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When the 2013 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opens its doors in Las Vegas, Nev, on January 8, there will be a few cars on display. And not just to show off entertainment systems. At least two carmakers will demonstrate self-driving cars: Toyota and Audi. (Read More…)
Believe it or not, C’etait un Rendezvous is actually Claude Lelouch’s second most famous film involving motorsports – but as far as we know, Un homme et une femme hasn’t come out on Blu-Ray yet.
The Canadian government will put up $250 million as part of an “auto innovation fund”, a continuation of a 2008 program which the government claims led to over $1 billion in spending. (Read More…)
December sales in GM’s largest market China are likely to be less than exhilarating. The indicator: GM’s Chinese joint venture partner SAIC told Reuters that its December auto sales rose 7.1 percent from a year earlier to 350,380 vehicles.
This is much less than the 16.9 percent growth achieved in November. In the same month, GM’s China sales were up 9.7 percent. (Read More…)
We had posted earlier about how the Duster was setting sales charts on fire for Renault. Now, the Duster’s commercial success has been matched with critical acclaim, as it has taken home the coveted Indian Car of the Year award.
“Everybody uses the road and if some pay and some don’t then that’s an unfair situation that’s got to be resolved,” said Jim Whitty, manager of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Office of Innovative Partnerships and Alternative Funding.
Ah, yes. As with any number of current governmental activities, the rationale for per-mile taxation will be fairness.
The replica-car business is the authentic and despicable cloaca of the automotive world, attracting scammers, liars, shade-tree hacks, shady African fiberglass molders, soon-to-be-disappointed owners, and lawsuit-addicted former poultry farmers in equal measure. A quick glance at the Gotham Garage website won’t reverse your opinion of the game, but the company, and it’s tatted-up owner, Mark Towle, are at the center of a rather interesting lawsuit.
If your life, career, wealth, or all of the above depend on forecasting the auto market with precision and reliability, then you can do no better than securing the services of Edmunds’ chief analyst Jessica Caldwell. Last year’s winner of the coveted “TTAC 11” (a.k.a. “The Top Analyst Crown 2011”) does it again: Jessica Caldwell wins the TTAC 12, closely followed by her perennial antagonists, Jesse Toprak of TrueCar and Peter Nesvold of Jefferies.
TTAC congratulates Jessica Caldwell and her team to her second coronation in a row. (Read More…)
My experience with the original Switzer P800 GT-R was so impressive that I ended up working with the company briefly in 2010 before the 246-mile daily commute started to get a bit tiresome. Naturally, they waited until I was out of the building before completing a GT-R with a staggering one thousand horsepower measured at the wheels.
That previous milestone now looks, shall we say, conservative.
The General attracted all kinds of flak for its growing inventory of full size trucks. When we raised the issue earlier in the year, we were chided for yellow journalism and blatant bias. Months later, the MSM woke up to the story, and when the Detroit News wrote that GM’s pickup truck inventory was “much higher than the less-than-100-day supply considered ideal for full-size pickups,” even the diehards accepted that the inventory may be a mite rich.
That problem just went away. Poof, gone, just like that. (Read More…)
Remember when Volkswagen’s goal of 800,000 units in America seemed utterly implausible? TTAC does. But Volkswagen, which was in the dumps not too long ago, is now more than half-way to their goal, selling 438,000 units in the United States, a 35 percent jump over last year. But that kind of growth isn’t likely to carry over for 2013.
“Detroit’s automakers showed December U.S. sales gains of 5 percent, slightly better than analysts’ expectations,” says Reuters, “but likely not enough to stave off market-share gains by Japanese rivals.”
And here December and full year 2012 sales results in an easy to read table, data courtesy of Automotive News [sub ].
Devoid of any exciting product, Honda is trotting out its now-dead S2000 sports car for the upcoming 2013 Tokyo Auto Salon, with a host of cosmetic enhancements that make the car look like a cross between the Moss Motors catalog and a bad acid trip.
GM reports “the company’s highest December sales in five years,” with deliveries up 5 percent to 245,733 vehicles. For the year, GM’s U.S. sales are up only marginally. They rose 3.7 percent to 2,595,717 units. In a market expected to be up around 14 percent, this will translate into a serious drop of market share. (Read More…)
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