Gone are the days here at TTAC where simply typing a phrase like, “You, Sir, are a usefully idiotic pawn of the Chinese government and a despicable fetishist of rubber pleasure devices” could get you banned from this site in two shakes of a Shanghai working girl’s tail. No longer. People say the meanest things about me and Derek, and we don’t care. Actually, Derek gets a little teary-eyed about it, so we rewrote his contract to specify that “PART IV. COMPENSATION FOR RIDICULE. Every time the phrase “game-changer”, complete with hyphen, appears on the site in obvious and plain reference to Derek Kreindler, he shall be compensated with one thousand dollars ($1,000) or two nights with a Lamborghini Aventador.”

But that’s not what we want to talk about right now. Actually, “we” means “I”; Derek’s out somewhere making it rain at a club while they tow his double-parked Aventador from the entrance.
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When the word “truth” is in the title of the publication, there’s an obligation to keep things factual. Also, I have an ego and don’t like to make mistakes in public. Much of what I write about involves automotive history one way or another and it annoys me when I come across inaccurate sources. Someone may use my work as a reference, I want it to be accurate. Due to a press release from the Detroit Grand Prix that was in error, and some inattention on my part, there were some inaccuracies in my recent post about the Tudor and Shinola watch companies racing sponsorships and how they might conflict at this year’s Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix. Read More >

In a statement made by Delphi Automotive this week, the supplier announced that they had more than doubled their net income in Q4 2013 to $298 million in comparison to $136 million in Q4 2012.

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Truck Mountain may still be held by the soon-to-be-lightened Ford F-150, but the fuel-efficiency battle in the valley below is already underway, thanks to Ram’s 1500 EcoDiesel pulling the highest mile-per-gallon highway rating of any light truck in the United States at 28 mpg.

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As a relatively low-profile Czech motoring journo, I couldn’t expect Elon Musk to hand me the keys for a long-term press loaner. Or any other kind of “official” experience with Tesla, as they aren’t even sold officially in our country. But I did manage to get my hand’s on one via a friend’s father is an avid fan of EVs.  As soon as the Nissan Leaf entered the European market, he bought one even if it meant to order it in Spain (about two thousand miles away) and have it trucked here. And when he learned about the Tesla Model S, he placed an early order, which made him one of the first few people in this country to own a Model S (a fully loaded P85 version, no less). Now, there are probably a dozen in Czech Republic. Read More >

The European automobile market may be pulling out of its six year sales slump, according to Automotive News, with  new car registrations in Germany up 7% in January from last year, joined by France, Italy and Spain reporting year to year increases for the month. German new car sales  for the month were 206,000, the third monthly gain out of the past four months and the best monthly percentage improvement since September 2011. Analysts caution, though, that the growth in the German market was in part due to discounting.

However, industry executives and analysts warned that underlying demand may not be robust as Germany’s growth was in part attributable to generous price discounts. Ernst-Robert Nouvertne, who operates two Volkswagen stores near Cologne, said “Incentives are the name of the game. Headline sales are looking good but profit per car is crumbling. The (German) market is still pretty strained.” Read More >

According to a report from consulting firm AlixPartners, each and every car in the Zipcar or car2go car-sharing fleets means 32 lost vehicle sales. Based on a survey of 2,000 adults in 10 major cities who use car-sharing services, the report says that Americans would have bought an additional half million new or used cars and light trucks since 2006 if they did not have access to those services. That figure is expected to grow to 1.2 million by the end of the decade.

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The last time we talked about a Camry SE on these less-than distinguished pages, the resulting article upset one of our contributors (a certain “Nurburgring race instructor”) so much that he quit the site in protest. That certainly wasn’t my intention. But I know that our hearts will go on.

Of all the comments that particular test attracted, both on and off this website, I don’t recall any of them having anything to do with a desire for hybrid power. Presumably, however, there is someone out there who wants the sportier appearance of the Camry SE and the now-legendary economy and durability of the Hybrid Synergy Drive, because now it’s possible to combine the two.
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TTAC (well, mostly this writer) has been enthusiastic about low cost cars, which are sold in Europe and emerging markets as a kind of no-frills, back-to-basics type of motoring for people who might previously have been able to only afford a knackered used car or something with two wheels. But Citroen – whose parent company PSA has been conspicuously absent from this space – is about introduce a new kind of low-cost car: one that has more emphasis on style, and an even more intense focus on low cost of ownership.

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Debuting their first new cars in four years, Tata took the wraps off the Bolt and Zest subcompacts, which are designed specifically to sneak in under four meters in length, to get around vehicle taxation schemes.

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Mike Jackson, the CEO of AutoNation, the largest retail dealer group in the United States, told CNBC that the domestic automakers are carrying inordinately large amounts of inventory. Telling Just-Auto that U.S. automakers have a “pretty bizarre” way of calculating inventories that end up justifying high inventory levels, Jackson said, “But if you cut through the bogus calculations and look at dealer inventory for the Detroit Three, it’s over a 100-day supply. And it simply doesn’t need to be there.” Read More >

A Renault spokesman has confirmed to Just-Auto that the company has discontinued assembly of the electric version of the Fluence, the Fluence Z.E. The Fluence Z.E. was built in the OYAK-Renault’s plant in the Turkish city of Bursa.

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Automotive News is reporting that last week’s conference call on Chrysler’s quarterly financials and the structure of the newly merged Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, CEO Sergio Marchionne said that Fiat Chrysler managers were considering whether or not to build a third pickup truck assembly plant to cope with high demand for Ram light and heavy duty trucks. Marchionne had earlier vowed to never build another assembly plant in North America and in the conference call he reiterated his preference to run existing pickup plants in Warren, Mich., and Saltillo, Mexico, “flat-out.” Read More >

U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told Automotive News that U.S. regulators will soon begin working on telematics regulations that will require new cars and light trucks sold in the United States to be equipped with systems for vehicle to vehicle communications. The impetus is safety, as the telematic systems can be integrated with semi-autonomous crash avoidance systems.

Foxx didn’t set a date when the mandate would become effective, but he made it clear that he supports the technology, calling it a “moon shot” and saying that it could prevent 70 to 80 percent of crashes involving drivers that are not impaired. Read More >

Carlos Ghosn, head of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, told the Automotive News that the companies will jointly develop two vehicle platforms that, shared between the two companies, will each provide the basis for more than 3 million vehicles by 2016.

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