With the introduction of the 2015 Honda Fit, the era of the Chinese car is coming to an end in North America. According to Honda Canada, all 2015 Honda Fits for both the United States and Canada will be sourced from Honda’s new plant in Mexico. That means an end to the importation of the Fit from Honda’s plant in China. Who knows what the next one will be for Canada (and the first one for the United States). Any guesses?
If you thought the $75,000 price of admission for ownership of the 2014 Cadillac ELR was too high, the luxury automaker may have another option for your consideration: A lease contract of $699/month with a few stipulations.
At a round-table discussion with reporters during last week’s Detroit Auto Show, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche proclaimed that any consumer wanting to be green with fuel cells had better be prepared for a decade of disappointment with the technology.
With the first month of 2014 sales nearly wrapped up, we’ll soon get our first look at how the Jeep Cherokee has fared, following the initial shipment of delayed units. Much has been made of the Cherokee selling 10,000 units in November and 15,000 units in December: it was a great storyline for Chrysler to promote in the run-up to NAIAS, and one for the hometown media (in both Detroit and Toledo) to rally around. Left out of the cheerleading was the fact that these figures accounted for the 25,000 units reportedly sent to dealers in one fell swoop. Can you say “pent up demand”?
But even if the Cherokee continued to sell at that pace – say, 15,000 units per month as an optimistic projection, where would that place it in the larger picture of the small crossover segment?
For automakers worried about meeting the 54.5 mpg CAFE mark by 2025, Johnson Controls — the ones who predicted the end of the steering wheel by 2025 — assured them that the target could be met, and without the need to turn everything into a plug-in or full EV.
Should General Motors new product boss Mark Reuss have his way, there may come a day when a new affordable wagon could be driven off the lot onto the highways and driveways of America.
Outgoing United Auto Workers president Bob King admitted that his timetable for a swift unionization of one of the auto plants in the Southeastern United States was overly optimistic.
As I bent down to get a better look at the FT-1’s rear three-quarter, I could see the Scion display in the background, far away and slightly out of focus-an ironic metaphor for a brand that had nothing new on display at the show. Their product line, aside from the FR-S, was aging and seemed to lack any of the real quirkiness the brand had when it was launched.
This got me thinking – what exactly was the point of Scion today? Read More >
It seemed like just the right case to start the public debate on driving-while-#GlassExploing: Google Glass aficionada Cecilia Abadie was snagged doing 80 in a 65 on a San Diego freeway while wearing the device. (Clearly, the real headline here should be: Attractive Woman Wears Nerd Glasses: Only In California.) The CHP ticketed her for the speed and also for “driving with a monitor visible in violation of California Vehicle Code 27602.”
Miss Abadie did not deny wearing the glasses.
Read More >
While the rest of the 5,200+ media-pass holders bounced from one laser light show to another, I and Raphael Orlove ( of Jalopnik) ventured north to cover a very different automotive event. There would be no makeup counter girls, no automaker swag and the coffee came from a vending machines not Italian espresso machine. We were headed to an automotive regulatory meeting that was scheduled to take place at the same time as the Acura reveal.
One of the main criticisms of Generation Why is the lack of hard data to support this column’s ongoing thesis: that the lack of interest in car ownership among millenials is related to economics, rather than any sort of anti-car/pro-environment/pro-urban ideological shift among young people. Now, a key study from Deloitte confirms our initial hunch: young people want cars, but cannot afford them, and the notion of a car-free future, with walking, cycling and transit replacing the automobile (whether privately owned or shared via a service like Zipcar) is an unrealistic fantasy that somehow continues to have currency.
The United Auto Workers will, for the first time since 1967, ask their membership to pay a 25 percent increase in dues to the union in order to shore up their strike fund and fight for better contracts, a move outgoing UAW president Bob King believes the membership will overwhelmingly support.
Chrysler Group LLC CEO Sergio Marchionne threw down the gauntlet for Jeep during an interview on Detroit’s WJR-AM at the 2014 Detroit Auto Show, proclaiming that the Rubicon-rated brand will move 1 million units onto the trails and highways by the end of this year.
Acura might be next to jump on the B-segment crossover train, with a new model based on Honda’s Vezel apparently under consideration. Automotive News reports that Acura is considering such a model for China, and possibly other markets, given the popularity of models like the BMW X1 and Audi Q3. The vehicle in question would be built in China for the Chinese market, but there’s no word on whether it would be produced in Japan for other markets. The SUV-X concept, above, previewed such a vehicle, but was shown only on the Chinese auto show circuit.
The launch of the Chrysler 200 means Chrysler has to make some decisions about its future; and the most likely course of action for them is to kill off the Dodge Avenger, right away.
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