Juan Barnett of DC Auto Geek tweeted some interesting information last weekend regarding the last generation of CTS-V; just 1,200 examples of the CTS-V wagon were sold during the car’s lifecycle; by comparison, Cadillac sold a total of 254,000 examples of the CTS.
The fact that GM creates 6,000 jobs in China and will invest $11 billion in China until 2016 (and $16 billion in America) gets all the headlines. What falls under the table is the fact that someone else invests $76 billion each year straight into more than a million Americans. It’s the Japanese auto industry. Read More >
Today, dear readers, I come to you with some bad news: Chevrolet is cancelling the Tahoe Hybrid. This is a major event. So major, in fact, that – upon reading it – you probably took a deep breath, sat back in your chair, gazed at the computer screen, and thought to yourself: They still make the Tahoe Hybrid?
While Russia, Indonesia, Brazil and even Burma get the majority of the car industry’s attention when it comes to emerging markets, Iraq is also considered to be an up-and-coming place to sell cars. Iraqis have a funny habit of enjoying cars that are linked to foreign armies; American cars are fairly popular in the country, and so are Iranian machines too.
After the March 11 monster earthquake and tsunami wiped out large parts of Japan, headlines focused on the near-meltdown of Fukushima. Recently, I learned that there was a strong likelihood of a worldwide economic meltdown, caused by a microchip factory 80 miles south of Fukushima. Here is the story of how the crisis was contained. Read More >
The iconic Caterham Seven is on the cusp of celebrating four decades of uninterrupted production and sales; hard to imagine that one of Colin Chapman’s first attempts at a sports car would outlast everything he produced in the post-F1 era of Lotus – hell, it may even outlast Lotus itself.
According to media reports, Volkswagen workers received a hefty, inflation-busting pay rise today, giving the impression that VW workers are being especially coddled. Not true. Metal workers in all of Germany received a 5.6 percent raise in May (3.4 percent more from July on, followed by 2.2 percent starting in May 2014, to be exact.) Volkswagen workers received more or less the same. Read More >
The EU is very stingy when it comes to financial support for its automakers, and it prohibits most monetary assistance given by EU states to their industries. Of course, there are exceptions, and one such exception makes possible a $516 million loan to Renault. Read More >
Like the GM EV1, Volkswagen is planning a lease program from their XL1. While VW hasn’t announced pricing, the idea behind leasing is for VW to maintain a measure of control over the cars, specifically to ensure they’re located close to proper servicing centers and to avoid a secondary market for the cars. VW’s Mark Gillies confirmed to Autoblog that the lease program is the most likely avenue for customers to obtain an XL1.
When the NSX was last available for sale, the rest of the world knew it as a Honda product. But now that the next-generation NSX is intended to be a flagship for the Acura brand, Honda has run into a small problem – Acura doesn’t exist in much of the world.
The UConnect system used on everything from Jeep Grand Cherokee to the Dodge Dart to the Chrysler 300, is one of the better infotainment systems on the market. But the 8.4 inch screen is getting a companion with a smaller 5-inch screen, that will run on an entirely different operating system.
Each year, 24/7 Wall Street predicts which brands will disappear next year. It does so to dubious success. Of the 10 brands predicted to disappear in 2012, eight are still alive (more or less.) Only Saab is gone (some say it is not), and Sony Ericsson is now Sony. Of the 10 brands predicted to disappear in 2014, two are car brands, one is a buff book. Read More >
| Select EV Sales | |||
| Company | Vehicle | Units | Time-frame |
| Tesla Motors | Model S. | 4,900 | Q1 2013 |
| Fisker Automotive | Karma | < 2,000 | since inception |
| CODA | Coda | 100 | since inception |
| BYD | BYD e6 | 1,700 | 2012 |
| Nissan Motor | Leaf | 62,000 | since inception |
Source: ABC News |
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Better Place “filed a motion in an Israeli court to wind up the company, bringing an end to a venture whose battery charging network had aimed to boost electric car sales,” Reuters says. Read More >
A couple of years ago on Memorial Day, songwriter Connie Harrington was driving her car, listening to NPR on the radio. On the air, Paul Monti was talking about his son Sgt. Jared Monti, who had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, posthumously. Sgt. Monti, 30, was killed in battle in Afghanistan while trying to save the life of one of the men under his command, the third time in that firefight that he’d responded to calls for help. As the father described how he coped with his grief, Harrington pulled over and jotted down notes, particularly touched by the fact that Paul Monti still drives Jared’s 2001 Dodge pickup truck as both a memorial to his son and as a salve to that grief. It’s a four-wheel drive Ram 1500, a little beaten up, embellished with decals for the 10th Mountain and 82nd Airborne divisions, a Go Army sticker and an American flag.
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