In November 2015, for the first time since March, Ford’s F-Series outsold the combined efforts of General Motors’ full-size truck twins in the United States.

November’s results won’t change the fact that 2015 will go down as the first year since 2009 that GM’s Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra will outsell their chief rival on a calendar year basis. Through the first eleven months of 2015, GM has sold 734,253 full-size pickup trucks, 39,110 more than the F-Series’ 695,143-unit total. Read More >

Nissan announced Tuesday that it would move current U.S. chief Fred Diaz to focus on truck sales for North America and promote Nissan’s chief in Canada, Christian Meunier, to lead the group in North America.

“We are now poised to capitalize on the significant investments we have made in our trucks with the launch of the all-new Nissan Titan, and these changes will support our ability to do so,” Nissan North America chairman Jose Munoz said in a statement announcing the changes.

In his new role, Diaz will oversee truck sales — Titan and Frontier — for all of North America to help jumpstart that brand from a minor player to a more serious contender. He was previously head of Ram brand for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles before joining Nissan in 2013.

Read More >

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Tuesday announced significant changes to its tests and rating system for every new car in the U.S. Beginning in 2018, new cars will be rated on a five-star system, in half-star increments (for the first time), and will encompass information from new tests — including front overlap crashes already in use by other safety organizations — and pedestrian impact information.

The proposed changes would place an emphasis on active safety features such as blind spot monitoring and crash avoidance systems. The announcement Tuesday followed a statement last month that the agency would recommend automatic emergency braking on new cars beginning in 2018.

“The changes provide more and better information to new-vehicle shoppers that will help accelerate the technology innovations that saves lives,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. Read More >

Industry-wide auto sales continued to expand in November 2015 despite a calendar quirk which shortened the selling month and a sharp 9-percent decline in passenger car volume.

At Volkswagen, however, after the scandal-ridden brand posted somewhat surprising year-over-year increases in September and October, November volume plunged 25 percent.

The loss of 7,843 sales compared with November 2014 was incurred largely by the loss of all TDI sales. In November 2014, 17 percent — or approximately 5,460 sales — were generated by vehicles with diesel engines. But Volkswagen couldn’t sell vehicles with diesel engines in November 2015.

Read More >

My German begins and ends with “nein” but I don’t need to know much to see what’s going on in this video.

According to the New York Times, sentiment in Germany is starting to build that American regulators are being unfairly harsh with Volkswagen in an effort to bolster domestic manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors and Ram.

The Environmental Protection Agency notified Volkswagen in September that its cars used an illegal “defeat device” to skirt emissions laws. Since then, the automaker has been caught up in an international scandal that has cost the automaker billions and damaged the reputation for Germany’s largest exporter.

Read More >

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn disclosed a 12-percent ownership stake in Pep Boys and said that Auto Plus, a competitor which he owns, should consider buying the retail parts giant, Bloomberg reported.

In October, Bridgestone offered to purchase Pep Boys’ 800 company-owned stores for $835 million to add to its portfolio of 2,200 stores including Tires Plus, Firestone Complete Auto Care, Hibdon Tires Plus and Wheel Works. The acquisition would create the largest chain of automotive service centers, yet many analysts say Bridgestone may be preparing Pep Boys for a potential sale already.

That tender offer from Bridgestone will expire Jan. 4, according to the report.

Read More >

According to a report by Bild am Sonntag (via Reuters), Volkswagen’s third largest shareholder, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), wants trade unions to have less influence in what happens at the automaker amid Volkswagen’s ongoing emissions scandal.

QIA, which owns 17 percent of Volkswagen, is said to use a meeting scheduled today with automaker CEO Matthias Müller to “demand a scaling back of the role of the works council,” reported Reuters.

Volkswagen representatives denied the report, stating, “Co-determination (joint decision-making by corporate and labor representatives) and the (role of the) works council were not on the agenda of the talks.”

Read More >

Buick announced Friday that it will bring from China the Buick Envision to sell in the U.S. next summer, two years after that car was introduced overseas, and that it will be the first Chinese-made car from a domestic manufacturer.

Automotive News reported that the small crossover would go on sale sometime around August, earlier than expected from initial reports last month.

