environmentalists . . . passed a compromise version of the 'California cars' emission standard. "Both sides claimed a degree of victory with the new legislation, which Gov. Schaefer said he will sign, but the significance of this bill cannot be underestimated."California cars have long been leaders in cutting back on the various tailpipe pollutants.

Each day before Dave Goldstein walks out the door of his Gaithersburg home and climbs into the front seat of his 1981 Mercury Lynx, he remembers to bring along a stack of papers with written answers to the questions he invariably gets from curious bystanders. "How fast can it go?" "How far?" "Where can I get one?" Ah, the joys of owning an electric car. Though Goldstein is one of fewer than 100 motorists in Maryland who are driving electric cars, he's feeling pretty good these days, because he doesn't have to worry about high gas prices.

Federal regulators warned yesterday that side air bags can kill or seriously injure children under 12 and urged manufacturers installing the devices in rear seats to let drivers decide whether they want them activated.Most auto manufacturers reacted coolly to the advisory from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, saying side air bags used in conjunction with age-appropriate restraints significantly enhance safety.BMW allows customers to tell dealers whether they want rear seat air bags activated, but a Mercedes spokesman said the company has no plans to follow suit.

The state has held discussions with nine auto manufacturers about locating assembly plants in Maryland, Richard C. Mike Lewin, secretary of Business and Economic Development, said yesterday. Lewin said the talks started about a year ago after General Motors Corp. said it was committed to the continued production of vans at its Southeast Baltimore assembly plant only until the third quarter of 2003. The automaker plans to eliminate the plant's second shift in July. That move would cut the work force of 2,500 by nearly half.

As construction workers laid cinder block and bulldozed sunbaked earth, Ford Motor Co. representatives led county officials and business leaders yesterday on a hard-hat tour of the site of Columbia's first auto dealership.Managers of Apple Ford, as the dealership will be known, showed visitors the future locations of the service center, the paint and body shops, quick lube center and showroom. The planned 62,000-square-foot facility currently is a vast open space framed by walls still under construction.

The Baltimore Auto Show will move back to the Baltimore Convention Center with a new name and twice as much exhibit space next year as the event's new producer seeks to make it one of the premiere automotive events on the East Coast. "Next year's show will be bigger and better than anything we've ever had in Baltimore before," Chuck Boyle, chairman of the Maryland New Car and Truck Dealers Association, said yesterday. Boyle is also president of Boyle Buick Inc. in Abingdon. "The idea is to upgrade the show to Class A from a Class C that we had at Timonium in recent years," said Boyle.

WESTMINSTER -- Falling rain didn't dampen the mood Friday as Marada employees and managers gathered to break ground for their new plant.The festive occasion, celebrated with speeches and jokes from company executives, marked the realization of former general manager John Newman's dream for a multibuilding Marada campus in Westminster."

Maryland's new car dealers are considering seeking legislation to prevent auto manufacturers from locating another dealership that sells the same cars near them.The move comes one week after the Court of Special Appeals ruled that a state law enacted last year does not give the dealers the protection they thought they had won from the General Assembly."The [Maryland New Car and Truck Dealers] Association has formed a committee to consider the possibility of new legislation" when the General Assembly convenes in January, Robert Russel, chairman of the auto retailers group, said yesterday.

For sale: Seventy-year-old manufacturing plant with 50 football fields of floor space on 182 potentially contaminated acres. Only one owner. Comes with easy access to a congested East Coast highway. Zero percent financing unlikely. See your General Motors dealer for details. With the assembly line at GM's plant in Southwest Baltimore idle, the search is on to find a developer with deep pockets to take on the task of bringing one of the city's largest and most prominent industrial properties back to life.

Clarence Price is a rarity among Acura dealers: He's black. Of 260 U.S. dealerships selling the luxury brand of Honda Motor Co., Price's Bakersfield, Calif., lot is one of just six owned by blacks - overall, just 5 percent of new-auto dealerships are minority-owned according to a recently released report. Only three blacks are among the 623 U.S. dealers for Mitsubishi Motors Corp., the Washington-based National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers said. Only two Latino owners are among the 341 U.S. dealerships for Volvo, a brand of Ford Motor Co. By comparison, minorities own about 15 percent of all U.S. businesses, according to the Census Bureau.

