Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla.

Tesla has been banking on getting federal loans for a while, and the ever-quixotic Elon Musk has apparently made a strong enough case to the feds to warrant a $465 million loan, the full amount Tesla was after. This should allow the company to build the Model S, or give Musk enough time to slip out of the country before the Detroit automakers can frame him for something. We kid about the last part. That being said, Tesla’s got a lot of work to do, and we’ll see if this loan improves their cash-flow problems in the long-term.

[Source: AP]

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has proposed some new tire ratings labels to help consumers looking to buy new tires. Rating tires in three areas, fuel economy and greenhouse commissions, wet traction, and durability, the NHTSA is apparently trying to focus consumers’ attention on the fuel savings to be found in choosing a low-rolling resistance tire. Plus, this is a handy and quick way to directly compare tires, something that is notoriously difficult to do. But holy lawsuits, Batman! What could the unintended consequences be?

Not even the profitable Cayanne is helping Porsche now.

Recently Porsche has been aggressively attempting to acquire Volkswagen, seeking to become the world’s largest automaker (a goal also coveted by Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne). However, after buying the most recent chunk of VW assets, Porsche finds itself badly in the hole … and is forced to beg for a loan from VW. It’s an amazing turn of events between two companies with headstrong leaders with large egos. What does it mean? Porsche’s drive to own VW is effectively over, and Porsche is now in danger of being subsumed into VW itself.

A British charity organization that focuses on helping the environment by reducing the use of cars has released a report showing that the Dodge SRT-10 Roadster (how they badge the Viper across the pond) is the worst car in Britain (from an environmental standpoint). Which is clearly no great surprise – the 8.3L pushrod two-valve motor is a dinosaur, and it’s up against a load of tiny French cars and other assorted European nonsense.

Contrary to first impressions, this isn’t a partisan post – anybody calling for a boycott of GM would get a snarky comment from us. But honestly – a boycott? Of a company whose advertising and national image was almost synonymous with social conservatism, tailgate parties and light American lager? What in sam hill is going on? We want to know what these particular arch-conservative Republican rabble-rousers are smoking, because we want to avoid it.

As promised in our initial coverage of the story yesterday, this an update of the new CAFE regulations as set by the Obama Administration.

This morning, President Obama officially unveiled the new CAFE standards, set to take full effect by 2016. Although slightly less egregious than the 42.5 mpg speculated by the media yesterday, the official numbers aren’t any more performance (or wallet)-friendly. Outlined in a plan that is expected to cost roughly $1,300 per vehicle, the new emissions standards will require all passenger cars to average 39.5 mpg (light trucks, 30 mpg) by the year 2016. Effectively overriding Congress’ original plan which allowed until 2020 for the 35 mpg national average to be reached, the Obama Administration has cut the time frame while ballooning the budget, shaving 4 years off the initial deadline and hiking the overall price from $13 billion to $20 billion.

Tomorrow, President Obama is expected to give environmentalists a major chubby with the introduction of new, ridiculously high CAFE standards. Official details will be released tomorrow in tandem with the scheduled press conference, but the whisperings currently making their way around the gossip rags newspapers are discouraging. According to the rumors, Obama’s lofty goal to cut emissions by 30% by 2016 will call for fuel-efficiency standards to see a staggering hike, surging from 27.5 mpg cars, 24 mpg trucks to 42 mpg cars, 26 mpg trucks.

Evil robot callers are evil!

You know what we’re talking about. If you haven’t been getting at least a couple of these robot-dialed calls an hour claiming that you’re warranty’s up … well, you’re probably in the middle of nowhere so you aren’t reading this blog either. Today a federal judge in Chicago ordered an immediate stop to these calls, targeting 3 companies that are the subject of the lawsuit, and freezing their assets.

I didn’t want any stock in Chrysler, but now I have some. So do you. The government is buying up Chrysler stock with our money, and without our permission. The constitution doesn’t give the president the right to be the forced stockbroker to every citizen in the country, does it? Maybe I missed that part. Either way, it doesn’t matter, since the Constitution has been ignored by every administration since Thomas Jefferson anyway.

Here are the facts:
Chrysler is going bankrupt, but not normal Chapter 11 bankruptcy, they’re going into “managed bankruptcy“. The US taxpayer is putting up the majority of the cash, at least $12 billion, and we only get 10 percent ownership in the company. I say “at least $12 billion” because the original estimates were always way too low, so there is no logical reason to think this new estimate will be any different. Read on for more:

Well it’s official, Hail Mary incomplete. In a last minute effort to woo stakeholders into concession, Chrysler fell short of its Wednesday night deadline to stave off Chapter 11. Of 46 original holdouts earlier in the day, it all came down to three: Oppenheimer Funds, Perella Weinberg Partners and Stairway Capital. The Obama administration will assist Chrysler with a “surgical” bankruptcy filing. The goal is to make some quick concessions with suppliers and debtors, shed a large chunk of the dealer network and orchestrate an acquisition by Fiat. Did I mention they want it done in 60 days? Quick reminder: Delphi entered bankruptcy in October of 2005. They have yet to emerge.