In June 2010, new car sales in Germany were down 28.7 percent from June 2009, reports the German Kraftfahrtbundesamt, the German government agency that is responsible for all things rolling on Germany’s roads. That may sound like a horrible number, but the graph tells a different story. June 2009 was the absolute peak of the Abwrackprämien-orgy (red line), and Germany seems to slowly get back to 2008 levels (blue line.) Once we are through the seasonally low July/August months, sales may actually exceed 2008 levels. It won’t be until next year before Germany will report real growth. (Read More…)

Last week, we reported some totally discombobulated June sales numbers from China. People’s Daily had reported that “China’s auto sales slumped by 17.4 percent in June from May, to less than 10 million vehicles.” Hooooo-kay. If you say so.

Now, state-run news agency Xinhua reports numbers that make a bit more sense. Still not the official CAAM data, but close enough. (Read More…)

Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata are the King Dongs (that WASN’T a spelling mistake, BTW) of India. Suzuki controls over half of the Indian car market. Hyundai and Tata have major chunks, too. Whatever is left is divided up amongst the smaller parties. But why have Indians put their rupees in the hands of Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata? National pride? Hardly. Suzuki and Hyundai come from a little further east. Nope. The reason is because they all excel in one thing. Small, cheap cars. The majority of Indians are relatively poor and don’t have much money to spend, so when they make a purchase as big as a car, it HAS to provide value (Indians LOVE a bargain as the video shows). If further proof were needed that India loves small, cheap cars, then this next story should put it beyond reasonable doubt. (Read More…)

Still convinced that the Yen is undervalued? Japanese carmakers beg to differ. They think the Japanese currency became so expensive that it gets cheaper for them to build abroad and to import to Japan. We’ve reported that Nissan is moving the production of their Micra (called March in Asia) to Thailand. When they did this, The Nikkei [sub] saw “huge implications for the future of the Japanese auto industry as a whole.” It certainly looks like Nissan’s exodus to the Land Of Smiles (and occasional riots) started a trend. (Read More…)

The car. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness inCARnate.  Let us celebrate our unalienable rights, in a TTAC kind of way. (Read More…)

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The Booth  Babe requests your indulgence. She announces that The Booth Babe Chronicles will be late, due to the fact that she’s at a beach somewhere. So if you see a hot babe furiously typing into an iPhone or similar at a beach, who knows, this could be her.

Easy to find out: Walk up to the lady, and say: “Do you come with the car?”

Blank stare: Fail.

Slap in the face and a kick in the privates: Bingo!

In what amounts to a landmark policy shift, NHTSA now recommends that customers take quality problems in their own hands, and perform recalls themselves. Take NHTSA Campaign ID number 10V305000. (Read More…)

As a Ford salesman during the Year Of Our Lord 1995, I had very few scruples and fewer dreams. I did, however, have a few personal goals. One of them was to sell as many pink cars as possible. I convinced a woman shopping without her husband to order a pink Windstar. I checked “Rose Mist” by default on every 1996 Taurus order form that passed through my hands, relying on the customer to see the “mistake” and correct it. I even convinced a color-blind man to order the pinkish interior on a black 1996 Taurus station wagon, describing it to him as “a very vintage red, luxurious in tone and strongly reminiscent of a Sixties Rolls-Royce.” When his son came to pick up the car with him, he looked at me in a fashion I can only describe as “murderous”.

Another goal, known only to me: to never sell a Ford Aspire. At the time, I believed that Ford made a few good cars and a very good truck. I also believed that Kia had made a good car, and it was called the Ford Festiva. The Aspire, which succeeded the Festiva, was no successor at all, and certainly no success. Built on the bones of the perfectly-packaged little Korean “Ford” Festiva, it was heavier, slower, no more spacious, and strongly resembled a suppository when viewed in profile. It was also expensive when equipped with air conditioning and an automatic transmission. The dealer margin on the Aspire was about five hundred bucks between sticker and invoice, meaning that I could usually get customers into a far superior Escort LX, priced at invoice, for less than an additional grand.

