After President Obama paid his outstanding union dues and slapped a 35 percent punitive tariff on Chinese car and light truck tires exported to the USA, we predicted two outcomes:

1.)    It will start a trade war, and China will drag the U.S.A. in front of the WTO. Sure did. The WTO accepted China’s complaint, and the trade war turned into a major conflagration.
2.)    We said that not a single new job will be created in the U.S.A., and “what the boneheaded decision does is simply shift tire production from China to other low cost producing countries.” Sure does. (Read More…)

The RAC (that’s the Royal version of the AAA, in case you don’t know) reports that BMW has run into trouble with the UK Advertising Standards Agency (ASA, that’s no film speed in the UK) with one of their adverts. In it, BMW claimed that its Z4 roadster had low levels of CO2 (you know CO2? That obnoxious gas which every government in the world is trying to reduce/tax?). The advert reads “Joy makes the most of every drop…So you can step on the accelerator, knowing Joy will minimise the CO2 emissions.” The advert ends with “BMW EfficientDynamics, Less emissions, More driving pleasure.” This riled two people enough to complain to the ASA. Now what could have been so contentious…? (Read More…)

This is a continuation: part one is here.

After leaving the studio in St. Louis Saturday night, I found myself with the luxury of having absolutely nothing to do until one o’clock the following day. My guitars were locked up, I’d left my laptop at home, and I didn’t have so much as a magazine to read. This was not by accident. Sometimes it’s important to have no plans, to deliberately encounter what I think of as a “null state”.

The Transit Connect and I wandered past Forest Park, where just a few blocks separate gated-off private streets and boarded-up low-income housing. The white panel van is welcome everywhere; it is universally recognized as a vehicle driven by the service class. I waved at a security guard who silently swung a huge wrought-iron barrier out of the way and let me into his deliberately isolated neighborhood. Twenty minutes later, two vicious-looking men in a street full of broken-down cars and idle observers stopped their hand-waving disagreement to let me through. I am nobody in particular. I am here to fix, install, adjust, clean.

The invisibility conferred upon me by this little van made me think of all the times I had felt invisible in my youth, cleaning tables in restaurants, working on construction sites, bagging groceries. I realized that I could stop and sleep anywhere, that this van could come to a halt in an industrial-center parking lot or out in front of the largest home in St. Louis. This was freedom: I am nobody, and I have nothing to do.

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Car & Driver’s endearingly awkward Editor-in-Chief Eddie Alterman took to the interwebs today, with a “viral-style” video imploring enthusiasts to “save the manuals.” And though Alterman can’t help but sell the faux-sincerity, the message is brain-hurtingly mangled by his attempt to be the Old Spice Guy of the car world.
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From the surface, the C63 looks like it has the goods to compete with the big boys in the Euro performance club. Boy racer styling? Check. Monstrous V8? Check. Ginormous tyres? Check. Manual transmission? Not so much. Also not along for the party is a coupe or convertible version of the C63. Mercedes’ decision to […]

As a Nissan rep pointed out via email last night, yesterday’s Chart Of The Day hardly tells the whole story of “the other Japanese brand.” Since 1995, Nissan has made up for declining “core model” sales by catching the tail end of the SUV/Truck craze with its Titan/Armada/XTerra/Murano combo. And, as this graph shows, those four models gave the brand a big spike for most of the last decade before diving unceremoniously towards oblivion (with the exception of Murano). Since then, Nissan seems to be targeting the niche left open by Honda: small, value-laden, efficient cars like the Rogue and Versa are Nissan’s new meal ticket (in addition to the still-soaring Altima). With a new Versa-based Juke mini-CUV launching this Summer, Nissan is poised to continue building on that image, but it still has to contend with remnants of its “Japanese Pontiac” and “Mainstream BOF-slinger” identities. Can Nissan be all of these things at the same time? Or will the Leaf EV halo push Nissan towards ever smaller, more efficient offerings and a neo-Honda emphasis on compact value? We’re hearing that changes are underway at the highest levels of Nissan’s leadership… coming up with a coherent brand vision and product plan for Nissan North America will have to be one of the new team’s top priorities.

