Carmageddon was hell for makers of premium brands. For all but – Audi. Audi closed out the crisis year 2009 with a after tax profit of €1.3b, reports Automobilwoche [sub]. And all that despite sinking sales. Speaking of sinking sales, Audi emerged relatively unscathed from 2009. Their sales sunk by only 5.4 percent, mostly due to booming business in China. Even the workers profit. (Read More…)
With the Chinese planning an electrical assault on Europe, with Nissan preparing their Leaf and with Renault charging-up Zoe, Peugeot-Citroen (PSA) is probably feeling a little exposed right now. Bad enough PSA failed to work out an agreement with Mitsubishi. Now they’re deficient in the no carbs category. But don’t worry, a white knight is coming to the rescue and offering them a ready-made electric vehicle. That’s right, they couldn’t work out a capital tie-up, but PSA and Mitsubishi Motors worked out an agreement on electric cars. (Read More…)
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I’m going to try to stay ahead of the curve and keep CC Clue coming a bit more consistently. Too often, I don’t decide what I’m going to do for the next day’s CC until after dinner, or even in the morning. Well, it’s almost dinner time now, but at least I’ve decided. And some good wine won’t hurt either, although it sometimes does lead to a more…uhm…subjective (exaggerated?) style of writing, like this one. Well, today’s mystery car is historically significant (oops; well they all are!), so I’d better keep my wits about me. Kudos to big_gms for being the only one to identify the 1976 Honda Accord. That was a bit tricky. This one might be too.
All the recent photo-shops and today’s shortened Vista-Coupe made me think of the car that most looks like it can’t have been designed to be the way it actually came out. The longer you stare at the Suzuki X-90, the more bizarre and surreal it becomes. It looks like what Micky and Minny Mouse would drive now days. Well, I’m mighty thankful for the little Suzuki’s existence, because it certainly breaks the monotonous waves of hand-me-down Camrys and Accords parked near the campus. Anyway, I have a thing for eccentric and short cars. (Read More…)
Toyota and its contracted engineering auditing firm Exponent held a webcast today to refute the claims that Professor David Gilbert has leveled in an ABC report and recent congressional testimony. Gilbert claimed that he was able to induce sudden acceleration without triggering failsafe mode or an error code in Toyotas by hacking into a Toyota pedal. Toyota and Exponent’s central claims are that the conditions created in Gilbert’s test could not be replicated in real life and that similar tests produced identical results in competitor vehicles.
When the production version of the Honda CR-Z debuted at the Detroit Auto Show, TTAC’s judgment was swift and harsh. Paul Niedermeyer’s piece “Why The Honda CR-Z Is So Ugly And Should Never Have Been Built” met with more agreement than dissent, and with good reason. Even though the hybrid coupe is still months away from going on sale, Honda engineers and dealers are already talking about their misgivings about the project, belying the project’s lack of originality and its poor chances for commercial success. CR-Z Chief Engineer Norio Tomobe describes his struggle to initiate the project to Automotive News [sub].
We had serious doubts about whether this would bring new value. I really struggled for a new idea, and we decided to start over from scratch. The hybrid finally gave us the wow factor.
This also marked the point where Honda’s US bosses started to lose interest in the project.
(Read More…)
So, how do you spin the bankruptcy of the world’s largest automaker? Former GM spinmeister Steve Harris recently took an hour to help prepare future generations for the day when they too will have to soft-pedal the inevitable collapse of their very own lumbering giant employer. Bonus revelation:
[the presidential task force was] very interested in what we were doing from a communications standpoint, but I can not say that they really exerted much control at all. Once or twice they said “we would really like it if you add this message or this communication into your plans,” but it was really minimal. It was not overbearing at all.
Details?