After driving both cars, and seeing the vast difference between the competence of the Mazda-based ’95 Scort and the Kia-built ’95 Aspire, customers always chose the Escort. When I gave my two weeks’ notice at the dealership, I knew that I would leave the business with my Aspirations cheerfully unfulfilled. Less than ten days later, my dream crashed into the ground… with a tinny “clink”.

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When word of the BMW EV called „MegaCity“ first made the rounds, our Ed Niedermeyer called it  “BMW’s long-rumored Neo-Isetta EV.” Now, BMW opened the first button of their electric blouse. (Read More…)

Which part of the car of the future can cost more than half of the car, but has a lifespan a little better than a set of brake disks? The battery. No wonder that battery making is what suppliers focus on. If  EVs catch on, you want to be in the battery business. Toshiba and Mitsubishi Motors have ganged-up to produce batteries together, says The Nikkei [sub]. (Read More…)

TTAC is a 24/7 operation, spanning most continents (except Antarctica, but we are working on it.) Nevertheless, there are occasional gaps in our coverage, and such a gap is now. Our Dear Leader Ed Niedermeyer is on a secret mission this weekend, and he may not be able to log in all the time. Which means: Yours truly is alone manning the ramparts of TTAC. Even I may be interrupted, because my presence is DEMANDED by members of the German community in Beijing to cheer on the Teutonic team from a German restaurant owned by the former military attaché of East Germany. I have no idea about soccer (that’s probably why they expelled me.) I hope Germany will lose so that I can focus on more pressing matters.

Anyway: Coverage will be spotty this weekend. Writers: Don’t send your stuff to Ed, send it to me. Thank you!

(Might as well get used to the Ed-less weekends: His secret mission will extent through all of July weekends, or so he mumbled.)

I remember when a 15 year old car was as wore out as an old mop. Rust. Electric gremlins. Dark oils and brownish fluids spewing out of nearly every seal and gasket. When the auctions had a car that was nearly old enough to drive itself, it was usually already smoking (out of the tailpipe)… and drinking (it’s own oil and coolant). The jalopies that came from the bad old days of the 1980’s almost always left a puddle of ‘remembrance’ which you had to be careful not to step on when looking at the next elderly statesman. A run of old cars would result in a nice white cloud above everyone’s head and a post-auction headache for yours truly. It was a nasty smelly world not too long ago.. but now…

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One of these cars is two years old and has a base price of £19,365 in the UK (it is not sold in the US), while the other is brand-spankety new and starts at £88,325 in that same UK market (it arrives stateside this fall). Which is which? And, since this is an easy one for the crazy car-identification ninjas that prowl this site, is this much family resemblance good or bad for Mercedes?

Now that we can basically predict the styling of future Buicks by putting waterfall grilles on current Opels, and the brand’s biggest market is China, it’s safe to say that Buick is no longer a particularly American brand anymore. It should come as no real surprise then, that it took a German to build the Ultimate Buick. That “B” on the grille stands for Bitter, an old-school German tuning house that has  been to Opel what Alpina is to BMW. But because Erich Bitter has spent his life improving mass-market cars rather than Bavarian bahnsturmers, he brings a unique approach to the Opel Insignia, also known as the Buick Regal. In fact, you could almost call it more Buick than Buick.

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Because we are halfway through the year, we’re mixing things up a little by comparing June sales to six-month totals instead of to June 2009 sales.

Toyota takes the C-Segment crown with the one-two punch of its mixed Corolla/Matrix sales. A breakout here would be nice, but since Toyota’s not offering, we’ve included the HHR with Cobalt and the Jetta with Golf to even things up a little. Credit the Focus for selling with the best of them without a hatchback platform-mate, and note that the Elantra’s monthly number has improved considerably relative to its six-month average.