Cars are getting better and better. But wait! For the first time since 2007, the quality of new cars and trucks sold in the US slipped! OMG! Let’s hunt down the villains …  (Quality of your brand after the jump.) (Read More…)

When Volkswagen CFO Hans Dieter Poetsch was asked to make some forward looking statements on April 29, he was reasonably confident that Veedub could improve sales and operating profit from the 2009 level, “but that’s it.” Now suddenly, Volkswagen throw caution to the wind and says that  the company would “significantly” exceed last year’s results when 2010 is over, says Reuters. That assessment, made by a usually very cautious company, is bolstered by a forecast-beating performance in the first five months. (Read More…)

Where would market research companies be without their sugar daddies, the car companies? There is no consumer product that is more expensive than a car, and nowhere is the amount of research money spent by unit sale higher than in the car industry. Research for a new car can be as crude as a few pictures and a questionnaire, or it can be something that is appropriately called a “clinic study,” with customers as lab rats. (Read More…)

Toyota is getting out of the carmageddon-caused  and recall-related funk and is moving forward with worldwide expansion plans. According to The Nikkei [sub], Toyota has resurrected all key projects planned before the financial crisis. (Read More…)

If you go back for what seems to be years, TTAC never gave Opel big odds for getting state aid. Ever since GM reneged on the Magna deal, their chances were pretty much nil. Since then, the German government had been subjecting Opel to water torture. A few  days ago, Berlin made it obvious. They had to, because GM was like a psychiatric patient that was slowly going through all stages of the Kübler-Ross model: Denial (“They said they would help us”), anger (“Maybe this will make your chancellor happy”), bargaining, depression, now finally, acceptance. Today, GM and Opel officially threw in the towel. Opel officially gave up on state aid. They will turn to the entity that supposedly wasn’t allowed to help them: The GM mother-ship. In other words: You and me will pay to save Opel.

Of course, GM didn’t just cry uncle. (Read More…)

Our dear leader, Ed Niedermeyer, is in an undisclosed location to fill the TTAC hopper of car reviews.  On Wednesday and Thursday, he’ll be putting several new cars through their paces while taking notes. (Ray LaHood: You didn’t hear that.) Which means: We are home alone. (Read More…)

Nissan seems to have a golden hand for mini-utes. First, they had to put in a third shift in Europe for their unpronounceable Qashqai crossover. Now, news reaches us from Japan (via The Nikkei [sub]) that orders for their Juke compact SUV that went on sale in japan a few days ago, the monthly sales target of 1,300 units by over 300 percent in the first week alone. (Read More…)

Before the TREAD act came about in the year 2000, I had a PowerPoint chart showing the inside of a U.S. jail, along with inmates (I won’t show the image to avoid a discussion of racism). The headline was: “This is where your career can end.” It was for internal Volkswagen consumption only. Somehow, imprisonment never became law. This was then, this is now: If Washington lawmakers get their wish, managing a car company can imperil  livelihood and freedom of the top managers. (Read More…)

India is supposed to be the world’s next growth market. For one company, this is already more than true: For Japan’s Suzuki. The Maruti Suzuki joint venture owns more than 50 percent of India’s market. And soon, Suzuki will build more cars in India than back home in Japan. (Read More…)

Taiwan’s Premier Wu Den-proudly announced that a senior executive of Volkswagen met with him last week for a second time on the company’s plans to set up a plant in Taiwan. A little later, Wu Den  Said that not one but several foreign carmakers have expressed interest in setting up factories in Taiwan. Why the sudden interest in the tiny island? (Read More…)

Jack Baruth’s favorite car (he was pretty much alone with that affliction) is coming back stateside: The Phaeton, Volkswagen’s hand-built ueber-mobil. Not a rumor. Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn said it to the Freie Presse in Chemnitz. A VW spokesperson  in Dresden, where the Phaeton is handcrafted , said there is no exact timing. (Read More…)

Batten hatches! Europe is on an emergency dive. According to data just released by the ACEA, sales in May dropped by 9.3 percent compared to May 2009. Our Ford canary in the EU coal mine was right again: May numbers were worse than April numbers. In April, the EU market had been down 7.4 percent. But that’s not the worst part. (Read More…)

Japan appears to be serious about EVs. Evidence: Japan’s increased focus on chargers. The hard part of EVs is not to build them. The tough issue is where to charge them. And how quickly. Whether you live in Manhattan or Tokyo: As a city dweller, you hardly can put a charging station on the street or into the underground parking garage. The average suburbanite in Tokyo already has a hard time just finding a parking space (proof required if you want to buy a car). A charging station? What charging station? So the Japanese are busy building them. No wonder: 67 percent of the Japanese live in cities. (In the U.S.A. it’s even more: 82 percent.)  Who’s leading the charge for chargers? (Read More…)

A lawsuit brought in California against Toyota led to the disclosure of allegedly damning documents that could cost Toyota another huge fine if the documents contain what the lawyers say. Unless lawyers (or the media) were asleep at the wheel. According to USA Today, these documents “point to possible delays involving an earlier safety issue, one that could result in loss of steering control.” USA Today says records that are part of the lawsuit show that Toyota was dealing with cracking and breaking steering relay rods in the U.S. for at least 11 years before it recalled 330,000 pickups and SUVs in Japan to replace the rods — and 12 years before its 2005 recall of nearly a million similar trucks in the U.S.

Sounds kind of familiar. I’m not suffering from Alzheimer yet, so let’s go on a fact-finding mission to the TTAC archives … (Read More…)

Undeterred by crashing European sales numbers, Nissan is forging ahead and adds – are we reading this right? –  “a third shift at its British production line for sport utility vehicles, raising output 30 percent to nearly 24,000 units a month,” says The Nikkei [sub]. (Read More…)