With Russian financiers offering up to $100m to back the new Saab-Spyker project, it’s not surprising that the internet is awash with glad tidings of new cars from the new Dutch-Swedish venture. On the Saab side, CEO Victor Muller and company are teasing analysts with news that Saab is “already working on plans” for a new compact car, tentatively named 9-1. Having quoted Muller as saying the 9-1 had a “better than average chance”of being built (whatever that means), Automotive News Europe [sub] filled in the blanks:
[The 9-1] would be needed to help achieve Saab’s stated goal of closing the gap with BMW and Audi. Saab debuted a concept for an entry-premium car at the 2008 Geneva auto show. ANE sister publication AutoWeek named the 9-X BioHybrid the best concept at that year’s event.
When it comes to mountains of data like the NHTSA vehicle complaint data base, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure(trove). Yes, there are limitations. But the remarkable degree of similarity of the UA rate between most badge engineered cars, and GM’s consistently low UA ratings speak of statistical relevance to some of us. One of those is David Lapidus, (TTAC handle: David42), whose data diving and Excel skills vastly overshadow mine.
In the last data dive, I used numbers from Edmunds to come up with a UA complaint rate for 117 cars from MY 2005-2010, excluding the flurry of complaints filed with NHTSA after the Toyota mat recall 0f 9/29/09. But those are cumulative, over the five years. David has taken it to the next level, to the individual model year. We may come back to the whole list another time, but initially we decided to focus on the Toyota Camry, since its large volume of sales and UA complaints would inherently increase the statistical accuracy of the numbers. And although this data dive may not solve the UA puzzle, it does raise serious questions about the most recent recalls and the Congressional barbecue of Toyota. (Read More…)
Vladimir Putin has announced that his government will spend $19.6b (584 billion rubles) on auto-sector stimulus, with spending planned on technology development, employee re-training, direct subsidies, and cash-for-clunker-style consumer stimulus. Another $20b of investment is expected from foreign automakers. These measures are aimed at a host of of ills besetting the Russian auto industry and market, ranging from what the government describes as a 4-7 year technological deficit, and a 50 percent drop in sales last year.
Toyota has just started a live webcast intended to rebut some of the allegations made by Professor Gilbert, among others. Click here to watch the webcast, already in progress.
One of the arguments in favor of GM Chairman/CEO Ed Whitacre’s use of AT&T corporate jets is that “given the role he plays and the decisions that need to be made worldwide, you want this guy to be working 24/7.” But like so many of the “answers” we’re given about GM’s turnaround, this merely raises another question: besides learning such arcane auto-industry jargon as the term “segment,” what exactly is Ed Whitacre doing at GM? Thus far, the answer seems to be “firing executives,” as the last several months have seen a number of executive reshufflings at the RenCen. And though GM’s bailout left a number of GM lifers in positions they had mishandled prior to bankruptcy, the recent firings and re-orgs aren’t simply motivated by the desire to revitalize GM’s corporate culture. A look inside Whitacre’s reign of terror shows a more traditional GM impulse at play: the desire for quick spikes in volume.
(Read More…)
As tipster starbird80 notes, “you see the strangest things on eBay!” But a Vista Cruiser Coupe (or is that a shooting brake)? Surely not…
TTAC reader Tiburon Guy writes:
Hey Sajeev: Long time reader, first time e-mailer. I have a 2001 Hyundai Tiburon that I inherited from my wife when we got married (dowrys are making a comeback!). It has 70,000 original miles and I’ve maintained it properly. Recently a problem arose that the dealer could not point out nor could my personal mechanic (ASC Certified) determine the cause or solution to.
It’s an automatic transmission. Sometimes when starting the car, pushing the release button on the shifter is downright impossible. It’s stuck and won’t engage, which means I can’t shift into gear. After a few moments of wiggling and pushing and jerking (and crying on my wife’s part) it will give and we’ll be on our way.
This doesn’t happen all the time though, it’s once every month or so. Any idea what could cause this and if so, what can I do to fix or prevent it from occurring? We are the only owners of the car and have not raced or abused it. I’ve hunted the forums on the Hyundai fan sites and I can’t find anyone with the same issue.
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