As Japan stares in the abyss, things are looking up for the U.S. auto market. Traffic at dealers is up, people are buying, cautiously. Based on transaction data from more than 8,900  dealers in the U.S., J.D.Power projects that this October will be the year’s strongest month –but not by a whole lot. (Read More…)

Volkswagen is rolling in money. In the first nine months, VW registered an after tax profit of more than €4b ($5.57b). No funky EBITA, no “gains before restructuring charges,” straight bankable after tax profit. That’s six times the €655m the company reported in the same period of the prior year. (While most other car makers reported hefty losses.) (Read More…)

Ever since the China Automotive Technology & Research Center, a government agency that “assists the government in such activities as auto standard and technical regulation formulating, product certification testing, quality system certification, industry planning and policy research, information service and common technology research” started issuing monthly car sales numbers, we had our issues with them.

Month after month, they came out with data early, received headlines all over the world, and when the official CAAM numbers came out, they were totally different. There were attempts to explain that CATRC reports registrations, whereas CAAM reports deliveries to dealers. But the numbers were too far apart. In August, we yelped “Come on, guys. China is the world’s largest auto market. Why do we have to endure this rigmarole every month?” When we reported the September numbers, the CATRC was conspicuously absent. Now, we know why. (Read More…)

October sales in Japan most likely will be a nightmare. Everybody thought they would drop after the government withdrew its subsidies last month. But it will be much uglier than expected. (Read More…)

Some say you get what you pay for. Others say, the best things in life are free. Usually, it depends. This time, it’s a case of the latter. TTAC has always been free, and (AFAIK) it always will be. How much did you save by reading TTAC? A respective research organization gives it to you in writing: $299, at least. According to Business Wire, “Plunkett Research, Ltd. has released its newest market research and competitive analysis report, Plunkett’s Automobile Industry Almanac, 2011 edition, which identifies and analyzes major trends shaping the automobile and truck industry.” For that, you need to plunkett down $299. Now let’s see what major trends Plunkett predicts. Hold on to your hats (and your money.) (Read More…)

The feared takeover of the world by Chinese cars so far was a non-starter. We’ve always said that cars built at Chinese joint ventures with Western (or Japanese) companies would be best suited to break that spell. But so far, the Western (or Japanese) joint venture partners wouldn’t play ball. Why invite a Chinese joint venture abroad where it competes in your markets? Now the first international brand will export a low-end car it developed for China to Latin America. For starters.  Guess who? (Read More…)

Researchers at Rice University have developed and successfully built the world’s smallest car. It has a chassis, axles and a pivoting suspension. The whole car is no more than 4 nanometers across. No idea how small that is? It’s slightly wider than a strand of DNA. A human hair is about 80,000 nanometers thick. You can build a 20,000 lane highway for these cars on a strand of hair. (Read More…)

Next year, the UK will get back a long lost son, who has found adoptive parents in China: The MG. Gasgoo reports that the MG6 Saloon will enter the British market in 2011. That was announced by Chen Zhixin, Executive Vice President of SAIC Motor and General Manager of SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicle Co., at the UK Pavilion of Shanghai Expo, while Ms. Carma Elliot, Consul General of the United Kingdom (UK) in Shanghai, was watching. Just Auto thinks the Chinese car with a British name will be shown to the UK public at the Top Gear Live MPH motor show at London’s Earls Court, on 4 November. (Read More…)

Toyota, king of the hybrids, won’t sell their first plug-in hybrid before 2012. But they already have their kind of a perception gap. The car will be able to go 23km (14.29 miles) on battery alone, then, the ICE engine will kick in and start making electricity. However, research shows that only a few people know about the electric-only feature. Or do they care at all? (Read More…)

It’s a bit hard to sell millions of units with a luxury brand. But with the help of a country that has more than 1.3b people, and where an A6 (long!) is a sign of “here comes a party hotshot, get out of the way,” Audi can perform the rare fusion of volume and luxury. (Read More…)

From the New York Times to TTAC, the news is racing around the globe that China put an “embargo” on dirt. Well, it’s rare dirt, also known as Rare Earth. Why should we care about that? As the New York Times lectured us a month ago, the stuff is vital to “rangefinders on the Army’s tanks, sonar systems aboard Navy vessels and the control vanes on the Air Force’s smart bombs.” Whoa, we are a car site! Ok, rare earths “are also used in small steering control motors in conventional gasoline-powered cars as well as in motors that help propel hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius,” says the New York Times, bringing us back on topic. And what is the fuss about? (Read More…)

When someone tells you “you’ll save a lot of money,” always ask: “How much will it cost me?” New technology that saves you a lot of money usually comes with a nasty habit: It costs a lot upfront. With a car, you are faced with the dilemma whether to pay Big Car now or Big Oil later. I never forget when I was a young copywriter and I had the task of launching the first diesel powered Golf. I extolled its prudence at the pump and its longevity. Whereupon a grizzled old guy at the advertising department of Volkswagen said: “That thing is expensive. You need to drive 80,000 km to get your money back. By that time, the engine will fall out of the car.” (VW had some corrosion issues back when.) That introspection was triggered by two events: Ed is in Michigan, he has a date with the Volt. His mission: Find out when you will get your money back. Then there’s Mazda, which did something utterly boring, but likewise highly exciting. (Read More…)

A lot of people assume Porsche and Volkswagen have long been united. Well they kind of are. They make cars together. They share management. Winterkorn is also Boss of Porsche SE. Former Volkswagen strategist Matthias Müller is now CEO of Porsche. Go to any tradeshow: Porsche is where Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bugatti etc. are. Porsche and Volkswagen are united in everything but the final signature. And that may wait a little longer. (Read More…)

You’d think that joint ventures with Chinese car makers would be hell-bent on underscoring their foreignness. That’s what sets them apart from Chinese cars. The Chinese customer is no fool and exactly knows whether a 3-series is made by Brilliance in China or by BMW in Bavaria. But push comes to shove, a car with a foreign nameplate has more cachet in China than homegrown produce. Which makes this new trend even more wondrous: More and more joint ventures turn out their own through-and-through Chinese cars. (Read More…)

Nissan will finally unleash its upgraded GT-R. It will be available in Japan next month. NA and EU will be graced by it come February. It’s leitmotif: More power, less filling. (Read More…)