Everybody in the Japanese auto biz (and who’s not in the auto biz in Japan, except my friends who, but that’s for another day), everybody in the Japanese auto biz has their eye on the sky. Why? Because the sky is soon to drop. On September 30, government subsidies for purchases of “environmentally friendly vehicles” (read pretty much any new vehicle that passes Japanese rules) will expire. Everybody expects a mad dash in August and September, and in October: Whammo. Down comes the sky. (Read More…)

Ooops. Time to send our patent-pending TTAC China sales oracle on vacation. Send the China Automotive Technology & Research Center (and Bloomberg) right with them. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) has given the official word on Chinese car sales in July 2010. And they are down. Way down. (Read More…)

When we reported that FAW will revive the monstrous Red Flag CA7600L limousine, it received mixed reviews. Some wanted it sight unseen. Others puked in the corner. Ever since I arrived in China, my secret wish had been to own the real thing, the huge handmade Red Flag car that luminaries used to drive down Chang’an Avenue. I had been told they don’t exist anymore. I had been lied to. (Read More…)

Doesn’t it bug you when other countries give their carmakers money? Doesn’t it bug you a hell of a lot when other countries give their carmakers money with they express  purpose to increase exports? Shouldn’t those felonious countries be dragged in front of the WTO and shot? Well, there are exceptions. (Read More…)

Yesterday, Cammy asked what could be the ugliest car. She said  “currently on market,” but that limitation that was soon forgotten. Being a customer centric blog, we opened it up to the ugliest of all times. And who knows, ugly as they are, they still might be  “on market,” looking for a buyer with a vision problem. Or a warped sense of humor. And with this, we present to you:  TTAC’s Top Ugly Car Picks Pics. The Best and the Brightest pick the worst of the worst. (Read More…)

I really love talking about cars with people. Notice that does not say “being talked at by people about cars.”  That exact circumstance, however, happens on a daily basis at my job. It’s enough to make me wish I never had to say a word to anyone and instead take up Tawny Kittaen’s post on the hood of a Jaguar.

One of the biggest pet peeves of any sort of expert is having some twit run his mouth about a subject on which he obviously has little knowledge. “Knows just enough to be annoying,” we call it at the auto show. Complaining for a solid half hour about the differences between this supercar over here and that supercar over there falls into that category.

Why? Because nine times out of ten the person doing the complaining has never driven the vehicle they’re moaning on about. (Read More…)

India’s Mahindra & Mahindra is putting in a binding bid to buy a majority stake in troubled South Korean automaker Ssangyong Motor. Ssangyong went bankrupt in 2009 after China’s SAIC dropped the ball. They nearly went up in flames, when militant workers incited a riot and threatened to blow up the paint shop. (Read More…)

Toyota’s capacity utilization at U.S. plants dropped to 60 percent in the second half of 2008 after the economic crisis hit the U.S.  Enough of this.  Utilization is  up to 90 percent already. Next year, Toyota plans to run its N.A. factories at full tilt. More than that: Workers will be doing overtime, work weekend and holiday shifts, says The Nikkei [sub].

Of course, the fact that NUMMI is off-line could also have something to do with it.

Japan’s Internal Affairs Ministry has bad news for Japan’s automakers: Japanese citizens are dumping their cars and take the train. Domestic car ownership has declined for the first time since 1964, with declines particularly pronounced in big cities, report The Nikkei [sub]: “Less-status-conscious city residents are abandoning cars for public transit.” (Read More…)

So far, auto marketers and market analysts have focused on the more than a billion people in China who do not have a car. This will remain a lucrative target for a long time. China Economic Daily has identified another attractive target group. People who already have a car. (Read More…)

Reacting to previously reported bad news, China’s BYD has cut its 2010 sales target by 25 percent to still quite ambitious 600,000 units, reports The Nikkei [sub]. (Read More…)

Tesla cars are still hard to get and hard to find, but it’s not for a lack of international distribution. Soon, it will be easier to buy a Tesla out of the country than in the country. From April to June, Tesla Motors opened showrooms in Copenhagen and two other parts of the world, reports The Nikkei [sub] By the end of the year it plans to open three more showrooms in Tokyo, Paris and Milan.

When Bob King was elected UAW president in June, he did something that was once seen as highly un-American: He swore to give his full attention to the Japanese. At closer look, he just followed the trend: American carmakers had lost more than half of the market to foreign name plates. And the UAW, with a membership of just 350,000 is only a shadow if its former 1.4 million member glory. King wants to get new members where Americans get new cars: from Japanese and other foreign automakers’ plants in the U.S. How does he want to go about it? With good old UAW arm twisting. (Read More…)

Hush. Don’t tell American GM customers how GM’s Opel subsidiary plans to prop up seriously flagging sales. Opel can use a serious injection of something. Opel’s German sales were down by 43.5 percent in July. And Opel doesn’t have China to save their necks. Today, Opel announced their version of the Ardennen-Offensive: A last massive strike at the hearts and minds (and pocketbooks) of their customers. A warranty for life. As they say: Read the fine print. (Read More…)

In Europe, hybrids are treated as the work of the devil. In America, hybrids are more a statement of political leanings. Japan is downright hybrid-kichi (crazy). Exhibit A: Toyota’s Prius sales. (Read More…)