uHonda Adds Another 1.39M Civics, Accords To Takata Recall Listr

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  (frankieleon)

  Days after Honda confirmed the seventh death linked to defective Takata airbags that occurred in one of its vehicles, the automaker plans once again to expand the scope of its recall for cars equipped with the potentially shrapnel-shooting safety devices. Another 1.39 million popular cars are now on the list.

  The Associated Press reports that the expansion comes after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration urged Honda to take a recent recall of 350,000 Civic and Accord vehicles nationally.

  The new recall adds 1.39 million model year 2001 to 2005 Civics and 2003 to 2007 Accords with potentially defective passenger-side airbag inflators to the list.

  Honda previously conducted a national recall of vehicles equipped with faulty driver’s-side airbags. In all, the automaker has now recalled more than 21 million vehicles for the airbag issue since 2008.

  Honda’s expanded recall comes more than a month after Takata declared that nearly 33.8 million vehicles sold in the United States should be recalled for the defect.

  While about 17 million of those vehicles had already been part of recalls by major automakers, millions of others had yet to be identified, leaving consumers wondering if they’re driving around with what some people have likened to an explosive device in their steering wheel.

  Consumers looking to see if their vehicles are part of the largest auto recall in history can check by entering their 17 digit VIN on SaferCar.gov, which will return a list of all recalls associated with a particular vehicle.

  Identifying affected vehicles will likely be just one hurdle consumers will face when it comes to the Takata recall. The parts manufacturer has struggled in recent months to meet the demand for replacement airbags. The company recently announced it would increase its output of new parts to one million per month later this year.

  But even if those consumers do receive new airbags promptly, there’s still no guarantee those new safety devices are safe, as Takata, regulators and manufacturers have yet to identify what has caused the defect.

  In fact late last month, Takata confirmed that some vehicles that have been fixed through previous airbag recalls will have to undergo a second replacement.

  More Than a Million Vehicles Added to Honda Airbag Recall [The Associated Press]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uReport: Coty Will Acquire Procter & Gamble’s Beauty Brandsr

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  (Mike Mozart)

  Procter & Gamble has been looking to streamline its massive portfolio of brands, looking to sell, spin off, or shut down the majority of them. Last night, the unofficial news came out that many of the company’s beauty brands sold to competitor Coty, which means that Cover Girl and Clairol will be run by another drugstore cosmetics veteran.

  Coty may not be a name that you recognize, but the cosmetics conglomerate owns a wide variety of brands: they sell branded fragrances for everyone from Beyoncé to Playboy to Vespa (yes, the scooter company). Their best-known brand is probably nail care products sold under the name Sally Hansen (who was not a real person) but they also own higher-prestige brands like OPI (nail care) and Philosophy (skin care).

  Coty isn’t in the hair care business, so acquiring hair color brands like Clairol and Wella would introduce them to a new market. They are, however, already selling products to salons: OPI sells nail polishes and supplies to pros as well as directly to consumers.

  The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Procter & Gamble’s hometown paper, estimates that the acquisition would double Coty’s annual sales. The brands included in the deal are Cover Girl, Max Factor (which remains popular in Europe, but is no longer sold here) and the two hair color brands, Clairol and Wella. P&G would hold on to its brands that revolve around soap and shampoo, like Aussie, Old Spice, and Pantene.

  There are other bidders in the mix, including private-equity firms and other soap companies, so this deal isn’t finalized yet. Some sources are also reporting that Coty won the bid for Procter & Gamble’s fragrance brands.

  Coty reportedly nabs P&G beauty brands [Cleveland Plain Dealer]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uPlayStation Vue Will Sell (Sort Of) A La Carte Pay-TV Channels; Launches In L.A., San Franciscor

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• Sony’s PlayStation Vue streaming pay-TV service launched earlier this year in three markets and while it offers up competition for traditional cable and satellite providers, the bundles weren’t that different from what we’ve been getting for decades. Tonight, the company announced vague plans to offer more customizable pay-TV options through Vue starting later this year.

  At Sony’s E3 press conference, the company said that it would be offering the ability to buy individual channels — without having to buy larger bundles — starting in July. While that news elicited gasps and applause from the crowd, potential cord-cutters should temper their excitement pending further details.

  The only stations mentioned as a la carte partners by Sony were Showtime (which we already knew), gaming-centric Machinima, and Fox Soccer Plus. Sony said that PS Plus subscribers will get a discount for these channels, but didn’t give any specific pricing information.

  Having a trio of channels sold individually is not quite the same as the true a la carte pay-TV model that a number of consumers have long been asking for (even though it could end up costing a lot more than a regular cable subscription).

  This, however, may be a starting point if more networks are willing to give it a shot. But given the negative reaction of some major broadcasters to Verizon’s recent attempt to offer more customizable cable packages, we’d be surprised to see many media giants jumping on this bandwagon. Let’s hope we’re wrong.

  The good news for TV viewers — or at least the ones with PlayStations — in Los Angeles and San Francisco is that PS Vue is now available in their markets, giving them a pay-TV option that isn’t Time Warner Cable (or its possible new owner Charter) or Comcast.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uWhen Life Makes Too Much Sense, Just Apply Target Mathr

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• Here is how buying in bulk is supposed to work: you go to the store. You buy a multi-pack of an item, so the retailer makes more money from your shopping trip. In turn, the retailer charges you less for the multi-pack than you normally would have paid. That’s how this works…except when stores apply Target Math.

