Nissan USA announced on December 16, 2014, that the next Titan, the second Titan, the first all-new Titan since 2003, will be introduced at 2015’s NAIAS in Detroit on January 12, 2015.

Hardly altered since the production truck arrived for the 2004 model year, the Titan is now somewhat embarrassing. Yet while the truck never had the potential to tackle full-size pickup trucks from Ford, General Motors, and Ram – Toyota can’t either – in the same way Nissan’s Altima can outsell their midsize sedans and Nissan’s Versa their subcompacts, initial U.S. volume was respectable. Read More >

Were you hoping to buy an American-made Subaru XV Crosstrek? You can breathe now.

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The Ford F-150 won’t be the only new model sporting an aluminum body: the Cadillac CT6 — which won’t look much like the Elmiraj concept, alas — will enter production with the metal, as well.

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Love the idea of hydrogen, but can’t fathom paying nearly $60,000 for a Toyota? What if it were a Lexus?

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Still have a Tesla Roadster in your garage? Merry Christmas: You now have a 400-mile range EV, courtesy of CEO Elon Musk.

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It’s not a bad gig. 45 different vehicles have appeared in my driveway in 2014, delivered here by a man who’s driven around 110,000 miles this year ferrying press cars across the country and organizing product launches.

A summer trip to Prince Edward Island also presented me with an opportunity to spend a morning with a Tesla Model S. The year’s not over. Something else, probably a GMC Yukon Denali, will be exchanged for the black Acura TLX that we’ll drive across town to my parents’ for Christmas dinner later today.

I can’t remember when I started forgetting things, but while I can list all 50 states, I can’t immediately recall all the cars I drove this year and the ones which came before and after. Prompt me, however, and memories of each come flooding back into view. Read More >

Whether you’re unwrapping gifts under the tree or going for Chinese food and a movie, TTAC wishes everyone a Merry Christmas. All the best in 2015. We return to our regularly scheduled programming on December 26th.

The Takata airbag inflator problem illustrates a fine dilemma: quality standards across the auto industry are good, those for safety-critical devices are exceptional. The higher the standards, the more difficult it is to spot, much less address, potential problems. If there are only a handful of “incidents” reflected in accident or warranty reports, it requires luck to spot a correlation. Such reports aren’t necessarily high in quality. So even when there does appear to be a potential issue, small numbers and limited information make tracing the root cause(s) challenging and potentially impossible.

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Canadians registered more new vehicles in 2013 than any year in the country’s auto-buying age. Yet in 2014, that record was very nearly broken in the first eleven months of the year.

Auto sales in Canada through November 2014 rose 5.5%, a gain of 89,000 units compared with the first eleven months of 2013.

Despite a sharp 3.4% decline in the number of passenger cars sold in November, the Canadian auto industry was up 3.6% last month thanks to strong pickup truck volume (up 15% to 25,811 units) and continued improvement in the SUV/crossover category. Read More >

Ssangyong has trademarked two nameplates in America, ostensibly in preparation for an American launch.

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Christmas has come early! Our very own bigtruckseriesreview@youtube has sent us his review of the TESLA MODEL S P85D. Enjoy.

Two Chryslers, both alike in dignity
(In fair Miami, where we lay our scene)

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Ford 10 speed transmission cross section design pieced together from various patent disclosures

If a transmission has 5 clutches and for the realization of a gear ratio 3 out of the 5 clutches have to be engaged, there are a total of 10 possible combinations. The ZF 8HP and GM 8L transmission families have 5 clutches of which 3 are engaged for any gear state, but only have 9 out of these 10 states are present and accounted for (8 forward gear ratios along with 1 reverse gear ratio). The 10th combination leads to a situation where the transmission would want to turn in forward and reverse direction at the same time, i.e. the transmission would lock up the output shaft and potentially self destruct.  The Ford 10R transmission design has 6 clutches and 4 are engaged for any given gear ratio. This gives us 6C4 or 15 possible combinations, 11 of which are used to yield 10 forward gear ratios and 1 reverse gear ratio. The 4 other combinations do not yield a functional transmission gear state or put the transmission in Neutral.

In the last article on the Ford 10 speed transmission we looked at some of the design details of the Ford 10 speed RWD automatic transmission without going into the details of the actual power flow for the various gears. In this article, a detailed analysis of the power flow is presented along with the gear ratio calculations and shifting operation of the transmission. Just like the last article on the subject, the information is based on invention disclosures by Ford. The most relevant patent for the purpose of understanding the power flow is US Patent #8545362.

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With fuel prices still falling as of this writing, the U.S. Energy Information Administration issued a report forecasting an average of $550 in savings at the pump for a typical family in 2015.

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Try to conjure up in your memory the Subaru B9 Tribeca’s early days. No, we’re not talking about those TTAC-oriented Tribeca memories – I’m far too new at TTAC to delve into the site’s ancient history. No, think back to when the biggest Subaru crossover was downright common.

Yes, “common” might be a bit of a stretch. But Subaru sold more than 18,000 of these beasts in 2006, the Tribeca’s first full year on the market. (Subaru sold nearly 15,000 Tribecas in the final eight months of 2005, an even healthier sales rate. So yes, the decline began early on.) The B9 Tribeca was America’s 167th-best-selling vehicle in 2006, which doesn’t sound very high, but isn’t very low, either. 134 different nameplates generated fewer sales. Read More >