We already thought Bloomberg might have abandoned its monthly analyst poll. We could not find one for March, and finally found one for April – after a lot of looking. It would have been a shame if the table would have gone AWOL. This month, the race was extremely tight, and most analysts – at least the ones who had the guts to make forecasts for the D3 and not just for the SAAR – came very close to the actuals. (Read More…)
The situation in Europe is so desperate that a 5.2 percent drop of French car sales in April gave reason to rejoice. “The plunge seems to be halting after the double-digit declines of previous months,” Francois Roudier, spokesman of the French CCFA industry association, told Reuters. (Read More…)
Porsche is looking to fill 1,400 jobs in for its expanded factory in Leipzig, where the new Macan SUVlet will be built by the end of the year. A lot of these jobs will go to current Opel workers, says Germany’s Focus. (Read More…)
This is the list of America’s best-selling car in the month of April and in the first four months of the year, as compiled by Reuters. (Read More…)
Lower gas prices and a turn-around in the housing market rekindled America’s love for the pickup, resulting in 2,000 new jobs at Ford’s Kansas City Assembly Plant. (Read More…)
April is Detroit month. Strong sales of pickups and crossovers bring double digit gains to Detroit while other brands lag. Final table, courtesy of Automotive New [sub]. (Read More…)
April sales in Japan were up 1.5 percent in April, with sales of kei cars lagging behind resurging regular cars while imports surprise. (Read More…)
Detroit delivers on the double digit growth rates predicted by auto analysts for April.
Last weekend, we were in Kuniyoshi, Chiba, the peninsula across Tokyo Bay, to check on some old cars. This is what and who we met.
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Electric car startup Coda is the latest in a series of greenm dreams to go down the drain – and it won’t be the last. Coda filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today, writes Reuters, “after selling just 100 of its all-electric sedans, another example of battery-powered vehicles’ failure to break into the mass market.” (Read More…)
GM’s pickup truck changeover has received all the attention of TTAC’s commentariat, but GM knows it needs more than new trucks to make up for decades of deteriorating market share. All hopes are on a wave of new showroom offerings. “Seventy percent of the automaker’s U.S. portfolio will be refreshed between the start of 2012 and the end of 2013, and 89 percent will be refreshed by 2016,” writes the Detroit News. (Read More…)
A car bought in 1956 for $15,000 is expected to sell for between $1.5 million and $2 million when it goes on auction in November. It is expected to be the star of Sotheby’s first significant auction of collector cars in more than a decade, where some 35 prewar French cars, postwar American and European sports cars, as well as American and European classics will vie for the attention and wallets of affluent car nuts. (Read More…)
Guess which South Korean carmaker prompted the South Korean government to tighten its rules about overstating their cars’ mileage? Under new South Korean government rules “aimed at reassuring consumers after Hyundai Motor Co’s fuel economy fiasco last year” it can cost more than $900,000 if one is caught with overly optimistic mileage claims, Reuters says. (Read More…)
When automakers report U.S. April sales tomorrow, they will be up strongly for the sixth month in a row. The U.S. auto industry’s annual selling rate will be 15.25 million vehicles in April, according to economists polled by Thomson Reuters. Here is why: (Read More…)
After plans failed to sue Porsche in America, where juries are impressionable and awards are rich, the lawsuits are now in Germany, where courts are cautious, and where professional judges need to be convinced. The wheels of justice crank slowly. (Read More…)
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