Quick: What does the Chevy Sonic have in common with the original Bugatti tourers? Simple: they were built to go, not to stop. Well, the Sonic isn’t necessarily built to “go” as such, but you get the idea.

In its continuing effort to make life easier for burned-out TTAC headline writers, General Motors announced their latest “Mark Of Excellence” today: a recall campaign covering 4,873 Sonics sold in the United States and Canada. What’s wrong with these Sonics? As John Mayer would say, something’s missing…

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Another day, another disappointment for American fans of the Indian automaker Mahindra’s rugged, diesel-powered trucks. Earlier rumors that Mahindra might build its trucks with Navistar in Alabama turn out to be false, as a press release published at MahindraPlanet notes

MUMBAI, India, December 17, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — “There have been reports in certain quarters of media and online space stating that Navistar USA will produce Mahindra’s T20 and T40 pick ups in Alabama, USA in 2012, which are completely baseless & incorrect. If & when there are any material developments, Mahindra & Mahindra Limited will communicate them directly and transparently.”

If you haven’t given up on the Mahindra dream, now might be a good time to consider it…

Reasonable minds can disagree about the wisdom of the auto bailout, but according to analysis by the EPA and Department of Transportation (based on data from the Department of Energy and auto forecasters CSM), the Government’s rescue of GM and Chrysler may not have been the best idea (at least from a market perspective). According to data buried in the EPA/DOT proposed rule for 2017-2025 fuel economy standards [PDF here], Fiat-Chrysler is predicted to be the sick man of the auto industry by 2025, losing over half of its 2008 sales volume, while GM is expected to improve by only 3%, the second-worst projected performance (after Aston-Martin). In terms of percentages, even lowly Suzuki and Mitsubishi are projected to grow faster than The Mighty General. Ouch.

On the other hand, the proposed rule notes that data will be finalized before the final rule comes out. Besides, the agencies appropriately admit (in as many words) that projecting auto sales so far into the future is one hell of a crapshoot. Still, with the obvious exception of “Saab-Spyker” and with some skepticism about the projection’s optimism about overall market growth aside, these are not the craziest guesses I could imagine. Who knows what the future holds, but it certainly is a bit troubling that the government’s own data suggests the two automakers it bailed out may well have some of the weaker performances of the next 14 years. At least the Treasury could have sold off their remaining GM stock before this report was released…

A week ago, we predicted that „Toyota will start the year with guns blazing and the lines rolling.” Toyota agrees, and delivers the numbers to back-up the claim. According to data released today, Toyota and Lexus alone intends to grow global production in the coming year by 24 percent to 8.65 million units. This number does not include Daihatsu and Hino. This is an ambitious plan, slightly exceeding the peak level of 2007.

Toyota/Lexus Projections 2012 (Ex Daihatsu, Hino)

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One question that Bertel and I find ourselves returning to again and again in our regular conversations is “what will be the first Chinese-made car sold in North America?” We’ve agreed for some time that the groundbreaking first Chinese-made import would come from an established non-Chinese brand, rather than one of the many newer Chinese brands, but our usual suspects typically ranged from GM to Volvo (EV maker Coda builds what are essentially “knock down” Chinese made-cars, but technically they qualify as US assembled, as does Wheego). I don’t think the name “Honda” ever came up in these discussions, but sure enough, the NY Times reports

the Japanese automaker Honda is crossing the threshold by importing subcompact cars into Canada from one of its plants in China. This month, Honda Canada began receiving its smallest model, the Fit, from China instead of Japan, as part of a strategy to produce more vehicles outside its home country.

The decision allows Honda to eke out higher profit in a segment of the auto market where margins are extremely thin, especially since the high value of the yen cuts into all Japanese automakers’ overseas operations.

“The yen has been getting stronger and stronger,” Jerry Chenkin, executive vice president of Honda Canada, said on Tuesday.

Of course, Honda has yet to bring a Chinese-made Fit to the US, where antipathy towards Chinese products is greater and automotive diversity is lesser than in the Great White North. Also, the importation of Chinese Fits is seen as a temporary response to the high Yen, while Honda builds a new plant in Mexico for Fit production, scheduled to open in 2014. Still, this is a significant development, presaging the inevitable importation to the US of Chinese-built vehicles.

Ever since Steve Girsky an his “merry band of hatchet men” touched down in Rüsselsheim, Bertel has been warning that GM’s European division was about to embark on a serious cutting binge. But our worst fears, namely that Opel could go away entirely, have yet to be realized. Instead it seems that self-destructive mutilation will be attempted first, in order to stem the gushing red ink at Opel where at least €1b in losses are expected next year. Automotive News Europe [sub] reports that the first round of cuts will hit Opel’s Internationalen Technischen Entwicklungszentrum (ITEZ, “International Technical Development Center), as an IG Metall union document foresees some 1,420 product development position cuts (from a staff of some 6,000).

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Quick: Where is the largest plant in the Renault/Nissan empire? France? Japan? Tennessee? Nope. It’s in China. At least since today it is.

