We all thought it was trick. We all thought Aston Martin was playing an (admittedly) funny practical joke. But no, it was confirmed. The Aston Martin Cygnet (A.K.A The Toyota IQ with a posh badge) has been confirmed for production. (Read More…)

TTKN News reports that General Motors has been awarded a top rating of 100 percent in the 2011 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a survey which is carried out by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC). This scoring of 100 percent represents the fifth consecutive year that GM scored 100 percent in this survey. They didn’t get that top spot for their stance on Tibet. As a company that is entirely dependent on two governments (U.S. and Chinese) GM wisely kept their nose clean on THAT. (Read More…)

Whenever a new technology comes to market the process is fairly simple. Ridiculously expensive for the first year, then slowly the price comes down as the customers become less willing to pay the original RRP, then competition kicks in which drives the price down even further. It happened with mobile phones, big screen TV’s, DVD players, etc. But what happens if the technology is something the government wants to implement? Then, you skip step 1 with the help of tax payer money. (Read More…)

As GM’s IPO draws closer, GM (and the government) is doing everything they can to make GM as attractive as possible to the market. The Freep reports that GM is promoting the Volt as much as they can to highlight how much GM has changed. Unfortunately, all it takes is one pesky credit rating agency to undo all that hard work. (Read More…)

This week’s “Weekend Head Scratcher” is a little different. It’ll require quite a bit of thought, so pay attention! This week we’re going to play a little game I created. It’s called “Fantasy Car Maker”! (Read More…)

In news which will shock absolutely no-one, Business Week reports that Toyota and Nissan’s attempts to woo buyers of big pick-up trucks are failing (or failed, depending which way you’re looking at it). “The Big Three successfully beat back the Toyota incursion into the pickup market” said Brian Johnson, auto analyst for UK bank Barclays, “We had expected Toyota would do what they did with cars and take over the market. Their share gains have been frustratingly slow.” As with most things, the devil is in the details. Or in this case, the devil is in the market research. (Read More…)

Jeremy Clarkson thinks it’s a pile of wank. Bob Lutz thinks it was a crock of bowel movement. But say what you like about global warming, if you can get credentials which make you “eco-friendly”, that’s worth a lot of marketing money. Which is why Honda is probably feeling pretty chuffed with themselves. (Read More…)

Watching people “Snap” is very funny (when I was at school in the UK they were called “cuss matches”). I learnt some very funny insults. Some insults were so funny, I’ve been banned from reproducing them on TTAC (Ed – We’re a family website!). But nothing lifts the spirits more than watching 2 people going head-to-head, armed with the sharpest, finest “Yo mamma…” insults. But what happens when that element comes to the automotive world? Well…

Even though the luxury car market in India is very small, the players are taking it seriously. So seriously, they’re trying to bitch slap each other. The Hindustan Times reports that Mercedes-Benz and BMW are “trading verbal volleys at each other at every opportunity.” 2 Germans hurling insults at each other in the middle of India? Did someone put a load of magic mushrooms on my pizza? Pee in your curry? Gee, in Germany something like that would get you a “cut it out now!” phone call from the VDA, the “Verband der Automobilhersteller” (formerly “Verband Deutscher Autobomilhersteller”). But in India? (Read More…)

It’s that time again. The time that I report on the market that no-one cares about. The UK. The SMMT has released the car registration figures today and as predicted, they fell, but not as much as other markets. The UK saw new car sales fall by only 8.9 percent, compared to, say, Italy. Overall, the UK market still remains 7.8 percent higher than last year (to date). The Ford Fiesta remains the best selling model in the UK, which will do our balance of trade with Spain and Germany no favors. Diesel cars and alternatively fuelled cars all posted growth in September. What was also telling about this “growth” was this little nugget of information: Private demand fell, while fleet demand increased. That’s right, while private customers are fleeing, car makers are trying to sustain volume by following the fleets. Shall we take a look the breakdown? (Read More…)

When Renault released their second generation Megane, people’s reaction pretty revolved around three words. “Whisky”, “Tango” and “Foxtrot”, if you know what I mean. I remember when I first saw it my first thoughts were “My goodness! It looks like someone’s made a massive dent in the back with a cricket bat.” But what did I know? It was voted European Car of the Year in 2003, was the first small family car to achieve a 5 star Euro NCAP rating, and went on to become a sales success. Now let’s look at Renault’s partner, Nissan. When the Juke came out, the reaction was pretty much the same to the Renault Megane. “What in the name of all that is holy is that?!” And now. the Renault-Nissan alliance has done it again. (Read More…)

A friend of mine once tried to break the world record for the longest time standing on one foot. The record (at the time) was held by Arulanantham Suresh Joachim of Sri Lanka for standing on one foot for 76 hours and 40 minutes. My friend lasted 2 minutes, then collapsed in heap and wondered if he’d maybe broken a bone in his leg. Silly boy. If he wanted to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, all he had to do was buy a Volkswagen Passat. (Read More…)

When GM was taken over by the US and Canadian governments, a lot of money was pumped into GM in order to make it a viable entity. After all, GM didn’t go into bankruptcy because it was a well run company with a tight balance sheet, excellent management and brand, spanking new factories. The more money that got pumped into GM, the more pressure is put on the IPO to generate enough money for this endeavor to break even. And according to the press, it doesn’t look like it’s going to hit its mark. (Read More…)

After the amount of replies by the B&B, spitting venom at the cars they loathed with a passion, I decided to inject some needed positivity to TTAC. We’re often accused of being negative and downbeat, so here goes my attempt at being positive. (Read More…)

What will be the fuel of the future for cars? Gasoline? Diesel? Ethanol? Electric? Hydrogen? I might as well ask “What are the numbers for next week’s lottery?” No-one really knows; which is why everyone is hedging their bets. To invest in a particular technology and ignore the rest is basically playing Russian roulette. (There you you. We forgot  CNG.) This next evolution of the car industry is going to be critical. While Ford is looking at other types of alternative propulsion, at the moment it is pretty much playing it safe, sticking to more efficient ICE’s, hybrids and electric cars. Very good bets to make. But now, it seems, Ford is playing it a little riskier. (Read More…)

When Alan Mulally came to FoMoCo, his strategy was simple. Quite literally. “One Ford.” Jaguar? Out. Land Rover? Out. Volvo? Out. Mercury? Out. Aston Martin? Out (but we’ll keep a small stake, just in case…). It’s all about “Ford.” And it’s worked. Ford is flying high and is closing in on GM in the US market. But there’s one thing that stops Ford flying even higher. It’s that millstone around their neck, called debt. And lots of it. About $27.3b in the most recent quarter. Some economists believe that is what is depressing Ford’s stock price. Well, it seems Mr Mulally is going to have a laser focus on this problem. (Read More…)