The auto industry, which cruised to record sales last year in spite of a sputter in the closing months, faces a bumpier road in the year ahead. New-car sales - both nationally and in Maryland - are expected to dip well below the record pace of the year that just ended. Two regional automotive assembly plants - General Motor's van plant in Baltimore and Chrysler's Newark, Del., factory - will continue to face uncertain futures as auto manufacturers struggle with declining sales, shrinking market shares and unprofitable operations.

The Baltimore Auto Show will move back to the Baltimore Convention Center with a new name and twice as much exhibit space next year as the event's new producer seeks to make it one of the premiere automotive events on the East Coast. "Next year's show will be bigger and better than anything we've ever had in Baltimore before," Chuck Boyle, chairman of the Maryland New Car and Truck Dealers Association, said yesterday. Boyle is also president of Boyle Buick Inc. in Abingdon. "The idea is to upgrade the show to Class A from a Class C that we had at Timonium in recent years," said Boyle.

The state has held discussions with nine auto manufacturers about locating assembly plants in Maryland, Richard C. Mike Lewin, secretary of Business and Economic Development, said yesterday. Lewin said the talks started about a year ago after General Motors Corp. said it was committed to the continued production of vans at its Southeast Baltimore assembly plant only until the third quarter of 2003. The automaker plans to eliminate the plant's second shift in July. That move would cut the work force of 2,500 by nearly half.

Federal regulators warned yesterday that side air bags can kill or seriously injure children under 12 and urged manufacturers installing the devices in rear seats to let drivers decide whether they want them activated.Most auto manufacturers reacted coolly to the advisory from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, saying side air bags used in conjunction with age-appropriate restraints significantly enhance safety.BMW allows customers to tell dealers whether they want rear seat air bags activated, but a Mercedes spokesman said the company has no plans to follow suit.

Clarence Price is a rarity among Acura dealers: He's black. Of 260 U.S. dealerships selling the luxury brand of Honda Motor Co., Price's Bakersfield, Calif., lot is one of just six owned by blacks - overall, just 5 percent of new-auto dealerships are minority-owned according to a recently released report. Only three blacks are among the 623 U.S. dealers for Mitsubishi Motors Corp., the Washington-based National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers said. Only two Latino owners are among the 341 U.S. dealerships for Volvo, a brand of Ford Motor Co. By comparison, minorities own about 15 percent of all U.S. businesses, according to the Census Bureau.

The port of Baltimore's largest handler of automobiles was sold to a New York equity fund that also owns a rival auto processor in town. Together, the firms will make sure dealerships around the country and globe have stocks of such makes as Ford, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Jaguar, Nissan, Hyundai and Porsche. An affiliate of New York-based Lincolnshire Management Inc. bought Jacksonville, Fla.-based Amports, the processor, for $107.8 million from Associated British Ports, the United Kingdom's largest terminal operator.

WASHINGTON -- After a decade of avoiding the issue, the Supreme Court agreed yesterday to decide a nationwide legal dispute over accidents involving cars not equipped with air bags.The issue is whether auto manufacturers may be sued by accident victims under state law on the theory that a car without a driver's side air bag is unsafe to operate.Millions of cars built before the 1998 model year, before automakers were required by federal rules to have air bags, are still on the road. Consequently, lawsuits over accidents involving those cars are likely for years to come -- if the court allows them.

There's a good chance that Dr. Andrew Burgess, chief of orthopedic surgery at Maryland Shock Trauma Center, will have a say in the design of your next new car.Burgess loves cars. "I'm a car jock," is the way he puts it."My first car was a '53 Mercury convertible," Burgess said. "I had a Pontiac GTO, a Chrysler 300 and a '32 Ford pickup hot rod."I'm always reading the auto magazines: Road & Track, Car & Driver and Autoweek," the 54-year-old surgeon said as he sat on a sofa in his third-floor office at the hospital, wearing the pink scrubs that identify him with the renowned Shock Trauma Center.