Say what you want about Toyota’s recent struggles, it still knows how to sell the bejeezus out of its C-segment Corolla/Matrix juggernaut. Toyota’s compact twosome outsold its next closest competitor by more volume than the Kia Forte sold on its own. Chevy’s Cruze is also sneaking up on Civic (please note: Feb 2010 volume for Cruze is actually Cobalt), and VW’s new Jetta is streaking up the charts, landing Volkswagen’s C-segment offerings into fourth place (Golf made up only 2,337 of that volume). Elantra and Sentra are neck-and-neck, although look for Nissan’s aging compact to be leapfrogged by both Hyundai and Ford when fully ramped-up volumes of the new Elantra and Focus hit dealers.

On most weekends, TTAC publishes the fun, frivolous kinds of stories that don’t make it into our regular weekly coverage, exposing our readers to everything from the hilarity of the LeMons series, to obscure automotive histories to pictorials of such undercovered vehicles as vintage Snow Cats. This weekend, however, TTAC is feeding you your vegetables: sales graphs of the major automotive segments from February. We start our coverage with the subcompact segment, where the Nissan Versa continues to kill the competition, proving yet again that what Americans are looking for in a small car is a large car. Kia’s Soul held off the Fiesta’s attack on the number two spot, while Toyota’s Yaris slipped to Kia Rio volume levels and the Scion xD slipped to the bottom of the chart. Meanwhile, few of the long-established names in this segment are beating their year-ago numbers, but look for that to change if gas prices keep going up.

Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of a bus crash on New York’s I-95, but it’s clear from these photos [via ABC] what caused many of the 14 fatalities in the crash: a sign warning motorists of red-light photo enforcement is what appears to have ripped the bus in half. Now, as much as we dislike photo enforcement, we wouldn’t argue that the sign caused this tragedy… but the irony of a sign intended to improve safety actually becoming a deadly obstacle is more than we can ignore.

Having a video like this sent into our contact form is one of the rare treats of being a blogger. Especially because I feel a little like I woke up under the hood of a Soviet-era engine bay this morning. To the anonymous heroes who both made and brought this fine video to our attention, we salute you.

Remember Pontiac? You know, the brand that “builds excitement.” And for all the advertising dollars GM spent over the years, trying to convince buyers that a Pontiac offered something that none of its other brands could, it turns out that quite a few former Pontiac owners have made the switch to Chevrolet and GMC. According to RL Polk

Looking at full-year 2010 data: the Pontiac brand saw 57,641 customers return to market and General Motors was able to recapture 53.3% of them. Historically through 2008, 60% of Pontiac owners have remained loyal to General Motors. In 2010, the loyalty rate fell to 47%, which represents a 13 percentage point decrease in overall General Motors loyalty. With the discontinuation of Pontiac: 33.5% defected to Chevrolet, 11.7% defected to GMC, 6.7% defected to Buick, and 1.5% defected to Cadillac.

Defections to other domestic corporations made up nearly 16% of owners. The Ford brand ranked 2nd in the conquest of Pontiac owners at 10.5%. Chrysler Corporation saw the Dodge brand ranked 9th, capturing 3.2%. Jeep and Chrysler combined were able to conquest 1.7%.

Defections to import makes were nearly 31%. Among the foreign automakers, Toyota was able to conquest 7.7% of Pontiac owners, while Honda was just behind capturing 7.5%.

Best and Brightest, I have to say this confuses me. How did over ten percent of GM’s “driving excitement” brand end up at the its truck brand (GMC)? How did over 14 percent of buyers replace the brand that brought us the GTO and G8 for the mainstream, thrill-free anonymity of Honda and Toyota? How on earth did Dodge, the remaining brand that most resembles Pontiac, only manage about 3%? You may have to let me down gently on this, B&B, but are automotive brands not as important as people make them out to be? Say it ain’t so!

Reader Josh sends in this semi-camo’d Explorer from the Mile High city, writing that

The lady who was in the drivethru at Wendy’s was quite frustrated to see us photographing her car (we stalked her for a few blocks to find a “compromising” position) and she jetted without even ordering. While I know this is default behavior among tester-types, in my experience, they really only panic if there is something really special.

