In the wake of the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission’s decision to enact new rules banning direct sales of vehicles by automakers, Tesla may have no other recourse than to vacate the local market come April 1.
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By stealing the Toyota Camry’s best-selling midsize car crown, albeit likely on a temporary basis, the Nissan Altima ended February 2014 as America’s best-selling car overall. The Altima’s lead was also substantial enough last month to make the midsize Nissan America’s leading car year-to-date.
The father of the Prius and Toyota chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada foresees hybrid sales climbing from 13 percent of global sales today to 20 percent in the near future.
Within four months of each other, Honda, Mazda and Nissan have opened new factories in Mexico, taking advantage of the opportunities within the nation’s automotive industry to grow a new export base into the United States, Latin America and Europe while also gaining ground in the rapidly expanding local market, all in direct challenge to the Detroit Three and other automakers on both sides of the border.
An automotive coolant Daimler claims is too dangerous to use in their vehicles, despite the warnings from the European Union to cease usage of an older coolant considered harmful to the environment, was found to be safe according to a report made by EU scientists.
February 2014 sales of America’s six continuing full-size pickup lineups grew 1.8%, but GM’s truck twins, the newest trucks on the block, fell 8.9%. Ford, Ram, Toyota, and Nissan combined for an 8.7% year-over-year increase to 94,225 units. The Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra’s decline equalled a loss of 4960 units compared with February 2013.
With the Econoline passing the torch to the Transit Connect at the end of this year, Ford is in the process of moving production of the F-650 and F-750 from Mexico to Ohio in time for the medium-duty trucks’ redesign for 2015.
In addition to pledging to do business differently in the wake of a 1.6-million vehicle recall over a faulty ignition switch and the decade-long delay behind the recall, post-bankruptcy General Motors may find itself protected by its former self before the court of law for any accidents resulting from the switch.
Rumored to be in the early stages of development, the fourth generation of the Jeep Wrangler could have an power-retractable top as one of a few items designed to attract more customers to the off-roading legend.
A combination of income tax refunds issued in January and February with accessible financing have boosted used-car prices overall in the first two months of 2014.
In a study conducted by Roy Morgan Research, one in eight Australian consumers prefer locally made vehicles for their next new-car purchase today, down from one in four a decade earlier.
Full disclosure: I’m a huge Lamborghini fan. Enough of a fan that I can get a little worked up about the brand’s directional wobbles over the past decade. Make no mistake, though: if my budget would stretch to a Murcielago, I’d have one. (About the Aventador, I’m a bit diffident.) Ferrari’s transformation from manufacturer of unreliable but pretty cars to merchandising machine and tyrannical allocation scheme has made Lamborghini seem much cooler by comparison. The clinical precision of the Gallardo makes the Dino-successor Ferraris look a bit try-hard and the big twelve-cylinder supercars have the swagger that the FF, 612, and F12berlinetta seem to be deliberately avoiding.
But there are times that one simply wants to turn one’s head away from the catastrophe that is Lambo’s Ferrari-aping merch scheme, and this is one of them.
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The largest single shareholder in the Ford Motor Company died in his sleep last night from pneumonia-related complications. Mr. Ford sat on the board (hey, that rhymes!) for fifty-seven years, owned the Detroit Lions NFL team, and was at least partially responsible for the Continental Mark II.
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Siegfried Marcus’ first motorcar circa 1870
Note: Our colleagues at Jalopnik published a post about Canadian inventor Henry Seth Taylor’s 1867 Steam Buggy and whether he should be credited with inventing the automobile. Taylor and his invention certainly deserve mention in the history of the automobile, but there is a historical record that three years before Taylor’s steam powered Buggy hit the road another inventor, Siegfried Marcus, had already powered a vehicle with gasoline. This post about Marcus was originally published in a slightly different version at Cars In Depth.
With something as evolutionary as the automobile, it might be a fool’s errand to try and determine just who “invented” the car as we know it. Should we date and credit the automobile to Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot’s fardier à vapeur steam wagon of 1770, or should the timeline start with something more practical, more similar to the modern automobile?
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Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn is optimistic for the future of the T-ROC, with the automaker willing to build the crossover if the customers want it.
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