We at TTAC, (well, me, only) have said that since everyone is raining a storm down on Toyota other recalls are slipping by without equal scrutiny. So when I read this article, I thought it fair, in the interests of journalism, to blog it. Not because of who it is, but the reasoning around it.
GM throws in the towel. And throws a lot of (your, well, our) money after Opel. GM will invest a total of €1.9b into the German patient, says Das Handelsblatt today after talking to Bob Lutz. Nick Reilly confirmed the message today, and said the money can flow as paid in capital and loans from the mother-ship. It finally dawned on GM that European governments are just stringing them along until Opel runs out of money – again. (Read More…)
With all the drama surrounding Alfa Romeo’s future, it’s heartening to see that the brand is still taking the time to work on core competencies like the emotional drop-top two-seater. Nobody knows for sure if Alfa will survive past the end of this year, but if they do, this is probably how they should celebrate. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has been urging Alfa to “find religion,” and soon… happily, the 2uettottanta Concept sure looks like the work of true believers. With just a little Pontiac Solstice thrown in for good measure.
Toyota was listening closely to the “revolving doors” talk at last week’s hearings.
In today’s Senate committee hearing, Toyota will announce that former U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater has come on board to lead Toyota’s new quality panel of independent experts, reports The Nikkei [sub] this morning.
Slater was Bill Clinton’s LaHood. He since joined the lobbying firm Patton Boggs and became a partner in James Lee Witt Associates, a risk management firm headed by former FEMA head James Lee Witt.
German car buyers boycotted the showrooms in February. Sales crashed to the tune of 29.8 percent. This according to the German car importers association VDIK via Das Autohaus [sub]. The number is not the official number (yet) but the VDIK is usually reliable. Only 195,000 new cars changed hands, compared to 278,000 in February last year.
Germany is in the vise grips of a huge hangover from the cash-for-clunkers Abwrackprämien-orgy of 2009. In February 2009, the program was launched, and sales started to take off by 21 percent. Sales reached a 40 percent apogee in June. Compared to these numbers, the coming months will look absolutely awful. Small cars and subminiature vehicles, the big gainers of the Abwrackprämie, crashed the most. (Read More…)
The Wankel rotary engine returns to its native land at last. Since the NSU Ro 80 went out of production in 1977, Mazda has been the keeper of the flame. But Audi has announced that it will show an A1 e-tron concept at the Geneva show this week, and the pug-in will feature a single-rotor Wankel range extender (gen set). Rotaries and micro-turbines have often been suggested as the ultimate range extenders due to their compact size and low weight. (Read More…)
Hybrid cars may be green, but are they dangerous? According to Israel’s of Environmental Protection, this may be the case. A research committee funded by the ministry studied radiation from hybrid vehicles over the course of the last nine months, found ‘surplus’ radiation in some models sold in Israel and worldwide, reports Israel’s The Marker.
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Who’s afraid of the 2016 CAFE standard ramp-up? Not the gas-electric hybrid Porsche 918 Spyder Concept. With 0-60 in 3.2 seconds from a racing-derived V8, and an extra 218 hp of electric power, the 918 Spyder could theoretically get 78 mpg, according to Porsche [full release at Egmcartech]. Just try not to think what all that racing-derived goodness would cost new.
Tomorrow the Senate will be taking its shot at the Toyota scandal, with hearings scheduled before the Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation. Giving testimony will be three Toyota executives including Yoshimi Inaba, NHTSA Administrator David Strickland and Clarence Ditlow of the Ralph Nader-founded Center for Auto Safety. Conspicuously absent from the list is Dimitrios Biller, the former Toyota lawyer who claims that Toyota hid documents related to vehicle design from discovery in several suits against the automaker. The House Oversight Committee has reviewed a number of Toyota communications courtesy of Biller, and a letter from chairman Ed Towns (D-NY) demands that Toyota answer Biller’s charges [Towns’ letter and Biller documents in PDF format here, courtesy of DetNews]. By invoking Biller’s charges, Towns has dragged yet another witness into the fray whose story raises more questions than it answers [one of Biller’s several suits against Toyota can be found here.] And yet, probably because of his complex backstory] there are no plans for Biller to testify under oath before congress. Should he, or does his testimony just cloud the picture even further?