  

  “Buy in bulk and………spend more!” writes tipster Pat. Indeed, this is the classic example of Target Math, where buying a multi-pack inexplicably costs more per unit than buying a single item.

  

  Reader John found this confusing example in the juice aisle. While it’s possible that the flyer advertised an even higher price than $2.99 and that’s what it’s referring to, do most customers walk around with the current Target flyer, cross-referencing? They do not.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uGap To Close 21% Of Its U.S. Stores By Januaryr

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  (Mike Mozart)

  The mid-priced clothing business simply isn’t what it used to be. Today, Gap Inc. announced that it will be closing 175 of its Gap stores in the next few years, and 140 of them will close during this fiscal year, which ends in January. However, it’s just regular Gap stores that are closing: the company’s upmarket Banana Republic brand and downmarket Old Navy brand are doing fine, as are Gap outlets and factory stores.

  Coming changes for Gap also mean that the company will be “streamlining” its headquarters staff in San Francisco, cutting 250 positions. Like most retailers, they’re going multichannel, hoping to expand online sales while shrinking their mall-store footprint, since Americans aren’t all that keen on going to the mall anymore.

  Right now, there are 675 Gap stores in the U.S., and around 300 outlet stores. There are no planned outlet store closings: that may be an indication of where business is going. Preppy competitor J. Crew isn’t doing so well, but its Madewell brand consisting of distressed overalls that cost $158 is thriving.

  Some stores in Europe will also close. Between corporate-owned and franchise stores, there are Gap stores in about 50 countries.

  Gap to Close 175 Stores in North America [New York Times]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uTesla Predicts One Million Vehicles By 2020, Including Model 3 ‘Family’ Of Carsr

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  (Nicholas Eckhart)

  While it’s currently uncommon to spot a Tesla in the wild, the electric car company said today that it believes there could be significantly more Teslas – of varying model types – dotting roadways around the world by 2020, indicating its upcoming Model 3 will be targeted for mass market consumption.
  

  The Wall Street Journal reports that Tesla executives shed light on the carmaker’s future plans by revealing that it anticipates having one million cars on the road by 2020, a mark that will likely be boosted by the fact that the company’s next edition will probably include a family of vehicles: a sedan and a crossover.

  JB Straubel, chief technology officer for Tesla, detailed the company’s intents saying the currently in-development third-generation vehicles should hit the market in 2017 and cost about $35,000.

  While Tesla didn’t offer many other details on the new model – other than it will come with at least 200 miles of battery range – Straubel did hint that the company has plans beyond the Model 3 crossover and sedan, the WSJ reports.

  Tesla first revealed components of the Model 3 portfolio back in July 2014, when CEO Elon Musk described the upcoming vehicle as a smaller, less expensive version of the Model S.

  Musk, who only referenced one vehicle at the time, said the car was originally going to be called the Model E, but Ford threw a wrench into those plans.

  During the conference on Monday, Straubel also reiterated Musk’s estimate that the company will be selling more than 500,000 vehicles annually by 2020, paving the way for more than one million Teslas on the road by the start of the next decade.

  Tesla’s Mass-Market Portfolio to Include Sedan, Crossover [The Wall Street Journal]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uChipotle Working On A New Tortilla That Cuts Ingredients From 11 To 4r

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  (RLHyde)

  While homemade tortillas don’t require a plethora of ingredients or a time-consuming process — throw together some water, flour, oil and salt and cook, basically — it’s not so easy when it comes to churning out millions of tortillas daily. That’s why Chipotle is working on a new formula that would cut the ingredients list down from 11 to just those four, but allows the company to mass-produce the tortillas at the same time.

  The Bread Lab at Washington State University is working on the project for the restaurant chain, as the company says it wants to improve the quality of its mass-market food, reports the New York Times.

  The current recipe has 11 ingredients: Flour, water, whole-wheat flour, canola oil, salt, baking soda, wheat bran, fumaric acid, calcium propionate, sorbic acid and sodium metabisulfite.

  The new four-ingredient tortillas have been tested at a Chipotle in Washington already, with Chipotle aiming for a homemade taste that can be produced on the scale of close to a million tortillas per day to cover all those burritos and tacos.

  “We aspire to make artisanal tortillas on an industrial scale,” Steve Ells, founder of Chipotle told the NYT.

  The reason tortillas sold at grocery stores or in restaurants have so many more ingredients than the homemade variety boils down to two things: They make it easier to produce tortillas by the millions and they help give the tortillas a longer shelf life. Which makes taking them all out not as easy as it might seem.

  “Not only did we need to change ingredients, we needed to get most of them out,” Ells said. “We also would have to go back to the tortilla bakery and really change the whole way tortillas are made en masse.”

  For now, Chipotle is continuing to test the tortillas at the bread lab, with plans to increase the batch size and then eventually put it into production at a small group of test restaurants.

  “As we prove that’s successful, we’ll expand until we’re supplying the whole region with tortillas, and then move on to the next region,” Ells explains.

  Chipotle’s Quest to Develop a Better Tortilla [New York Times]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist