Everybody was betting big on electric cars in China. Everybody thought China will be the world’s biggest market for EVs. It was a bluff. At the Shanghai Auto Show in April, the smart money suddenly was on hybrids. Insiders expect that the Chinese government will extend bigger subsidies to buyers of hybrid cars, after the big electric car revolution in China turned out to be a bust. This is good for Japanese carmakers – for some at least. (Read More…)
With all the troubles in Europe, one would expect Volkswagen to hurt, but the Wolfsburg company is doing just fine, thank you. For the first five months, Volkswagen Group sales are up 5.9 percent to 3.87 million units. In May, global deliveries rose 6.9 percent to 816,500.
In China, Volkswagen could edge out perennial numbers leader GM. (Read More…)
Derek writes:
One of the things Doug and I wanted to do with this column is to highlight the regional differences in car choices – not just in condition and value but the overall selection. Any surprise that humid, sunny Atlanta has a dearth of Audis while snowy Canada is awash in them?
It takes a really special Geo Metro to achieve Junkyard Find status; the last one that managed the feat was this bright green electric-powered ’95, which turned out to be a Ree-V conversion made in Colorado during the EV optimism of the late 2000s. During a trip to my old San Francisco Bay stomping grounds a few weeks ago, I spotted today’s Junkyard Find parked just a few yards away from this will-make-you-haz-a-sad 1960 Nash Metropolitan. (Read More…)
Recently, and with great interest, I read Thomas’s article on electronic license plates. For those of you who haven’t read it, and are therefore hopelessly behind the times, a quick summary: (Read More…)
The UK, infamous for having lost most of its former automaking glory, and supplier of the short-lived “American Leyland” moniker for GM (“Government Motors” stuck) is roaring back. The island nation is set “to overtake France as Europe’s second largest automotive producer within the next five years if UK car sales and exports maintain current strong growth,” Reuters says.
Imagine the embarrassment in Paris! (Read More…)
Opel workers, managers, German politicians and TTAC have been heard complaining that Opel is being kept out of interesting growth markets and pretty much forced to suffer in Europe. The perennial nags are being thrown a bone: GM “will build a small number of its Opel Corsa hatchbacks in Belarus from next year as its European brand seeks to diversify outside its core market,” Reuters says.
After viewing Murilee’s succession of Volvo features, I was tempted to throw my hat in the ring with a very cool continuation on that theme…and I will…but maybe for the entry after this one. In the meantime, I’ve got a bit of a Bodacious kind of theme going myself, and consequently an appointment with destiny that must be addressed immediately… (Read More…)
GM appears to be less convinced of the second coming of Cadillac than many of its fans. In the Global Business Conference Call, Bob Ferguson, VP of Global Cadillac, did set very cautious goals for Cadillac. (Read More…)
A scheme to tax cars based on their C02 output could have the unintended consequence of causing UK motorists to scrap tens of thousands of perfectly good cars in the UK, solely because their annual tax rates, based on C02 consumption, have become too expensive for many motorists.
Most large automakers are working on a modular architecture of some sort. Farthest ahead appears to be Volkswagen, which already is rolling out new car after new car on one of four related kit architectures, and which is rumored to be working on one master kit. The other day, Toyota showed me glimpses of its new kit architecture, first cars to be expected in 2015. Today, GM showed us this chart. And there are no kits on it. (Read More…)
My son Harley, raised with a love for everything on wheels.
As I paused in the driveway and waited for the garage door to open, I felt an unexpected presence by my side. Unbeknownst to me, my six year old son had slipped the confines of his booster seat in the rearmost row and made his way forward past his sisters with surprising stealth. Now he stood between my wife and I as we prepared to travel the last few feet of our journey. (Read More…)
There was a time, maybe a decade ago, when you saw Porsche 914s and Fiat 124 Sport Spiders in about equal numbers in self-service wrecking yards. I still find the Fiats these days, but junked 914s have become quite rare. That makes today’s Junkyard Find something a bit special. (Read More…)
GM says it’s not true (yet) what Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports today. The paper says it has it on good authority that by 2014, GM will move production of its Chevrolet Cruze from South Korea to the Opel plant in Gliwice, Poland. (Read More…)
AutomakerS around the world seem to have colluded to turn 2015 into the Hydrogen year. Yesterday in Nagoya (a trip into which TTAC invested 21,160 yen, and the price of a bento box, no freebie jaunts in Japan) , Toyota’s NA CEO Jim Lentz confirmed that the Hydrogen Year is still on the calendar.
(Read More…)
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