California Lemon Law Lawyer Blog

Tata Motors, a leading auto manufacturer in India, recently came out with an extremely low cost car, the Tata Nano that sells for only $2,500. One Mumbai owner, software engineer Satish Sawant, his wife and 5-year-old son escaped from their silver Tata Nano – which still bore a celebratory garland of marigolds on the front hood – before the tiny car was engulfed by fire.

Not surprisingly, according to Mr Sawant, his wife "doesn't want to buy any car," not even a Mercedes."

Here's a list of the 50 worst cars of all time compiled with amusing comments by Time Magazine and LA Times Auto Critic Dan Neil. Many would qualify as the worst lemon cars of all time, for example, the 1984 Maserati BiTurbo and the Yugo make the list. Others qualify by being wildly impractical (the fly/drive car and the boat/car), ugly (Pontiac Aztek), or fake (Cadillac Cimarron). The commentaries are entertaining. Here's the 1984 BiTurbo. I represented about 15 BiTurbo owners in lemon law cases back in the 1980s.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a Senate committee on Tuesday the Obama administration is considering a proposal to require that all U.S. vehicles be equipped with special brake technology that ensures a car will stop when both the gas pedal and brakes are activated. Experts say some cases of unintended acceleration may have resulted in accidents if a car's electronics favored the brakes over the accelerator.

Mr. Rockefeller, the Senate Commerce Committee chairman, suggested that some of Toyota's problems could have been prevented if its vehicles had been equipped with "smart pedal" technology. Toyota is moving to install the system in some current models and most new vehicles.