AUTO CENTRAL CHICAGO, October 1, 2017 Every Sunday Larry Nutson, Senior Editor and Chicago Car Guy along with fellow senior editors Steve Purdy and Thom Cannell from The Auto Channel Michigan Bureau, give you TACH's "take" on this past week's automotive news in easy to "catch up" news nuggets. For More search the past 25 year's millions of (Indexed By Google) pages of automotive news, automotive stories, articles, reviews, archived news residing in The Auto Channel Automotive News Library.

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Nutson's Weekly Automotive News Nuggets - Sep 25-Oct 1 2017

* The average price of a gallon of regular-grade gasoline fell 7 cents nationally over the past two weeks, to $2.62. The drop comes as flooded refineries continue to come back online after devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey. Prices are expected to continue to fall over the next few weeks. Gas in San Francisco was the highest in the contiguous United States at an average of $3.18 a gallon. The lowest was in St. Louis at $2.19 a gallon. The U.S. average diesel price is $2.51, down 2 cents from two weeks ago.

* California officials are mulling whether a ban on sales of gas and diesel-powered autos is needed to achieve long-term targets for cleaner air. Governor Jerry Brown has expressed an interest in barring the sale of vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines, replicating similar moves by China, France and the U.K. Such a policy would send shock waves through the global car industry due to the size of California’s 2 million passenger vehicle market. It tops France, Italy or Spain and a ban would put automakers under new pressure to make electric vehicles the standard for personal transportation in the most populous U.S. state, casting fresh doubts on the future of gasoline- and diesel-powered autos elsewhere.

* Industry analysts J.D. Power and LMC Automotive expect September to achieve the highest auto sales level for the year, but it will still be behind last September at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 15 million units. "Recent hurricanes have disrupted - and will continue to disrupt - new-vehicle retail sales in September” they say, as national sales numbers are down just less than 1%. Southwest regional sales are up 14% as consumers begin to replace damages vehicles. The region that includes Florida is down 16% as sales have not begun to recover after the storm.

* Ford introduced the new “Limited” luxury version of the Super Duty F-Series pickup this week with price tags that can approach $100,000. The F-450 Limited comes in at $87,100 and will tow more than 30,000 pounds. Todd Eckert, Ford Truck Group marketing manager said "the new Super Duty Limited is the most luxurious and advanced heavy-duty pickup truck ever created by Ford . . .” High end trim levels of the Super Duty trucks, like King Ranch, Platinum and Lariat, account for around 50% of sales.

* Volkswagen just announced a new bumper-to-bumper, transferable warranty that will cover their cars and CUVs for six years or 72,000 miles putting them well ahead of most competitors including the high-end German brands. The new warranty will begin with upcoming 2018 model year vehicles in the U.S. VW sales have strengthened in the U.S. after significant struggles related to the diesel emissions scandal. The warranty had been previously announced for the new Atlas and Tiguan SUVs.

* With the passing of Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner this week our friends at The Drive reported the magazine's name did not come from the accepted meaning of a “wealthy bon vivant.” Rather, they say, it came from the little-known small car built from 1947 to 1951. The Playboy car was a post-WWII attempt to make a small but sporty vehicle to help sate the raging appetite for inexpensive transportation at the time.

* Toyota has made a lot of cars, SUVs, CUVs and light trucks in the U.S. for many years, and they’ve made more hybrid vehicles that any other manufacturer. But, until now they’ve not made any hybrids in the U.S. Toyota announced just this week they will invest $373.8 million in five U.S. plants to begin production of hybrids on Toyota’s New Global Architecture (TNGA) at the Alabama assembly plant. Other plants getting these investments include ones making transaxles, engine blocks, cylinder heads and other components.

* German prosecutors arrested Wolfgang Hatz, Volkswagen Group’s former chief engineer, this week in conjunction with the ongoing diesel emissions scandal. Hatz so far is the highest level executive to face criminal charges. U.S. prosecutors have already tried James Liang, former VW Group engineer and Oliver Schmidt, another VW executive, with guilty verdicts in each case. Liang was sentenced to 40 months in prison and a $200,000 fine. Schimdt will be sentenced next month.

* We got to test drive Cadillac's new Super Cruise feature this week which allows for hands-free driving on limited access highways. Available on the Cadillac CT6, it's considered Level 2 semi-automated driving and integrates with the smart/adaptive cruise control. Take note though that you can't do much else but sit there and watch the road ahead. A camera system monitors your eyes and will warn you to pay attention or shut the system off.

* Followers of custom cars and hot rods will know this. Lay down a coat of gold first, then red atop that, then follow that with a clear coat with some red mixed into it and you get deep, delicious glowing paint known the world over as “candy apple red.” Sounds simple, but it took Joe Bailon, the customizer credited with inventing the process, 10 years to perfect. That was 1956. Joe Bailon died this week at the age of 94.