Nissan showed a refreshed version of its all-electric Leaf today. Available to the Japanese market at first, it offers both more and less. Read More >
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Hi Steve and Sajeev,
I’m a longtime reader but first time commenter. I am looking for a late model “luxury” SUV for my wife who will only accept a BMW, Mercedes or Lexus.
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U.S. gasoline prices averaged $3.47 a gallon last week on weak demand, says Reuters. At the same time, record low mortgages instill life in the real estate market and rev up housing starts. All of this makes auto companies bet on a pick-up of pick-up sales. Read More >
While the Earth Dreams gasoline engines will underpin everything in Honda’s lineup going forward, Europe will get at least one diesel version – and we’ll probably miss out.
Japan, everyone’s favorite closed market, is about to get a couple new products from Chrysler, which will return to the market after a nearly four year absence.
Hmm. Fox News has the story about a bolt-on kit that converts just about any car into a plug-in hybrid that gets “ 50 percent to 100 percent better mileage” at a cost of only $3,000. But will it qualify for the tax credit and the HOV sticker? Read More >
The bidding kept going down and down at the inop auction. A sale where all cars are usually either dead or dying.
“$200! would-a-give-me $200! $100! $100! How about-a-hundred!”
Pretty soon the bidding went all the way down to $50. For a whole car! No takers. No sale. Until…
A year ago, we wrote about China’s suicidal brand binge:
“If Chinese carmakers will do what they say – and they appear to be utterly committed – then China will soon wallow in a sea of car brands nobody has ever heard of, and nobody will ever be able to remember. Sometimes, it feels as if it is the long-term goal to give each and every of the 1.3 billion Chinese his or her individual car brand.”
A year later, the brand disease claims its first victim, and it is Chery. Read More >
Buried deep within a piece on the proliferation of car plants in Mexico is a musing from University of Michigan professor Jeff Liker, about the future of Toyota and Mazda.
Mention China to Daimler managers, and with a pained look, they will quickly change the subject. China is the superpower when it comes to conspicuous consumption, and even more conspicuous choices of cars, and horrors, Mercedes is lagging far behind Audi and BMW, brands that previously had been looked upon with disdain by Daimler managers. Daimler won’t take it anymore, and wants to put a board member in charge of its lagging China business, says Der Spiegel. It will be a demanding job. Read More >
In a world where many alleged car buying services are little more than bounty hunters that feed willing buyers to the sharks, TrueCar stood out for truly identifying dealers with the lowest price. This is about to change. Earlier in the year, one of the dearest wishes of some car dealers and OEMs nearly came true: TrueCar, the Santa Monica company that empowered customers by giving them heretofore top-secret pricing information, was under fire from OEMs, dealers, and state regulators. Losing thousands of dealers in a matter of weeks, the company nearly went out of business.
“It was a near death experience, absolutely. The company almost died,” says Scott Painter, TrueCar’s CEO in an interview with Thetruthaboutcars. Read More >
The latest TWATs thread/shortlist update saw our commenters raise some valid and insightful questions about the awards process. I’ll try and tackle some of them below.
GM added more capacity to its Chinese Baojun brand by opening a factory in Liuzhou, southern China. Plant and brand are part of the SAIC GM Wuling joint venture, where GM holds 44 percent, SAIC 50 percent, with 6 percent held by Wuling.
Baojun started with the Baojun 630, a compact sedan based on an older Buick Excelle/Daewoo Lancetti platform, later the Le Chi was added, a rebadged Chevrolet Spark. By 2015, Baojun wants to have a total of five models, Reuters says.
Baojun is one of China’s joint venture brands, which we at TTAC like to call “fake Chinese brands.” Read More >
I stumbled upon this car at the Packard Proving Grounds‘ fall open house.
Of late I’ve been enamored of classic dual cowl phaetons. Forget Lamborghinis, if you want to make a statement, a dual cowl phaeton from the late 1920s or early 1930s is the definition of arriving in style. While getting some photos of a burgundy red Packard phaeton, I noticed that the classic behind the Packard was a Duesenberg, or rather it had a Duesenberg hood ornament. It turns out that it’s a one-off replica of a Duesenberg built for a man who owns a real Duesey.
While the Civic, CR-V and Accord rule the roost in developed places like Europe and North America, the situation is quite different in emerging markets like India. Sales of these vehicles is so low that Honda has indefinitely put on hold the launch of their next generation models. Instead, Honda has chosen to concentrate on entry-level hatchbacks and sedans. The Brio was one such product which was developed for emerging markets (like India, Thailand, etc) and the Brio Amaze is the sedan version of the Brio hatchback. Read More >
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