Now that the Nissan Leaf is being made in Tennessee, Nissan has decided that a big price drop is in order. While the 2012 car retailed for $35,200, the 2013 Leaf starts at $28,800, thanks to a new base model. Anyone who bought a 2012 must be pretty ticked off at the resale-ruining price cut. Higher-end SV and SL trim levels will retail for $31,820 and $37,250 respectively. (Read More…)
The high cost of auto manufacturing in Canada isn’t solely an issue for domestic auto makers; Honda, which manufactures the best-selling car in Canada (the Civic) is grappling with this issue as well.
The Windsor Star spoke to Jerry Chenkin, Executive Vice-President of Honda Canada, who summed up the biggest issue with Honda’s Canadian production: (Read More…)
TTAC reader/contributor Matt Fink generously photograph a whole bunch of metal for TTAC during the Detroit Auto Show. Here are his pictures of the C7 Corvette Stingray. I’m still not sold on the vents and the rear end treatment.
Ladies and Gentleman, TTAC is glad to announce the winners of the Ten Worst Automobiles Today, as voted by you, the reader. The Smart Fortwo took the top spot – but what about the others?
The Audi A7 is one of the more polarizing examples of the pseudo-hatch/coupe, but I’ve always been a fan. The RS7 is probably the car I’d pick as my personal favorite. The 560 horsepower twin turbo V8 is the same powertrain used in the RS6 Avant, and is apparently capable of 24 mpg on the highway. The styling is a make or break proposition, but it’s hard to argue with the performance.
Is the era of beige finally over? This concept is supposedly a preview of the new Corolla, due in 2014 – and it’s far more striking than the JDM version reviewed by our own BS.
2013’s edition of the Detroit Auto Show is the first I’ve covered for TTAC, and it serves as a nice break from the world of low-cost cars, overcapacity and Bertel’s daily demands for Facebook photos of my attractive female friends. Since I was the sole journalist covering the show, most of the coverage was limited to photos and a brief bit of information on the car. But since you all come here to read my semi-informed pontifications for some added context regarding the auto industry I’ve assembled this handy guide to NAIAS 2013, free of any regurgitated press release info or PR pap. Enjoy, and send any angry criticisms/threats of press fleet acesses revocation to derek at ttac dot com
This is an Alfa Romeo 166. No, really. This car, called the Trumpchi, is owned by Chinese automaker GAC, and uses an Alfa platform. Apparently it’s a 4WD Hybrid as well. It looks utterly generic and about a decade behind the rest of the competizione…err, competition.
If there is one “winner” at NAIAS this year, it’s Ford. This should have been GM’s show, with the Corvette (its halo model) and their new full-size truck (their bread and butter) both being shown to the public for the first time. Instead, Ford debuted the Atlas concept, a thinly disguised 2015 F-150.
Acura will replace their long-in-the-tooth MDX with a new model that looks a lot like the current MDX and even uses a similar 3.5L V6. The new model should look very similar to this concept. As it underwhelming as it seems, Honda did this with the CR-V and it’s arguably the best small crossover out there. The new RDX, despite criticisms relating to its lack of turbochargers, is a vastly improved car. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Contrary to rumors, Acura is not debuting the production NSX at NAIAS. Instead, it’s another iteration of the NSX concept, this time with an interior (shown above). Very LFA-esque.
Hot on the heels of the broken embargo comes real live shots of Caddy’s Volt. The ELR gets a nice boost in power – 207 horsepower and 295 lb-ft versus 149 horses and 273 lb-ft for the Volt. A .5 kwh larger battery means slightly less range in EV mode, but an 82-mile boost in overall range and a longer charging time (4.5 hours with a 240V outlet, 12 hours with a standard outlet). There’s also a paddle-shift activated regenerative braking feature – we’ll have to drive that one to see if it actually works well.
Hyundai’s HCD-14 Concept is said to preview certain elements of the next-generation Genesis (which should be named Exodus, no?). A Hyundai PR rep noted that this is strictly a concept – unlike Honda, which previews basically production-ready vehicles as “concepts”, this will remain a showcar, though some details will make their way into production. Specific details remain unknown, naturally.
Someone posted this photo, presumably of the production Cadillac ELR. We won’t be the first to break an embargo but the cat’s out of the bag…
Tucked away in the corner of Fiat’s booth was the Serbian-built 500L. The most striking part of the car was the interior – it’s much more subdued than the regular 500, lacking the flashy, colorful hard plastic dash surfaces. It looks more Dart than Fiat, really.
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