So far, the feared Chinese car exports were nothing to write home about. Imports to China are outpacing exports from China by a wide margin. In units and especially in value. While China manages to sell a few cheap pickups to developing countries, it has become the #1 market for the (imported) Mercedes S Class. The German car industry in particular is running extra shifts to keep up with the Chinese appetite for German imports. One carmaker is determined to change that gross trade imbalance. Not Chery. Not Geely. It’s General Motors. (Read More…)

Unless a major disaster happens, (such as a falling sky, or a combined blood, fish, frog, and snake rain) Ford will retake the #2 slot from Toyota this year in  the U.S. The DetN came to this conclusion after studying the year to date market share of both. In his monthly sales call, Ford’s analyst George Pipas said that Ford has increased its domestic sales at nearly twice the market’s growth rate. Ford’s market share stands at 16.4 percent at the moment, up from 15.3 percent last year.  And Toyota? (Read More…)

Volkswagen had been trying for ages to get their foot in the door in Malaysia, but for some reason or another, it never worked out. In August, they signed a memorandum of understanding with DRB-HICOM. In September, it became known that the Malaysian government is evaluating applications from five foreign automakers, which put Volkswagen’s Malaysian move in question again. But fear not, the deal is done. (Read More…)

Japanese makers are jumping on the Made for China (or possibly Made for Export from China) trend that was started by GM with the Bao Jun.

Both Nissan and Honda are showing (allegedly) Made for China brands at the Guangzhou Auto Show. (Read More…)

EVs are, nice wouldn’t there be (putting range and price aside for a moment) one niggling problem: The power has to come from somewhere. And currently, the exhaust that will no longer be produced by the car, will come out of the smokestacks of a mostly coal fired power plant. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could power our cars from sunshine alone? Definitely renewable. And free. Honda is trying to do just that. (Read More…)

As far as total sales go, India is no China. 1.43 million units were sold on the subcontinent last year, a bit more than a tenth the cars the Chinese had consumed in the same year. But India is revving up quickly. (Read More…)

“The next 24 months will be tough for us,” said Soh Weiming, Volkswagen’s company’s executive president for China, to Bloomberg. Is Volkswagen running scared in China? Will the bubble finally burst? Soh Weiming is worried. (Read More…)

Certain misguided members of the not-so-mainstream media perpetuate the myth that American cars are unsalable in Japan, that nobody wants them, that they are “dasai” or uncool. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Japanese love American cars so much that they lay on a big festival a few times of the year, dedicated to the celebration of the great American car. I blew TTAC’s travel budget and went all the way to Yokohama to attend today’s Amefes, and to snap a lot of pictures of a lot of old and new American cars in Japan.

Right this way, dozo…

(Read More…)

This weekend’s homage to the car’s electrification, celebrating deliveries of the Leaf and the Volt to normal civilians, in addition to a whole fleet of electric THINK cars delivered to the State of Indiana, would be incomplete without mentioning that EVs can be a menace to society. These things are so quiet – that they creep up on you – just like that. (Read More…)

Currently, the only commercially available plug-in on the European market is the Mitsubishi i-Miev. You can also have it as Peugeot iOn, or as Citroen C-Zero. Not much is known about their sales success. Launched in Japan in 2009, the i-Miev last month celebrated its 5000^th car rolling off the Japanese production lines. Which earned the i-Miev the title “best selling pure EV” – the numbers are that big. The numbers will soon get much bigger – if all goes according to plan. (Read More…)

This Monday, Nissan’s all-electric Leaf will officially go on sale in Japan. All of the 6,000 Leafs scheduled to be made this fiscal year has already been reserved, reports Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. A lot of them are in the grips of pre-orderer’s remorse after a trip to their garage: (Read More…)

Never say die: Daimler announced today that Mercedes-Benz production will reach a new record level of more than 1.2 million cars this year, exceeding the pre-carmageddon records of 1.19 million cars produced in 2008, Dow Jones Newswire reports. (Read More…)

In a nod to the fact that growth lies elsewhere on the globe, GM created a new position rarely seen elsewhere: Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Job description: Head and direct global marketing. Job filled by: Joel Ewanick.

The marketing maven joined GM in May, after a very short (and apparently not too happy) stint at Nissan.  Ewanick became famous for his marketing work for Hyundai and for implementing gutsy marketing strategies. Ewanick is credited for a lot of Hyundai’s U.S. success. (Read More…)

Bailing out the U.S. auto industry was all in the name of jobs, jobs, jobs, and the recent sales increases in new cars should have made a decent dent into the jobless rate. It just didn’t work out quite as expected. By the end of the year, J.D. Power expects that 11.8 million units will have been made in North America, up 38 percent from 8.5 million units in 2009. And where did the jobs go? They went mostly south. (Read More…)

Data coming in from their 8,900 reporting dealers throughout the United States prompt J.D. Power to predict a strong new car December. “It appears that 2010 will end on a high note,” said Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting at J.D. Power and Associates. (Read More…)