Everybody is worried about China flooding the world with cheap cars. Just the opposite is true. The world is flooding China with expensive cars. China has become one of the prime export markets for major carmakers the world over, especially in the higher segments. For next year, a unit of the Chinese government predicts imports  to China to exceed the 1 million mark. Exports remain lacklustre. (Read More…)

Wholesale heaven used to be a crowded place at the dealer auctions. There were Taurae aplenty. Neons, Stratuses, Sables, Sebrings, Optimas, Milans, the names were as endless as the need to keep all the factories humming. Even in the ‘somewhat’ good old days of 2004, the average vehicle that sold for $5,000 at a sale usually had only about 70 to 75k on it. But now it’s a different auction world.

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Whereas other Japanese carmakers struggle a bit in keeping up with the still quite hot Chinese market, Nissan finds itself way ahead. Nissan’s China sales rose 51.4 percent in the first half to 503,077 vehicles, says The Nikkei [sub]. Reason given: strong demand from middle-class buyers.  The Chinese market as a whole rose some 30 percent in the first six months. (Read More…)

It’s a little known fact, but Toyota’s first factory abroad was in Brazil. Toyota started producing their Bandeirante (known elsewhere as Land Cruiser, full history here) locally in CKD mode in 1958. In 1962, the factory in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo state was inaugurated. There, Toyota do Brasil produced the 4WD, almost unchanged, until the year 2000. The site is still productive, but now only makes parts. In the 90s, they inaugurated another factory in Indaiatuba, SP state, too, to produce the Corolla. In September, construction of the third Toyota factory in Brazil will begin in Sorocaba, São Paulo state. (Read More…)

There seems to be no end for the good news for German (and assorted Asian) companies. Paulo Kakinoff, president of Audi do Brasil, declared to Brazilian car enthusiast site Webmotors that “logistics for importing motor vehicles is overburdened and factories abroad cannot serve all markets”. José Luiz Gandini, president of Kia do Brasil and Abeiva (Association of Car Importing Companies) said to said site: “It’s common for the customer to wait 60 days for a car.” (Read More…)

Wisconsin’s highest court yesterday approved police use of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to track motorists, as long as a valid search warrant is obtained. In 2003, Madison Police Detective Mary Ricksecker attached a tracking device to the 1980 Chevy Beretta as it sat on the private driveway belonging to Michael A. Sveum, then age 35. Sveum was suspected of stalking his ex-girlfriend, Jamie Johnson based on nine hang-up calls that were placed at payphones around the city. The tracking device was eventually used to connect Sveum to the time and place of other calls.

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When you think Volkswagen and alternative powertrains, only one kind of springs to mind, and it’s no very alternative. Diesel. They are pretty good at it in Wolfsburg. But these days it isn’t enough. Nowadays, we have E85, fuel cells, hybrids, more efficient petrol engines and many more. Volkswagen can’t afford to bet their future on Diesel. So where do they go from here? I hear California is quite nice…? (Read More…)

15 years ago, these six cars were Nissan. Sure, they sold a few Zs back in ’95 (4,176, actually), and the 240SX was in its last year of five-digit sales, but the Altima, Maxima, Sentra, Frontier, Quest and Pathfinder were the bread and butter. Needless to say, things change over 15 years, and though Nissan still sells all of these vehicles (excepting the Quest’s 2010 model-year hiatus), they’re no longer the reliable core they once were. Yes, the Altima sells like hotcakes, but Nissan’s other core nameplates are on steady steady glidepaths downwards, and the brand’s volume is largely being maintained by the introduction of new models. And as is so often the case in business, this shift away from core strengths is being rewarded by some thorough housecleaning. Having spent quite a bit of today talking with Nissan consultant Sharyn Bovat, yesterday’s rhetorical question What The Foxtrot Is Going On At Nissan is starting to come into sharper focus. Expect full reporting shortly, but in the mean time know this: things are changing at Nissan. My question now: does this chart help explain why?