Automotive startup Qoros Auto Company has an interesting business model. Backed with the manufacturing know how of China’s Chery corporation, and the funds of the Israel Corp. holding company, controlled by the Israeli Ofer family, Qoros is designing cars in Europe to be sold in Europe, but built in China.
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Chrysler announced Thursday that it will restart the second shift of workers assembling the all-new 2014 Jeep Cherokee at the Toledo Assembly Complex next Monday after a week of downtime spent upgrading the software for the SUV’s powertrain. Chrysler had idled the 500 workers, it said, because it had built a sufficient number of vehicles to launch and that it didn’t want to overwhelm delivery logistics, but it was clear from the fact that none of the built Cherokees were being shipped and that some of the idled workers were conducting lengthy test drives that quality control was a factor in the shutdown. Chrysler software and drivetrain engineers have been working on patches to the engine and transmission mapping software and the company says that it has made progress on the upgrade. Read More >
When I was around six years old someone told me girls were icky. I’m not going to lie and say that I have ever completely overcome that. Four decades later I can tell you that for the most part girls are OK, but on some levels they remain strange, unknowable creatures. To attempt to understand them is to flirt with madness. They like things I could never like, “The Real Housewives,” cats, and leafy green vegetables are just a few examples and, what is worse, they have the expectation that if they bring these things into the home that I will somehow learn to like them too. In the 1970s, marketers discovered that women wield a considerable amount of control over the household finances and they began to target of their ads directly at them. They also began to introduce a lot of products intended specifically to appeal to women and, although it is acceptable for a woman to purchase products not specifically aimed at them, it is a major mistake for a guy to ever buy something aimed at the female market. Picked up a box of tampons for your wife at the drug store lately? Then you know the shame involved. So, listen up now, this is the important part – the car companies are targeting our women folk and if you aren’t careful, you might just end up driving a “girls’ car.”
After a ruling in federal court, a Chicago area electric vehicle charging network may finally become completely operational. The quick charging stations were installed under a $1.9 million federal grant, but two contractors who installed them for the network’s original owner, 350Green, had been locked in a legal battle over ownership of the system.
While the engine behind the exceptional growth in new car sales is a hotly debated topic, leasing is proving to be an undeniable catalyst behind this year’s impressive new car sales numbers. Through June of this year, leasing accounted for 25.7 percent of new car sales, versus 22.2 percent in 2012. A decade ago, that number stood at just 17.5 percent.
In another sign that largest American automaker has come back from its 2009 bankruptcy, for the first time since 2005, a credit rating firm has judged General Motors’ corporate debt to be investment-grade. On Tuesday, Moody’s Investors Service raised GM’s rating to Baa3 from Ba1. Baa3 is Moody’s lowest rating that it considers worthy of investment.
The new 2014 Mazda3 is getting rave reviews for its improved looks to go along with Mazda’s typical best-of-class driving dynamics. Last month, Mazda had its best August sales ever in the United States, with slightly over 28,000 units sold.
The Thanksgiving leftovers are still on the table when the Christmas tree goes up at the Kreutzer house. Wherever we go in the world I am determined that some traditions will survive and Christmas is one of the constants that my children can count upon no matter how hard it might be for Santa to find us some years. We have a fair amount of decorations, mostly indoor stuff, and when the season has ended I usually spend New Year’s Day pulling everything down and carefully wrapping each piece in its own individual piece of newspaper. The newspaper wrapping is just as important to me as the decorations themselves because I know that in the years to come, those crumpled bits of newsprint will become little time capsules that will show where we were and what we thought was important. One thing I am always sure to include are the car ads.
When a short news blog item based on a couple of tweets from a Road & Track writer attending the press launch of the Alfa Romeo 4C gets over 150 comments before the end of the working day, it’s quite clear that there’s some interest in the car among our readers. Chris Harris was also at the launch of the 4C and you can watch him get giddy with it in the video above.
Comments can be bad for science. That’s why, here at PopularScience.com, we’re shutting them off.
Well alright then!
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For a car company that seems to have a perpetually precarious existence, things are going well at Mazda. Sales of their new range of products, like the CX-5 and the Mazda6, are relatively strong – I say relatively because the Mazda6’s volumes are about 10 percent of the Toyota Camry, and the whole brand sells fewer cars than Honda does Civics. But Mazda is banking on the new Mazda3 to help them get real traction in the market place. Not only is there a new car, but a new factory in Mexico as well, which will help insulate Mazda from then yen’s penchant for yo-yo’ing, as well as any future Fukushima-like disruptions.
Much has been made over the one future product announcement in Chrysler’s IPO filing. Apparently, it will be a an SUV based off of the Small Wide platform. A bit of detective work can help us figure out what it will be.
According to Road & Track’s twitter feed, the Alfa Romeo 4c, which the magazine is test driving, will arrive in the United States sometime in the second quarter of 2014 and will have a base price of $54,000. So far R&T reports that on the street the 4C has a very Ferrariesque character, while on the track not so much but that it’s still very fast. At that price it will compete with the Porsche Cayman, though with an annual production of less than 3,000 units planned, it’s safe to assume that some dealers may add on something to the price.
First photos and now surveillance video of a dramatic wreck involving a Lamborghini Aventador and what looks like a Mazda, in Brooklyn’s Mill Basin neighborhood, have been bouncing around the ‘ol innerwebz because the Lambo split in two, right behind the passenger safety cell, as it was designed to do. The driver was apparently unhurt and you can see him walk away from the accident in the video. Somewhere, Bela Barenyi is smiling. It was Barenyi, working for Mercedes-Benz in the early 1950s, who invented the concept of building a car with front and back “crumple zones” that would deform and absorb energy in the event of a collision, protecting the passengers in a more rigidly constructed, non-deformable safety cell. Read More >
Fifty years ago, in a dispute over a German tariff on chicken imported from the United States, the U.S. government retaliated by slapping a 25% tax on imported trucks and vans, apparently to impact the then popular VW Bus. As sales of small trucks from Japan increased, the American automakers embraced the so-called Chicken Tax as a means of reducing competition. However, now that all three American based car companies sell vehicles that have been made outside the United States, the tariff has come back to haunt at least Ford. Automotive News reports that Ford is now appealing a ruling by U.S. Customs and Border Protection that the way the company imports the Transit Connect commercial vehicle makes it subject to the 25% tariff as opposed to the much smaller 2.5% duty charged on small passenger vans. Read More >
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