Fiat’s top men promised that they will not cut jobs in Italy, despite Italian sales levels at 40 year lows. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne and Chairman John Elkann met Italy’s newly-appointed minister Flavio Zanonato, and delivered “assurances that Fiat intends to maintain employment,” Reuters says. Read More >
I’m driven
Everybody seems to be on the bandwagon for self-driving cars, everybody except the NHTSA. In new guidelines, the NHTSA urges states to allow use of self-driving cars “only for testing and requiring safeguards to ensure they can be taken over by a driver in the case of malfunction,” the Detroit News writes. Read More >
Toyota has a “good chance” of selling a record number of luxury Lexus vehicles this year, Mark Templin, executive vice president of Lexus International, told Reuters. With a weaker yen, those mostly made-in-Japan cars might actually turn a profit. Read More >
Export, ho!
Can’t blame them for having a lack of ambitions: Great Wall’s Chairman and Chinese billionaire Wei Jianjun “has set a target for Great Wall’s Haval marque to surpass Chrysler Group LLC’s Jeep and become the world’s best selling SUV-dedicated brand in three to four years,” Bloomberg writes. Read More >
Carlos Ghosn and Osamu Masuko CEO of Mitsubishi
Renault chief Carlos Ghosn is reaching out, forging foreign alliances with a heavy emphasis on emerging markets. “Faced with the slump in the European markets,” writes the French Figaro, Renault is “edging closer to Mitsubishi.” Nothing is official, and if you ask on the record, you get firm denials, such as the “this is not true,” told to Reuters by a Mitsubishi Motors spokesman. Behind the scenes, there are traces of heavy petting. Let’s look into them. Read More >
New and current Honda Fit EV customers can look forward to a reduction in their lease costs.
Well, folks, the day has come. You’ve shined your shoes. You’ve worn your good suit. You’ve called your wife and excitedly announced: “Honey, I’ll be late tonight!” You’ve refreshed TTAC for days, weeks, months, only to discover that now, finally, they’re here: photos of the all-new BMW X5.
Of course, I’m kidding. You probably saw those X5 photos yesterday on Jalopnik and scrolled right past them, thinking: Do they have any Russian dash cam videos today?
But photos of an all-new X5 are a big deal. That’s because our nation’s streets will soon be flooded with them, each driven by someone who believes that no drive is complete without a little texting. And so, on the occasion of this grand unveiling, I’ve decided to take you through some of the BMW X5’s hallowed history.
Today’s Nikkei [sub] puts forth an interesting thought: Dependence on big pick-ups distracts the Detroit 3 on a global basis. Now, tiny kei cars could do the same to the Japanese. Writes the Nikkei:
“Part of the reason the Big Three U.S. automakers lost their international dominance is because they lagged foreign carmakers in implementing global strategies by clinging to large pickup trucks, which only do well in the U.S.” Read More >
The latest scuttlebutt has the Dodge Journey moving from Mexico to Michigan during its next redesign – and that could leave Chrysler’s plant in Toluca, Mexico without any product.
This is the 2014 BMW X5. It comes in brown, and will have a diesel option. Alas, there is no manual available like the first generation X5. It can also drive itself at speeds below 25 mph.
TTAC continues its coverage of the race for World’s Largest Automaker. Last year, around this time, we did not do too badly with our guesstimate that Toyota would finish the year as #1, GM as #2, and Volkswagen as #3. Let’s see how we’ll do this year. Read More >
Tow truck delivers Model S to charging station
Tesla “will triple its network of superchargers for electrical vehicles by the end of next month,” Elon Musk told Reuters. Read More >
Kawasaki Heavy Industries has developed “technology to produce fuel for cars from farm waste at a cost that is competitive with imported ethanol made from food products, such as sugar cane,” Reuters says. Read More >
Fiat can’t wait for a full merger with now again cash-rich and profitable Chrysler, but it will wait until its legal dispute with the UAW’s VEBA healthcare trust has been resolved. “We intend to wait for the Delaware verdict before moving forward on the merger” with Chrysler, Fiat Chairman John Elkann told Reuters. Read More >
Despite Victor Muller’s assurances that he is innocent, that he has not been accused of any crime, and that Sweden’s Economic Crime Authority most likely only wants to invite him for a friendly chat, Sweden’s Göteborgs-Posten thinks it knows who is the target of the investigation: Victor Muller, and Saab’s board. In the end, Victor Muller was alone on board. Says the paper: Read More >
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