With their portfolio of hybrids and EVs in place in the United States, Hyundai/Kia are now reconsidering their stance on bringing diesel power over to the market.
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Subaru USA didn’t sell as many Imprezas in 2013 as they did in 2012. By Subaru’s reporting methods, Impreza sales have fallen this year, as well, sliding 0.3% through the first three-quarters of 2014.
But Subaru narrowly defines the term, “Impreza.” That’s a good thing, as too many automakers don’t provide us with longed-for breakdowns in their monthly sales releases. (Examples: F-Series, Silverado, Ram, the four-bodystyle E-Class.) However, this means a cursory glance will suggest that the Impreza range is increasingly less relevant in Subaru showrooms.
In fact, that’s not the case at all. Read More >
Channelling its inner Viking death metal chef spirit, Volvo has unleashed a concept 2-liter turbo-four delivering 450 horsepower with the help of three turbochargers.
In anticipation of high demand for the 2015 Ford F-150 — as well as covering its bases ahead of negotiations with the United Auto Workers in 2015 — the Blue Oval is hiring 850 employees to help assemble the reborn king of Truck Mountain at the automaker’s Dearborn, Mich. plant.
The European Union is withdrawing a mandated quota of EV and hydrogen refueling stations that are to be installed in member states by 2020. Instead, the governing body is asking each member install an “appropriate number” of publically accessible EV stations by the start of the new decade, with hydrogen due by 2025 for those who choose to develop the resource.
This week’s AMA is a double-header, courtesy of reader Mark, who might be the only person who will cop to owning both a Cadillac Catera and a Jaguar X-Type.
I have a fond spot in my heart for the Pontiac G8. I was once the proud owner of a White Hot G8 GT. I bought it new in March of 2009 and somewhat regrettably traded it in June of 2012, putting nearly eighty thousand loving miles on it along the way—you can see a picture of mine from the day I brought it home at the top of this page. Sure, I endured the occasional broken crankshaft, and yes, the interior would have been better suited to a $15K Cobalt or G3 rather than a halo car, but what a machine! It combined 361 horsepower derived from a massive 6.0 liter V8 engine with all the interior and trunk space anyone could ever need. Of course, there was also the much-less-desirable-but-still-decent V6 variant, well as the unicornish GXP, which was avaiable with a 6MT and shared the Camaro SS’ 6.2 liter LS3, generating a diff-crunching 412 horsepower.
Unfortunately, the untimely demise of Pontiac led to a very small production run for the G8—fewer than forty thousand of them were made in total. Therefore, on the rare occasion that I see one on the road (I actually saw my old car on the road recently), I can’t help but smile.
Lately, however, when I see one, I’m more likely to cringe than smile.
Just how much will Panasonic throw down on the table when it comes time to invest in Tesla’s new Gigafactory near Reno, Nev.? According to CEO Kazuhiro Tsuga, “tens of billions” of yen.
Looking to broaden Chevrolet’s green horizons, General Motors global product overlord Mark Reuss says a new EV is in the works, one that will join the Spark EV and the Volt. And just as TTAC reported earlier this year, the new vehicle will be based on the Chevrolet Sonic.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving. Around turkey-laden tables across the country today, Canadians will utter their thanks for family, cranberry sauce, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, warm socks, and Honda Civics.
In each of the last 16 years – a streak which began in 1998 – the Civic has been Canada’s best-selling passenger car. If Honda Canada stopped selling the Civic now, the lead built up by this hugely popular nameplate would nearly be sufficient for the Civic to end 2014 as Canada’s best-selling car.
Nielsen, who are better known for its television ratings system than much else, recently published a report narrowing down who exactly goes for connected-vehicle technology the most.
Short answer: Men 55 and over, college degree in one hand, $100,000 in the other.
Over 40 workers at the General Motors facility in Spring Hill, Tenn. recently found themselves on a list of “scab workers” published by United Auto Workers Local 1853, a list one anonymous employee says kicked-off an effort to pressure and intimidate into joining.
In a U.S. auto industry that’s seen total new vehicle sales rise 5.5% over the first nine months of 2014, car sales are up just 1% year-over-year.
Subcompacts are performing slightly better, rising 2.8% through the end of September. During the month of September, specifically, the subcompact category grew 4.9% as overall car sales rose just 2.2%.
Yet the majority of cars in the subcompact segment are selling less often in 2014 than in 2013, not just in September but over the course of 2014’s first three-quarters. Read More >
American consumers are on pace to buy and lease more new vehicles in 2014 than at any point since 2007, if not earlier. The seven largest automakers in the United States generate 77% of the market’s volume. For each of those seven, this chart breaks down the vehicle categories where their volume is created.
For Hyundai and Kia, this means 77% of their sales are generated by traditional passenger cars, and 37% of their own car volume with the Sonata and Optima. At Ford Motor Company, 30% of their U.S. volume is derived from pickup truck sales, the F-Series lineup. At the Chrysler Group, minivans are responsible do 14% of the load-lugging. Read More >
In my recent reviews of entry-level cars in Brazil (VW up! and Fiat Uno), I spoke of how these new cars are adding technology to confront newer cars sold in the category immediately above, that of the midlevel compact (Ford Ka). Entry-level car participation in the market is under such pressure, that there are few launches aimed directly at that segment, while the midlevel compact has received a plethora of novelties.
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