But besides the bizarre hand-painted camo on the rear-quarter panel, we’re not seeing anything too different here from a stock Explorer. Is that funny-looking tailpipe exhausting the forthcoming “premium” 2.0 Ecoboost four-cylinder during high-altitude testing? Josh notes

the exhaust seemed tame and quiet – but we were in a v8 excursion

What say you, Best and Brightest?

Amidst the rubble of earthquake and tsunami-racked Japan, a strange phenomenon: Three of the smallest local automakers suffered no interruption in production, while the very largest seemed to be hit the hardest. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan have all suffered some kind of production interruption since the quake hit, while Mazda, Suzuki and Mitsubishi remain untouched according to Automotive News [sub]. In a tragedy like this, some might be tempted to ascribe this division of suffering to some universal sense of justice, a cosmic leveling of Japan’s automotive playing field. But, as the map above proves, this twist of fate is purely geographic… Mazda, Mitsubishi and Suzuki happen to have all of their plants located well south of the affected area near Sendai. Besides, Subaru, one of Japan’s smallest automakers, closed five factories. There’s no making sense of a mess like this…

(Read More…)

Remember the Saturn Vue? The Theta-based crossover is known around the world as the Chevrolet Captiva (or Daewoo WinStorm… yes, really), and soon it will be known in the US as GM’s latest fleet queen. With some 86% of GM’s fleet sales last year coming from Chevy (about a 35% mix for the brand), GM is apparently trying to insulate its newer products from the fleet queen image, and as a result it’s decided to import the Captiva Sport from Mexico in order

to help satisfy growing demand for compact crossovers by fleet customers.

Keep in mind, this is not the latest Captiva to come out of GM-DAT, but rather the outgoing model that has been in production since 2006. But, according to GM’s release, this isn’t a weakness. Alan Batey, U.S. vice president, Chevrolet Sales and Service explains

It says a lot about our ability to draw on international programs and proven, quality crossovers that we were able to identify and federalize a strong new entrant such as Captiva Sport for the U.S. market. We turned to our global network for a solution to quickly meet the rising demand from local fleet customers and continue to meet strong retail demand for the Equinox.

And if this attitude seems shocking, it’s time to start getting used to it: GM is rumored to be planning this same strategy when it releases its updated Chevy Malibu next year. According to long-standing whispers, the outgoing model will continue to be produced as a fleet-oriented “Classic” model. Perhaps it’s time for GM to roll out a fleet-only brand?

A year ago we reported on a study by the Center for Automotive Embedded Systems Security, which showed that the proliferation of eletronics systems in modern auomobiles left them vulnerable to hacks through the OBD-II port, leading to such scary lessons as

Much to our surprise, significant attacks do not require a complete understanding or reverse-engineering of even a single component of the car.

But, the results of that study were dependent on gaining physical access to a car’s OBD port. This year, the UC San Diego and University of Washington academics behind CAESS took their research a step further, exploring how hackers could compromise cars without ever gaining physical access to them. Researchers bought a 2009-model-year vehicle of undetermined make, and attempted to hack into it. One of their findings: cellular-enabled assistance programs like GM’s OnStar and Toyota’s SafetyConnect unsurprisingly leave vehicles especially vulnerable.

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Having struggled to launch and expand its Smart brand, Daimler might be forgiven for being a bit gunshy about investing in brands other than its globally-recognized Mercedes-Benz marque. And it seems the German outfit is currently agonizing over not just one but two big brand choices on the opposite ends of the automotive spectrum. First, Auto Motor und Sport reports that Daimler’s bosses are still undecided about the fate of the über-luxury Maybach brand, noting

“We have to do this year, because the model cycle is not endless,”  Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche tells Auto Motor und Sport. Here, the decision is open, even though the Maybach models are profitable. “I hope for a positive decision as long as we can create the proper conditions. We have invested heavily in the brand, but that is past. On the other hand, we now enjoy a very attractive profit margin on a per-car basis.”

