Tesla’s Elon Musk found someone to blame for the lackluster sales of EVs, and the death of some EV makers: Car dealers, and their National Automobile Dealers Association NADA.
“The auto dealers association is definitely creating some problems for us, making it harder to get things done,” Musk said at Tesla’s shareholder meeting with Reuters taking notes. Tesla wants to sell its cars directly to consumers, which is against the law in most states. Attempts to have the law changed “met stiff resistance from dealer groups around the country,” Reuters says. Musk keeps trying. (Read More…)
The longer I do this, the more I realize that it’s about people, not machines. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that cars are way cool, something only human beings could create, but it’s those human beings involved in that creation that make stories worth telling and hearing. When my son, my only son, Moshe, whom I love, was a boy we put model cars together. It was a father-son thing but I also wanted him to learn a little patience. We took care putting them together, but we rarely painted them. That too took much patience. Sometime when he was in fifth grade, so this would have been 1994 or 1995 when Mo was ten years old, we were building a model of a Dodge Viper. It was an AMT/Ertl kit, in 1:25 scale. (Read More…)
In a rare display of defiance, Chrysler is refusing to comply with NHTSA’s request to recall 2.7 million SUVs, and is publicly challenging NHTSA on the validity of the recall.
In December of 2011, through an unfortunate chain of events, I became the not-so-proud owner of a 2007 Malibu. True to its origin as an ex-fleet car, it is saddled with the miserly 4-banger engine rather than the still-slow-but-adequate V6. The only positive attributes of this car are its cheap cost to own and excellent fuel economy for its size. It presently has about 80,000 miles on it – I expect to get another 40K out of it before the transmission implodes (domestic automatic – you get what you pay for). (Read More…)
Australian media is reporting that Toyota is next in line for some government cash, following Holden’s deal with the government to keep production of the Commodore and other models in Australia.
Day six brought a typical Northern California morning: it was 41 degrees, foggy and raining in my forest. But because I was driving an electric vehicle, a squirrel greeted me at the doorstep to thank me for saving his home and a group of hummingbirds dried my charging cable with their tiny wings so I wouldn’t electrocute myself as I unplugged. Then I woke up. But it was still 41. And foggy. And raining.
Devoted readers of my personal site, if any such individuals actually exist, know that I’m currently in Malaysia for the purpose of compromising the international dignity of the United States by acting like a member of the “Duck Dynasty” in a time-trial series. The past week’s been fairly intense, to put it mildly. (And if I put it anything other than mildly, I couldn’t discuss it in a family-oriented publication like TTAC.) Today, however, I was visiting a few shops in Shah Alam, Selangor, to discuss a seat in the Sepang 1000KM Endurance Race and things got weird.
$44,470 will buy you a Chevrolet SS when it goes on sale later this year. That’s about $7,500 less than a base model, no-options C7 Corvette Stingray $5300 less than a Chrysler 300C SRT8 and $2995 less than a Dodge Charger SRT8. The SRT8 cars have more power, but the SS does have a couple advantages; it’s more subdued looking than the overwrought Charger.
Today, I’m going to talk about SUVs. This will annoy some of you out there in readerland because I’ve talked about SUVs a lot lately. First, I posted a story about hybrid SUVs, which was largely ignored by the automotive community but caused me to chuckle several times as I wrote it. Then, I posted a story about the BMW X5, which was also largely ignored by the automotive community, with the exception of BMW X5 owners, who passionately defended their SUV’s honor in the face of lease jokes.
But listen up, because today’s topic is far more interesting than either of those. It’s about D-pillars.
U.S. sales of pickup trucks rose 19% in May 2013 despite the disappearance of 6175 Ford Rangers, Dodge Dakotas, Suzuki Equators, Chevrolet Colorados, and GMC Canyons.
So strong were sales of the remaining trucks that these deficits weren’t simply accounted for, they were overcome to the tune of 32,144 extra sales. Overall, the auto industry reported 108,594 more sales this May than last, according to Automotive News. That works out to an 8% improvement. More than a hundred passenger car nameplates combined to generate about 36,000 more sales in May 2013 than in May 2012. (Read More…)
After Germany’s sudden 3.8 percent sales rise in April, this site did not buy into the sentiment that the worst is over in Europe. It’s not. After the calendar-induced April fool’s gold, the German market continued its downward run, with the rest of Europe sure to follow. (Read More…)
The swan song of the 996 Porsche 911 was the “40 Jahre 911“, designed to commemorate the car’s 40th anniversary. Although it was a rear-drive, naturally aspirated Carrera, it shared the widebody look of the all-wheel drive and turbo cars, and inspired legions of badge concious buyers to check the option box the the “911” badge, rather than suffer the indignity of having “Carrera” without an accompanying “S”.
If Chinese carmakers have started exporting to Africa in the early 00′s, they set foot in Latin America even earlier, with JAC starting to export trucks to Bolivia back in 1990. Similarly to the strategy they adopted in Africa, the Chinese have initially focused on the less developed car markets in the region. They are now in the process of stepping up their involvement by launching in the bigger, more mature markets like Argentina and Brazil.
In fact, the foundations the Chinese have built in secondary Latin American car markets are potentially their strongest in the world so far…
“There will be no exports of these cars built in China. Cars that are built in China are sold in China.”
No true, said GM China head Bob Socia to Reuters today, reiterating former statements that GM’s Chinese export machine is in full swing: “GM plans to export as many as 130,000 China-made vehicles this year, up from 77,000 vehicles in 2012, driven by demand for its Chevrolet Sail in other emerging markets,” Reuters writes. (Read More…)
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