When it goes on sale, the Envision will be powered by a 2-liter turbocharged four that makes 252 horsepower and will only be offered in all-wheel drive to start. The model will be bookended by the subcompact-sized Encore and full-size Enclave and fill a substantial need for the premium automaker.  Read More >

Skilled trades workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga Assembly Plant in Tennessee voted Friday overwhelmingly to join the United Auto Workers union, the first UAW victory at an automotive plant in the South, Reuters reported.

The union vote was the first victory for the UAW, who tried unsuccessfully in February to unionize the entire plant, which included nearly 1,500 production workers. In August, the union filed to open voting only to maintenance workers and ballots were cast Friday.

Friday’s victory for the UAW only incorporated just over 10 percent of the overall workforce. According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, 152 skilled trades workers voted in Friday’s ballot question.

Read More >

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles won’t attempt to takeover General Motors anytime soon, FCA chief Sergio Marchionne told investors Thursday according to Reuters.

Speaking following a shareholder meeting, Marchionne said that finding a partner for FCA wasn’t “life or death” for the automaker group. Reportedly, FCA will delay launching several of their cars — including the Alfa Romeo Giulia for six months — as the automaker shores up its $52 billion investment plan.

“We are not choking. We are in relatively decent shape,” Marchionne said.

Read More >

In news that will shock precisely no one, the current car blitz is partially fueled by longer loan rates, higher monthly payments and an increasing prevalence to finance our new cars from the automaker themselves — when we’re not renting it from them in the first place.

Experian released Wednesday its data on third-quarter sales and financing and found, on average, that borrowers’ credit scores were at the lowest level since before 2008. According to the credit agency, car buyers had an average credit score of 710 when they financed their car — which happens in 86.6 percent of car transactions, an all-time high.

Buyers opted for longer loans too. According to the data, new car loans longer than six years increased to 27.5 percent for the third quarter, up 17.1 percent from the same period last year. Loans between five and six years accounted for 44 percent of new vehicle financing. Read More >

Auto executives from nearly every major U.S. automaker met in Washington D.C. on Tuesday to discuss safety, recalls and technology with Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, Automotive News reported.

Senior executives from 15 automakers, including General Motors’ CEO Mary Barra, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne, Volkswagen of America CEO Michael Horn and Nissan North America boss Jose Munoz, met to address Foxx’s concerns that “the public has lost faith in the auto industry’s commitment to safety,” according to a letter obtained by Automotive News.

The recent snowballing recall crises at GM, FCA and other automakers concerning Takata’s airbag inflators prompted the meeting, according to reports. A spokesman for the Transportation Department said the meeting was “very productive.”

Read More >

Nissan has announced a proposal which would end Renault’s control of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, and would curtail interferance by the French government.

When we last left off, Nissan was looking to gain a voice in the alliance it made in 1999 with Renault by increasing its stake while mitigating the stake shared between Renault and Paris. The Japanese automaker has held a 15 percent non-voting stake since alliance CEO Carlos Ghosn turned around its fortunes in the early 2000s, as French law prevents affiliates owning less than 40 percent of a French-led company from voting at the shareholders’ table.

Nissan has other ideas. Read More >

Deciding that the company’s annual pre-Christmas party wasn’t a great time to be Wetblanket Wildes, the Porsche-Piech clan affirmed that it would be committed to Volkswagen amid its emissions crises (pl.) and said the company that the family-owned company would “master the situation,” according to Reuters.

The Porsche-Piech family, who owns a majority stake in Volkswagen’s parent company, told the automaker’s board and the town of Wolfsburg that the family has no intention of pulling the plug.

“I am firmly convinced that the city of Wolfsburg together with Volkswagen will master the situation and gain further strength,” Wolfgang Porsche said in a statement, according to Reuters. “The Porsche and Piech families stand behind Volkswagen and Wolfsburg as its headquarters.”

Read More >

Monday was the final day for many workers at Mitsubishi’s Normal, Illinois facility as the plant mostly shuttered operations after 27 years.

WEEK reported that roughly 900 workers finished work Monday before turning in their badges at the plant. About 300 workers will stay until May to produce parts for Mitsubishi, who announced in July that the plant would be closing.

Many of the workers told the TV station that they were too young for retirement and would be looking for work.

“I am going to have to find a job some place else,” Barbara Fisher told WEEK. “I’ll have to look for a job wherever I can find one. If I have to go out of town, I will go out of town.”

Read More >