Via dinosaursandrobots.com come pictures of what may be the most predictable conversion ever… and it looks like this particular Kia owner went the full Amanti with it.
Find Reviews by Make:
Posts By: Edward Niedermeyer
With apologies to Robert Burns, the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ marketers gang aft agley. That’s certainly what’s happened to MINI’s plan to race a Porsche 911. Porsche said “no thanks” to MINI’s challenge, which is exactly what MINI was looking for. Then Hyundai had to come in and force MINI out of its underdog status, making it defend itself against a cheaper competitor. And the search for a meaningful race-as-marketing-stunt continues…
America’s ethanol producers were some of the few Americans optimistic or cynical enough to find a bright side to the BP Gulf spill. Ethanol’s lobbyists-in-chief, GrowthEnergy, decided it would be real cute to run ads highlighting all the bad things ethanol hadn’t done. One of which is not “Ethanol has never harmed the Gulf of Mexico,” by the way. As the ad parody above points out though, even if the ethanol was creating a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico for years before the BP spill, there are quite a few other things ethanol hasn’t done. Like this, just in from the AP [via Google]: convince the EPA to buy into its shameful, manipulative PR line and rush a decision on increasing blending limits.
(Read More…)
Ford gives us [via Facebook] as good of a view of the 2011 Explorer… as you’ll get from the seat of a 2011 Explorer. Unless this is some kind of appeal to the spelunking lifestyle segment (you never know), we may have a new ridiculous pillar size champ on our hands.
Are pillars the new tailfins?
Whither the electrified market? According to this slide from a recent Johnson Controls analyst presentation [full PDF here], 2m global units by 2015 seems to be one of the models the industry is working on. And compared to other 2015 estimates, like Pike Research’s 3.1m worldwide number, it’s a fairly conservative approach. Still, there’s a long road ahead for plug-in and even hybrid vehicles. Toyota’s Prius, by far the best selling hybrid nameplate in America, sold about 152k units in the last 12 months. All hybrid nameplates sold 27,800 units last month [per Edmunds], for an annualized rate (non-SAAR) of about 333,600 or about half of the estimated 2015 market. Why that’s a problem, after the jump…
William Vukson, author of The Great Auto Crash for a livechat about the decline of Detroit, the collapse of the American market for new cars, and US fiscal and trade policy here at TTAC at 33 pm Eastern time. Mr Vukson will be taking your questions about his book and the state of the American car market and auto industry, so don’t miss it!
To say that the auto industry has had a rough several years would be an understatement of epic proportions. The bailouts of GM and Chrysler dragged many of the industry’s challenges into the open, and the dramatic rescue effort brought an unprecedented level of public awareness of long-festering problems with Detroit’s business model. Here at TTAC, these troubles have provided much grist for our discussions, which tend to focus on the product, business and customer care factors. But behind the decades of Detroit’s weak products and poor business practices, lies a political-economic narrative that tends to be left out of the discussion. In End of a Dream or The Great Auto Crash: An Inside Story, economist William Vukson fits the great sweep of macroeconomic policy since Richard Nixon into a slim volume, and explains Detroit’s dramatic collapse in terms of trade and fiscal policy rather than, say, Detroit’s “Deadly Sins”.
(Read More…)
It’s classic tale from the convoluted and mysterious world of the global supply chain. Crain’s Business [via Automotive News [sub]] explains how GM was forced to recall heated windshield washers not once, but twice. And we take a look at why GM took the extraordinary measure of blaming customers and GM technicians for “misdiagnosing” the problem, a strategy that makes for an interesting counterpoint to the recent Toyota recall hoopla. After all, like Toyota’s pedal problems, GM’s heated windshield washer woes are rooted in a complicated relationship with one of its suppliers… and one of its regulators.
(Read More…)
Hyundai’s been getting a bit of flack for a version of this advertisement, which some say makes a mockery of the Catholic faith. Frankly, we think the ad after the jump (which may or may not be real) is simultaneously more blasphemous and funnier. Do you agree?
[The top ad is not the most allegedly anti-Catholic version, apparently. We will post the more offensive version as soon as it shows up, naturally]
(Read More…)
In the midst of a nearly 3,000 word InsideLine treatise on the forthcoming Equus and Hyundai’s upmarket intentions in general, Hyundai’s USA boss John Krafcik reveals that the car pictured above very nearly became the Hyundai Genesis. No, really.
There was a lot of internal debate on design direction for Genesis. We used a European design house as an early consultant, and its proposals informed the core design elements of the first approved exterior model, which got as far as the tooling stage. In our industry, when you’ve built tools to stamp the exterior sheet metal, you’ve committed millions of dollars, and so you’re pretty much committed at that stage to bring that design to market. But in the end, we weren’t happy with the design. So we made the right decision (albeit a difficult and expensive one) to redo the exterior with a cleaner, more athletic and more enduring design, homegrown from our own design studio.
I got one word for you Krafcik: ballsy.
Not being a regular trackday driver, my recent tryst with a Porsche Cayman S didn’t leave me wishing Porsche would make their own Turbo version. I may be putting my auto-writer-posturing credentials on the line by typing this, but on real roads patrolled by real police officers, 320 hp is plenty, thanks. Besides, everyone knows that Porsche will never allow its crocodilian coupe outshine its older (and more profitable) brother, the 911. But, according to forum postings from someone claiming to have attended Porsche’s recent general sales meeting [via Pistonheads], Zuffenhausen will let the Cayman get a little bit closer to its true potential with a lightweight version due out in the US next Spring. (Read More…)
It’s all speculation until we get official pricing from VW of North America, but according to Autoblog, the new Jetta will be priced starting “around $16,000” when it shows up stateside this October. With Chevy’s Cruze starting at $16,995, we face an interesting prospect: VW’s entry sedan might well be cheaper than Chevrolet’s. Of course the base Jetta will continue to be saddled with its predecessor’s agricultural 2.5 liter, but the Cruze’s base 1.8 hasn’t exactly earned many accolades either. Of course the base Cruze comes with a goodly amount of equipment, but it’s got an uphill fight on its hands if the more desirably-branded Jetta pips it on pure price point.
The AP [via Google] reports that Tesla has revised its IPO offering to $14 to $16 per share, for a total capital raising of up to $185m. The WSJ [sub] estimates the IPO’s take at $178m. Previously Tesla had valued its offering at $100m. This revision is not inconsequential: the offering is now valued higher than Tesla’s cumulative revenue since 2003, which now stands at $147.6m. The company has lost nearly $300m since 2003, and will continue to lose money until the Model S sedan starts selling. Especially with $100m-$125m in capital expenditures planned for this year. GM’ it seems, won’t be the only auto firm sweating an IPO this year.
As Bertel put it when he first reported the newest Mercedes ad slogan, we are not making this up. How could we?
Recent Comments