Cheap Oil Forever? – Disaster for the (Auto) Industry!

Mike Smitka, Economics Dept, Washington and Lee University The global auto industry is placing very large bets on the value of lightweightin...

Really, now: the Fed and "Breaking News"?!

Mike Smitka I was having lunch at a brewpub in Kokomo IN last Wednesday (Dec 16) as the multiple screens over the bar proclaimed "break...

The FTC Opens the Hood

Ruggles December 2015 I hadn’t intended to write this as a standalone piece. And I am guilty of using the title to the post, published on t...

New Infiniti Q30 achieves Euro NCAP five-stars

The new Infiniti Q30 has received the maximum five-star  in the latest Euro NCAP Assessment. The Infiniti Q30 gained top scores in each of t...

The demo is in the details

A new video of the 2015 QNX technology concept car reveals some thoughtful touches. Paul Leroux QNX technology concept cars serve a variety ...

Real Effective Exchange Rates vs Market Rates: the RMB (Chinese yuan)

Mike Smitka, Washington and Lee University Here's a chart I created for my China's Modern Economy class showing the appreciation of...

Jaguar F-PACE and the Range Rover Evoque Convertible debuts at the 2015 Los Angeles International Auto Show

Jaguar Land Rover unveiled the all-new Jaguar F-PACE and the Range Rover Evoque Convertible during this year’s Los Angeles International Aut...

Bringing a bird’s eye view to a car near you

QNX and TI team up to enable surround-view systems in mass-volume vehicles Paul Leroux Uh-oh. You are 10 minutes late for your appointment a...

China's One-child Policy: redundant and now go

Mike Smitka, Prof of Economics, Washington and Lee Here I discuss the end of China's one-child policy. In my weekly WREL economics segme...

An ADAS glossary for the acronym challenged

If you’ve got ACD, you’ve come to the right place. Paul Leroux Someday, in the not-so-distant future, your mechanic will tell you that your ...

Five reasons why they should test autonomous cars in Ontario

Did I say five? I meant six… Paul Leroux It was late and I needed to get home. So I shut down my laptop, bundled myself in a warm jacket, a...

Walmart overseas: why so poor a performance?

Mike Smitka Let me follow up on my previous post on Walmart's strategic challenges. There I noted that Walmart has been singularly unsuc...

The Economics of Strategy: Walmart's Senescense

Michael Smitka Washington and Lee University October 22, 2015 WREL Update Today there's no "news" – nothing in the latest econ...