It’s morning on a bright summer day in Iowa City in 1962. I may have fallen asleep with pictures of Marilyn and the Corvette, but now they’re lost somewhere in the folds of my sheets. The fantasy is over, and its time to face a reality of rampant Rambler Classic wagons with wheezing sixes piloted by boozy but anything but sexy Moms. Instead of a fancy night club where a jazz band is playing, we’re off to the pool, and if we’re lucky a stop at the Purple Cow drive-in for milkshakes and floats afterward. The distinctive pattern of Rambler upholstery seared into the backs of my thighs and the stain of artificial strawberry on my trunks will be the tell-tale of having crowded in with half a dozen other hot (the wrong kind) and sticky kids in the back seat. Why did I have to find you, Rambler Classic Wagon? I was so enjoying my fantasy memories. (Read More…)
„Itai!“ Or rather, „tong!“ Ouch, that hurts: Toyota boss Akio Toyoda bowed deeply to 300 reporters assembled in Beijing, and to 1.3b Chinese who could watch the drama live on national TV. Four times in one hour, Toyota’s chief “apologized to customers in China for the company’s quality problems and emphasized the significance of the nation’s fast-growing market to his company,” as Shanghai Daily has it. There must be nothing more painful for an upstanding Japanese captain of industry than to bow deeply in front of the Chinese. But as they say in China: „bú tòng bù qiáng.” No pain, no gain. Even more astonishing: (Read More…)
Think you have it figured out? Hit the jump for the answer…
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Dow Jones [via Easybourse.com] has a hot release that is sure to be burning up the wires: Daimler and Chinese EV firm BYD have signed a deal to develop an electric vehicle “specific to the requirements of the Chinese market.” The new EV will be sold under a new, jointly-run brand and will be developed at a new Chinese technology center to be built as part of the joint venture. According to the release, “the companies’ understanding also includes further discussions on additional business opportunities of mutual interests,” all of which raises some interesting questions. Like why Volkswagen was caught napping: the Wolfsburg boys reportedly signed a MOU with BYD last March, but somehow Daimler has beaten them to the punch… on the very same day that VW announced that it wants to be the electric-mobility market leader by 2018, no less. Another open question: why develop a EV for the Chinese market, when that market’s tolerance for EV premiums appears to be fairly low? After all, with Daimler providing the car expertise, BYD might have a chance at the US and European markets where EV demand is actually proven. Also, how screwed is Tesla at this point? Though these questions remain very much unanswered, BYD is certainly making progress towards becoming a major car biz player, despite the many criticisms that have been leveled against it.
Edmund’s has been leading the NHTSA data dives to shed light on the UA issue. I used their numbers of NHTSA complaints in our attempt to correlate the complaints to specific cars and their sales in the ’05-’10 period to determine the rate of UA complaints. Now there’s a major new wrinkle that throws that effort into question: Over half of UA complaints against Toyota since 2005 were filed after Toyota issued their On Sept. 29, 2009 consumer safety advisory regarding floormats that could trap the accelerator pedal and cause unintended acceleration. That still leaves Toyota with the highest rate (4.81 per 100k cars sold) number of complaints for UA events before that date, but only marginally ahead of Ford (3.12). That means our stab at individual car model rates is flawed, and we’ll try a Take 2 when we have more accurate sales and adjusted NHTSA complaint numbers before that cutoff date. It’s obvious that incorporating the flood of complaints against Toyota since the mat issue hit the media would just be feeding the frenzy. (Read More…)
Cadillac relaunched [release in PDF format here] its perennially disappointing European effort last week, revealing that a new sales and import firm, Cadillac Europe, had been formed. Why would Cadillac double down on a market that it until recently blighted with its ill-advised Opel Vectra-based BLS (which bizarrely still appears at the cadillaceurope.com website)? Caddy boss Brian Nesbitt explains:
Europe is an important market for Cadillac. Re-establishing distribution of our premium offerings is good news for those who seek import exclusiveness
Except that Europe and America are fundamentally different markets, with different tastes in luxury. Unless the Cadillac boffins have some kind of alternate explanation for why Lexus sells like hotcakes in the US, but can barely move the needle in Europe and is resorting to Euro-specific models to make headway. But apparently success in the US luxury market is just a few European sales away. Really.
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