Today, Nissan’s joint venture with China’s Dongfeng officially opened phase II of its plant in Huadu, near Guangzhou, the former Canton. Across the street from the current plant, a new factory was erected that adds capacity of 200,000 units to the current 400,000 unit per year facilities. Read More >

It’s been a fascinating year for the compact car, as all six of the segment’s leading competitors brought out new or updated models over the last 18 months. But as our Chart Of The Day shows, the competition has hardly sent the segment into overdrive, as after an early-year boom, compact car sales have slackened considerably. Intriguingly though, Honda and Toyota, which lost sales early this year due to supply interruptions in the wake of the Japanese Tsunami, seem to be the only brands with recovering compact sales. What’s especially interesting about this is the fact that Toyota’s modest refresh and Honda’s poorly-received new Civic were once widely considered by automotive pundits to be under threat from the resurgent competition. Indeed, Honda’s Civic has been especially hard-hit by media criticism, earning a harsh review from TTAC’s Michael Karesh, losing its coveted “recommended” rating from Consumer Reports, and engaging in some ugly media-bashing. But now that the Civic seems to be one of the only compacts to enjoy a late-year sales rebound, Honda’s announcing that it will be upgrading the Civic for the 2013 model-year, just one year after the new model was introduced.

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We have been writing about it for years, now, Bloomberg wakes up to it:

“Volkswagen AG will kick off its biggest technology overhaul in almost two decades.”

Bloomberg still has a hard time of coming to grips with the technological revolution. It’s not just that “more than 40 models will use a set of standardized components such as axles, steering columns and chassis,” as Bloomberg puts it. This is not a parts bin exercise. Through the Volkswagen empire, cars don’t just share the same steering columns. They are designed using standardized building blocks of a common kit architecture. Read More >

With only two more weeks to go in the calendar year, TTAC names GM the world’s largest automaker of 2011, followed by Volkswagen and Toyota.

Pummeled by a catastrophic tsunami in March, followed by a massive flood in Thailand, Toyota’s production and sales numbers will take a serious hit in the calendar year 2011. Global production of Toyota and Lexus vehicles is forecasted to be “at least 6.9 million units, as compared with 7.7 million units last calendar year,” Toyota spokesman Dion Corbett told TTAC. Global sales for the calendar year 2011 are forecasted to be “at least 7 million units, as compared with 7.7 million units last calendar year.”  Corbett confirmed that this number is without Daihatsu and Hino.  Projections for these units are not available.  Based on October data, we add another 900,000 for Daihatsu and Hino, which should bring the Toyota total into the neighborhood of 7.8 million units. Read More >

Yes, many cars to do not meet their EPA ratings. But few are as far off as the Elantra… In your Elantra advertising, you prominently feature only your “40 mpg” claim. Yet the dismal independent test and real-world results for your city and combined mileage claims mean buyers are unable to make accurate comparisons. This is in effect a deception, and one we ask you to discontinue in your advertising while awaiting a welcome EPA re-evaluation.

This letter, sent to Hyundai USA CEO John Krafcik yesterday by “Consumer Watchdog”, doesn’t mince words. It does, however, raise two questions:

1) What exactly is “Consumer Watchdog”?
2) Does the organization have a valid point?

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GM stopped production of the Cruze today at its Lordstown, Ohio, factory at around 1 p.m. EST, Reuters reports. Production is stopped due to an unspecified “supplier issue.” Says Reuters:

“GM spokesman Chris Lee declined to describe the nature of the supplier issue, saying only that the No. 1 U.S. automaker was looking to restart production as swiftly as possible.”

The Freep did read in the Youngstown Vindicator that the problem relates to “material provided by a supplier … that could impact customer satisfaction with our products.”

After intensive study, the automaker and union-funded think tank, the Center For Automotive Research (CAR),  came to the conclusion that closing down automotive manufacturing sites is not as catastrophic as originally thought. Nearly half of the 267 U.S. automotive manufacturing plants that had been shuttered since 1979 have come back to life. Read More >

Yesterday, you had your private tour of the Tokyo Motor Show, and you could not find a more competent and entertaining  tour guide  than Nissan’s head designer Francois Bancon. (Officially, „Deputy Divisional GM for Product Strategy.”) The former Renault man has seen the world. He was a Frenchman of the first hour at Nissan.

If you want to see the Japanese market through European eyes, then please tag along for part deux of the tour, where Bancon talks about Suzuki, Honda, and Daimler.  Listen closely to what Bancon says about Daimler.  Renault/Nissan and Daimler have an alliance, and Bancon knows where it is heading

Executive summary for the video-impaired: Read More >

At the beginning of this year, the United Auto Workers pledged that it would launch a campaign to organize the foreign-owned, non-union “transplant” factories in the US, threatening to tar uncooperative automakers as “human right abusers.” The campaign initially lost steam, but the UAW stuck to its pledge, re-iterating on several occasions that it would organize “at least one” transplant factory by the end of 2011. With one month left to accomplish that goal and no signs of progress in sight, the UAW has officially called off that goal. In fact, the UAW now hopes to simply pick an automaker to target by the end of 2011. Spokeswoman Michelle Martin tells Bloomberg

At this point, our hope is to make a decision about who we’re going to target by the end of the year. But obviously, we won’t have the organizing campaign completed by the end of the year.

This is not too surprising, considering the UAW announced last week that it would be focusing on dealership pickets initially rather than factory organizing. And sure enough, the first dealership picket has begun, targeting Hyundai dealerships. And yet, says Martin

This has nothing to do with the domestic organizing campaign. Hyundai is not the target.

Huh? If the UAW is not committing to organizing Hyundai’s assembly workers, why picket Hyundai dealerships?

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