If there’s one major challenge facing Maybach, Zetsche admits, it’s European emissions standards. Which is where Daimler’s other branding problem comes in…

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Of all the dramatic footage coming from the devastation of the Japanese Tsunami, perhaps one of the most arresting images is of a flood of cars washing inland. Seeing a parking lot worth of cars reduced to so much flotsam and jetsam is a stern reminder of nature’s power, and a powerful symbol of what Japan is going through right now…
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The Federal Trade Commission has announced that it will be holding a series of round table discussions aimed at investigating misleading dealer practices in the areas of sales, financing and leasing. According to the Commission’s release, the round tables will

gather information on consumers’ experiences when buying or leasing motor vehicles. The roundtables will explore consumer protection issues related to the sale, financing, and leasing of the consumer vehicles consumers most often use – cars, SUVs, and light trucks.

For many consumers, buying or leasing a car is their most expensive financial transaction aside from owning a home. With prices averaging more than $28,000 for a new vehicle and $14,000 for a used vehicle from a dealer, most consumers seek to lease or finance the purchase of a new or used car. Financing obtained at a dealership may provide benefits for many consumers, such as convenience, special manufacturer-sponsored programs, access to a variety of banks and financial entities, or access to credit otherwise unavailable to a buyer. Dealer-arranged financing, however, can be a complicated, opaque process and could potentially involve unfair or deceptive practices.

The National Auto Dealer’s Association says [via Automotive News [sub]] it will attend the round tables and represent dealers’ efforts to “increase financial literacy” and “promote regulatory compliance.” Auto dealer finance was one of the only finance sectors exempted from the Consumer Financial Protection Act, despite protests from the Pentagon.

It’s been a good day for drama, what with GM losing its CFO, Saab’s principals turning on each other, Carlos Ghosn showing the first signs of losing his grip on his global empire, and Rs and Ds battling over GHGs. But what today was missing in the drama department was a spat between two legitimate stars, a throwdown featuring the hot young celebs of the automotive world. Well, thanks to ASCA.it [via Carscoop], we have it. Speaking to the Italian press, Ford CEO and industry darling Alan Mulally took on Fiat-Chrysler’s up-and-coming global starlet, the Fiat 500, bashing its chances of success in the US.

Mulally also talks of competing with Chrysler and about the market prospects of the Fiat 500 in the United States, provides: ”I do not see big market space for one car in the U.S. more ‘smaller Fiesta.” He added: ”Who has tried has failed.”

Presumably Mulally was comparing the 500 to Daimler’s Smart brand effort, in which an established automaker attempted to bring a new brand and a premium A-segment city car to the US and failed badly. And Mulally isn’t just idly speculating either: if he thought a sub-sub-compact car would sell profitably in America he’d bring Ford’s Ka, which is built on the same platform as the Cinquecento, here and make a fight of it (hell, it’s already appeared in a Bond movie). And with Chrysler’s plan to sell 55k Fiat 500s in the US this year already “a little bit behind,” it seems Mulally’s skepticism may be well-placed.

Within days of breaking, the Renault Spy Scandal has been in “full reverse,” and now it seems the story is becoming even more embarrassing than we had even imagined. The last time we looked at the case, Bertel forwarded two possible theories for the “farce”: either Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn wanted a distraction from a soft Nissan Leaf EV launch, or someone inside the company wanted to sabotage Ghosn. Now a new theory takes the farce to nearly unimaginable levels…

(Read More…)

House Republicans took the first steps towards banning the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases, as the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved HR 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011. In their statements today, Republican committee leaders cited rising gas prices and negative impacts on American businesses as the main reasons for attempting to strip the EPA of its ability to regulate emissions of

Water vapor, Carbon dioxide, Methane, Nitrous oxide, Sulfur hexafluoride, Hydrofluorocarbons, Perfluorocarbon and any other substance subject to, or proposed to be subject to, regulation, action, or consideration under this Act to address climate change.

Intriguingly, subcomittee Chairman Ed Whitfield’s statement [PDF] names a number of industry groups who support HR910, including the National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Mining Association, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, and the National Association of Realtors… but no auto industry group was named as a supporter of the bill (current regulation of GHGs only cover power stations and large-scale emitters). HR910 has been fast-tracked to the full Energy and Commerce Committee, which will begin hearings on Monday. According to Bloomberg, Senate Democrats are vowing to block the bill, arguing that Republicans attempts to link the bill to gas prices are misleading and that if passed, it would increase harmful pollution.