plus 3, Big River completes LEED Silver project - Memphis Business Journal

Big River completes LEED Silver project - Memphis Business Journal
Newport Beach Clears Way for Tesla Dealership - Orange County Business Journal
Car Dealer Scams To Avoid - Forbes
Toyota hires 'third party' expert investigative team - WKYC

Big River completes LEED Silver project - Memphis Business Journal

Posted: 12 Mar 2010 12:52 PM PST

A former vacant warehouse Downtown has been renovated to LEED Silver certified status and is now the new home of Big River Engineering & Manufacturing.

The 8,500-square-foot warehouse at 85 N. Front St. becomes the second building in Memphis to become LEED Silver certified and just the third in Shelby County, according to officials with the Memphis chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council.

Big River designs, fabricates and adds controls to custom-made machines that are used by such companies as Wright Medical Group Inc. and Smith & Nephew Inc. Big River earns $1 million-$2.5 million a year in revenue and employs 10-19 depending on work orders.

The project's design kept only the exterior walls and structure of the old building, which was built in the 1950s as an auto transmission repair shop and was later used as stables for the mounted division of the Memphis Police Department. All of the interiors and building systems are new.

"After weighing our options we felt like re-purposing the existing building was the right thing to do," said Tom Roehm, CEO at Big River, in a statement. "The size and location fit our needs. At that point, the decision to go for LEED certification was a natural fit."

The local chapter of USGBC has scheduled an open on March 18 from 5-7 p.m. so builders, architects and others can see the transformation and learn more about the advantages of having a LEED facility.

The tour will highlight many of the water and energy conserving features of facility, including skylights, automated daylighting controls and insulation made from 100 percent recycled products. The event is being held in conjunction with the Sierra Club's local Chickasaw Group.

Similar tours of other green facilities in Tennessee will be held throughout that week.

"Our built environment presents a tremendous opportunity as we look for ways to reduce energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions," said Peter Warren, architect with Askew Nixon Ferguson Architects Inc. and member of the USGBC-Memphis board, in a statement. "In addition, this project is a small, but significant local step toward reuse of our neglected Downtown building stock."

Askew Nixon was the project architect, Montgomery Martin the general contractor and Askew Hargraves Harcourt provided structural and civil engineering services. Big River will receive $10,000 from Memphis Light, Gas & Water as part of MLGW's LEED Incentive Grant Program.

For more information, visit http://chapters.usgbc.org/memphis.

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Newport Beach Clears Way for Tesla Dealership - Orange County Business Journal

Posted: 12 Mar 2010 01:50 PM PST

San Carlos-based Tesla Motors Inc. may be one step closer to opening a dealership in Newport Beach.

The city of Newport Beach has approved electric car repairs at an old Rolls-Royce building on Pacific Coast Highway.

The approval for repairs was one of the last hurdles for Tesla, which designs and makes electric sports cars that sell for about $100,000 or lease for $1,700 a month.

It's the only street-legal electric car so far.

Patrick Alford, Newport Beach city planning manager, said he's uncertain whether Tesla has signed a lease yet.

Tesla's spokeswoman Khobi Brooklyn could not be reached for comment.

Tesla has 11 dealers in the U.S., including San Diego and Los Angeles.

The company has emerged as a primary rival to Irvine's Fisker Automotive Inc., which has some hybrid cars in the works.

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Car Dealer Scams To Avoid - Forbes

Posted: 12 Mar 2010 01:07 PM PST

Of the top 10 industries that received the most consumer complaints last year, three were auto related.

New-car dealers, used-car dealers and auto service and repair shops registered almost 54,000 complaints in North America, according to the Better Business Bureau. They were the No. 4, 7 and 10th-most complaint-ridden industries of 2009. It's enough to make anyone blanch at the thought of buying a new car.

In Depth: Car Dealer Scams To Avoid

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"Difficult times lead to creativity," says Bill Gerhard, AAA's director of financial services. "People come up with sensational hooks to try and get you to the dealerships, and once they lure you in, the goal is to sell you something and generate as much profit for the dealership as they can."

It helps to know what you may face before hitting the showroom. That way, you'll be prepared to avoid the stress of being ambushed by a team of salesmen or accosted by a loan shark. And you'll have more confidence in the face of undue pressure to seal the deal.

Pay Attention to the Little Things
There are roughly 10,000 new- and used-car dealers in North America accredited by the Better Business Bureau, and an additional 15,000 that provide repair and service. While the total number of consumer complaints in North America was up 10% overall last year (cellular phone companies, television stations and banks topped the list) complaints at new-car dealerships declined 2.4%. More than 84% of those complaints were resolved, according to BBB data.

"Our stats show that complaints against car dealers are kind of a wash from the previous year," says Alison Southwick, a spokeswoman for the BBB. "It's when you see sudden sharp increases, like 42% for banks, that you know you've got a problem."

Still, complaints about used-car salesmen and repair shops were up 2.5% and 9.5% last year, respectively. The used-car industry has been doing especially poorly as of late--complaints about used-car dealers increased 18% from 2007 to 2008. What's more, one in five shoppers who leave a dealership without buying something leave because they received poor treatment or had problems with "pricing games, sales pressure tactics or discourteous treatment," according to a 2009 report from J.D. Power.

And dealer traffic volumes are expected to decline by 20% by 2013, causing a 25% drop in revenue that will force car dealers to adapt to an "increasingly difficult environment and try new methods to keep customers coming back," J.D. Power says.

Women buyers are particularly important to dealers. According to data from Ward's Auto, an automotive industry news and analysis firm, 85% of all purchase decisions are made or heavily influenced by women. But CNW Marketing Research Inc. reports that just 8% of U.S. dealerships are female-owned.

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Toyota hires 'third party' expert investigative team - WKYC

Posted: 12 Mar 2010 12:45 PM PST

CLEVELAND -- Facing at least 89 class-action lawsuits, some related to 52 deaths that may be blamed on failure of accelerator systems in its vehicles, a Toyota official said in Cleveland Friday that the company has hired outside investigators to take a "third party" look at the repairs Toyota is making in some six million vehicles recalled in the U.S.

Donald Esmond, Toyota Senior Vice President for Automotive Operations, said experts who were involved in investigations of the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 attacks will be independently examining the electronic sensor boxes that are part of Toyota's accelerator assemblies.

"We have thoroughly tested our electronic throttle," Esmond told WKYC, after a meeting with Toyota dealers in Cleveland. "We are bringing in the third party to take a deep dive into the electronics to double-check our tests."

This news comes as prosecutors in Orange County, California, announced they will file a lawsuit against Toyota over continuing problems with their vehicles.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas accused Toyota of continuing to endanger the public through the sale of defective vehicles and deceptive business practices.

Toyota's Esmond said dealers have performed more than one million repairs to Toyota accelerator assemblies, some staying open 24 hours to make the repairs.

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