Find Reviews by Make:
This week marks the start of the Geneva Auto Show press days and February’s auto sales data. Check back later for coverage of both events. Geneva’s press preview will kick off at 8 AM Geneva Time tomorrow (GMT-6).
20 Comments on “While You Were Sleeping: March 2nd, 2015...”
Read all comments
That first link should serve as the basis for a blog post or two. It does a nice job of explaining why launching a successful new car company is next to impossible.
A most interesting article. Really gives a bigger picture of the auto industry
This. A commenter on that page posted some candid comments from Marchionne on the industry as a whole which fit really well within the context of the article. Good read.
For all his talk of consolidation, the opposite seems to be happening.
Explain.
Can’t find the link, but there was an article a while back that said that the top 4 or 5 groups have a lower combined market share now than they did at the beginning of the century.
In other words, smaller groups are growing faster that the mega groups.
He doesn’t really discuss consolidation. He notes accurately that scale economies serve as a barrier to entry, and adds that automakers are interdependent.
He should have also mentioned the impacts of lean production and globalization. Lean indirectly led to the failure of some of the independents (as they could not keep up with the change), while globalization also favors those companies that can use scale to their advantage.
These changes also posed a challenge to the original heavyweights (GM and Ford), which had succeeded using one approach and were slow to recognize that it had stopped working. Success often breeds complacency.
Yes some consolidation, but in other ways companies want their independence
If Toyota would make a spiritual successor to that 2000GT, they would sell like hot cakes. Look how beautiful that is.
An example of how Toyota hasn’t always felt the need to build fulgymobiles. The last Supra was also a very good looking vehicle whose looks hold up well.
If imitation, in this case E type, is the sincerest form of flattery, then it takes a special kind of “stupid” to imitate bad design.
The 86 was supposed to be that, it does not have the classical lines of the 2000GT
The 86 was supposed to be the rehash of the old Corolla Levin GT Apex (or whatever name), no?
It was being touted here as the new 2000GT. I guess not
>> Geneva’s press preview will kick off at 8 AM Geneva Time tomorrow (GMT-6).
Geneva is not on GMT-6, it is on GMT+1. So when is coverage starting again?
Coverage starts at 2 a.m. Eastern/11 p.m. Pacific, and I will be reporting on all the things from Geneva! Be sure to bring your jammy-jams and sleeping bags, ‘cuz we’re having a TTAC slumber party! :D
Well, obviously Apple will build the Core GT using Foxconn’s proprietary 3D printing technology. No problem. As Fan Chin Wau has said, the meal dispenser on Star Trek original series got him thinking. “That thing could produce everything from Peking Duck to pumpkin pie at the drop of a hat. Now we can too. And it’s vitamin enriched!”
Apple’s new app for its watch now includes remote access to secret government underground bunkers, while Google is relying on smoke and mirrors to help it develop autonomous drive. “If it can navigate correctly through dense smoke while live-view has a reversing lens on the lidar, then snow and ice will be a cakewalk!”
Tech-lacking business journalists, usually sporting a mouth agape stance as the push-on push-off plastic rotary ratchet used for upscale ballpoint pens is demonstrated, immediately bid up the stock price of the two technology giants, certain that someone somewhere would make money in the confusion.
Meanwhile, minor industry player Radtech has plowed ahead, developing an electric motor-powered potato chip bag opener, and it includes the real breakthrough of an attachment to open refrigerated vacuum-sealed pickle jars with lids slippery from condensation. “We expect to get our investment money back in three weeks just from YouTube ads!” Radtech’s stock fell 74.6% on the news.
Item 3 in the first post speaks to the possible Yamaha/Murray product in the post from last week, especially for developing markets.
The original date for the Yamaha Motiv was 2016, but it’s always harder than it looks.
http://www.istreamtechnology.co.uk/
That’s what she said.
I agree with Pch101, (hard to believe).
I do think a blog or two would make for some interesting debate on the problems and direction encountered by the “industry”.
As all can witness, there are many polarising views regarding how our tax dollars are spent (wasted) in the “industry”.
Also the massive protection and handouts offered to the “industry”, which doesn’t allow for new and possibly innovative businesses to start up.
TTAC has economists who comment, UAW stooges, engineers, line workers and we can’t forget the retailers of vehicles, etc.
I can see it now. The Pch101 types who are left wing (Merican’) socialists supporting the minority within the industry, ie, UAW, manufacturers, etc.
And, people like myself who support the majority, the consumer (everyone) and middle of the line guys, who really don’t care, so long they can go out and buy a vehicle when needed.