Toyota is the king of the hybrid hill, but they have been accused of dragging their heels on pure plug-ins. Then Toyota plunked $50m on Tesla (and convinced them to move into the NUMMI plant.) This got people thinking. Some thought it was just an elegant way to unload the NUMMI plant. Some saw it as the beginning of Toyota’s electric future. Half a year later, Toyota puts their concrete plans on the table. Read More >

Mazda is passing the hat around to collect the money to buy out most of Ford’s remaining share, and what looks like half of Japan is chipping in. As many as 10 firms will purchase the Mazda shares that are still held by Ford, says The Nikkei [sub]. Ford plans to cut its 11 percent stake in Mazda to a symbolic 3 percent. Read More >

Establishing R&D centers in China by foreign automakers is a huge trend. Of course, the trend was led by GM, which already has an alphabet soup of tech centers (PATAC, CAERC, and CATC) in the Shanghai area. Now, Toyota follows with their own. Following prevailing fashion, it will be called TMEC. Read More >

The Wall Street Journal [sub] reports that, after selling a mere 9,000 units last year, the Honda Civic will be retired from the Japanese market. For perspective, the Civic sold 609,000 units worldwide last year. According to the report

Sales of the Civic in Japan reached their largest annual volume of 177,000 vehicles in 1975, accounting for 71% of the company’s overall domestic sales that year.

What happened to the Civic? For one thing, it got bigger… and Japan didn’t. The 2011 Civic is 32 inches longer than the big-in-Japan 1975 model and weighs nearly twice as much (1,495 lbs in 1975, 2,630-2,830 lbs today). And by the looks of things (above), the forthcoming Civic refresh isn’t going to bring a whole lot to the table either, besides a corporate grille. There’s been a lot of chatter of late about Honda and its loss of “mojo”… the fact that the Civic has lost relevance in the Japanese market shows just how far Honda has come from its roots. No wonder a little mojo was lost along the way.

As mentioned in an earlier article, I’m getting old. Far too old to understand the younger generation. But with experience comes cynicism (maybe that should be a TTAC slogan?). The more things change, the more things stay the same. In the recent cutbacks, which the new UK government introduced, a fund called the “Grant for Business Investment Scheme” (GBI) is to be phased out by 2012. The fund was used by Nissan for their plant up in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. Production of the Leaf came to the UK on the back of a £20.7m grant from the GBI fund. Well, Nissan didn’t take too kindly to the news of the dry money well, says the Daily Mail. Read More >

Unless you plan a trip to Toyko, you probably aren’t concerned about the exchange rate of the yen. Is a Japanese car on the list of your possible purchases? Then you should be concerned. Those prices will go up. Read More >

Toyota will no longer stand on the sidelines and leave the huge (joke, joke) EV market to Mitsubishi and Nissan. The Nikkei [sub] has it that Toyota will start marketing an all-electric car in Japan in 2012. Read More >

For decades, car dealers had nightmares about being put out of business by non-car dealers. Cars at Costco? S-Class at Sam’s Club? Except for occasional trials that always flopped, it never happened. As it turns out, not big box stores, but the manufacturers themselves are the dealers’ biggest nightmare. Instead of facing competition that tries to sell cars along with detergent and 2 for the price of 1 peanut butter, car dealers are being culled like mad cows. Read More >

Audi’s sales in Japan went down 20 percent in October. The macro-oriented crowd points at the fact that the domestic Japanese market was down 26.7 percent in October, and that Audi or its dealers have no reason to complain. And what are Japanese Audi dealers doing? They are complaining. They say that they have enough buyers, but not enough cars to meet the demand.

They all go to China. Read More >

Toyota’s legal problems are piling up. It is now being alleged that they killed a lawyer. The New York Daily News reports that 79-year-old lawyer Ernest Codelia Jr died of carbon monoxide poisoning and his partner, Mary Rivera was brain damaged. And their Lexus is being blamed. How come? Read More >

Despite the riproaring profit numbers, there is trouble in Toyota City. The ever appreciating yen is gobbling up ToMoCo’s profits. Message from Toyota to the Japanese government: “Do something, or we leave.” Read More >

When GM was in its final throes (about 2000 onwards) it was quite easy to see that GM would go under. Even though they were posting records profits, anyone but the shills knew that these profits came from the SUV boom and not from any long term sustainable plan. That’s fair to say, right? So now let’s move to Toyota. The cry I hear, these days, is “Toyota is the new GM! Toyota is the new GM!” (Why people have to say things twice, I’ve no idea. I’m not deaf, just stupid.) And there is certainly some evidence to suggest that. Piling on the incentives, suspect quality, etc. But then something comes along which, seemingly, blows that theory out of the water. Read More >

Toyota is probably feeling a little unloved right now. The US government has been trying to burn them at the stake, Chinese buyers are shunning them and even the Canadians are even saying “No, eh?” (My experience of Canadians is pretty much limited to “South Park” and “Due South”). But love and good news can come from the most unlikely of places. Read More >

Honda is finally doing something against the ever stronger yen: They are selling more cars to make up the difference. Honda’s CFO  Yoichi Hojo told The Nikkei [sub] today that his company can make profits, even with the yen at its current near-record high against the dollar, if it can increase its global sales by 200,000 vehicles per year. The figure is already in their current budget. In the current fiscal, which ends March 31,2011, the want to sell 3.615m vehicles worldwide, modestly up from 3.392m a year earlier. They’ll probably do better. Read More >

The Vancouver Sun reports that pretty much, across the board and across the border, Canadian sales rose. GM’s sale rose 11 percent year on year, Ford’s sales rose 8 percent and is now within a whisker of taking the number one slot from General Motors. Honda’s sales grew 14 percent. As did Nissan’s at 4.5 percent. And Hyundai-Kia who reports rises of 8.6 percent and 17 percent, respectively. Even the smaller players had reasons to celebrate. VW went up 21.5 percent. Mitsubishi has a stonkingly good month with sales rising, YOY, by 27.2 percent. Even Volvo’s sales grew 13.9 percent. Yep. Life is good, north of the border. Except for one. Read More >