As dark clouds bunch up over Europe the less healthy of the many European carmakers frantically look for friends that help them get through the hard times ahead. Fiat-Chrysler is “talking to everyone,” CEO Sergio Marchionne told Reuters. Marchionne isn’t picky when it comes to corralling companions: “We can be an active partner everywhere around the world.”

“Roughly, we’re looking at a number in the neighborhood of 20 percent of installed capacity that may be viewed in terms of being structurally redundant,” Marchionne said. I guess he wants (but does not dare) to say that every fifth car plant in Europe should be closed and its workers fired.

How does Marchionne want to do this? The American way: Read More >

In the last couple of weeks I have taken you to Oman, Israel, Belarus and Eritrea. Those of you that religiously read my column every week (endless thanks to you!) will remember that last week I also asked you which country you would want to travel to next. Well I have decided to grant not one, but ALL your wishes and the next few weeks will be dedicated to the countries you have requested.

Yes. I’m nice like that.

So this week we’re going to Chile, as per marjanmm’s wish. Why did I choose Chile? Because marjanmm was first to ask!

That’s right.

Now if you have ordered another country and couldn’t care less about Chile, I won’t get offended because I have prepared 159 additional countries for you to visit in my blog, so don’t sulk and click away!

In Chile, ‘Chevrolet’ and Nissan fight a very tight battle…

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Hear that chafing sound? It is analysts scratching their heads. They wonder why in the world would GM buy 7 percent of France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen. Bloomberg says this is about to happen. Neither GM nor PSA wants to confirm the deal. However, Bloomberg already has intricate details of the planned transaction, someone seems to be talking on deep dark background. Sounds like the odd couple is about to do it.

The question remains: Why? Read More >

Editor’s note: While our erstwhile Editor-in-Chief, Edward Niedermeyer, is on sabbatical, he will continue to weigh in on automotive issues in a (hopefully) weekly column entitled Blind Spot. This is the first installment.

Back in 2008, as the worlds of automobiles and politics headed towards a dramatic collision, the founder of this site and I had a series of conversations about political perspectives on automobiles. Though these conversations were wide-ranging, I kept coming back to the same conclusion: for all of the talk about guns as “tools of freedom,” it seemed to me that cars were even more worthy of the title. After all, most people use an automobile in the pursuit of freedom and mobility every day, whereas guns are (relatively) rarely used to secure individual rights.

But embracing the car’s role as a tool of freedom raises a number of troubling questions, most of them inherent to the very cause of liberty. Though cars make us more free as individuals, we must recognize that it comes at the cost of (among other things) dependence on gasoline, an “addiction” that many now seek freedom from. As new energy sources and mobility concepts become available, citizens will have to navigate a complex thicket of issues as they seek to maximize the freedom that personal mobility offers.

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We didn’t get to go to the World Mobile Congress in beautiful Barcelona, Spain, but it may have been nice to catch both the unveiling of the Ford B-Max and a keynote speech given by Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Co. Ford (the man, not the company) outlined an overarching vision for helping manage the estimated 2 billion cars that will be on the road by 2050.

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While strolling around in Nissan’s Tech Center, looking for secret cars, I lucked into this: Nissan’s first EV. Along with its Chief Engineer. Both retired. Read More >

This is the Kia K9, Kia’s first rear-drive flagship for North America. Kia has previously sold a rebadged Mazda 929 in Korea but those days are mercifully over.

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Today, Nissan had invited distinguished guests, from the Governor of Kanagawa province all the way to the chief of the local fire department, to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of the Nissan Technical  Center. Nissan’s main R&D hub is a city of 9,500, nestled into the foothills of Mount Fuji and surrounded by hills that keep it away from prying eyes. To get there, you must drive through a tunnel. Let’s see what we find here … Read More >

A topic covered before, but clearly worth covering again…

The author: Georg Kacher, seasoned European bureau chief for Automobile (i.e. not a newb)

The place: page 31, April 2012 issue

The car: Bentley Continental GT V8

The statement: “Alternatively, you can work the shift paddles to keep the engine revving between 4000 and 6300 rpm, where the power and torque curves approach, intersect, and then run almost parallel to the limiter.”

Today is Wagon Day, a brand-new made up holiday when North Americans are tortured with photos of wagons that will not be available to us despite our endless pleas. First up, the Volvo V40.

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Hyundai’s press materials list the 2012 Azera’s competitors as “…traditional large sedan sales leaders such as Maxima, Lacrosse, Avalon and Taurus.” But those cars were on the minds of exactly no one at the Las Vegas launch of the 2012 Azera. Only the Lexus ES350, the market’s leading 4-wheeled sensory deprivation tank, was on the lips of the assembled journos when talking about the Azera’s competition. Hyundai didn’t give us much time with the car, but one thing was clear.

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SUVs are one of the strongest segments in an otherwise lackluster Chinese car market. Who slept through this trend? The kingdom of trucks, Detroit. “Instead, Japanese and Korean makers prevail in the compact segment, while German companies dominate the luxury segment,” writes Reuters in an article about China’s infatuation with SUVs.

In China, 2.1 million SUVs were sold last year, up 25.3 percent from 2010, reaching 11.6 percent of light vehicle sales, data by J.D. Power and LMC Automotive show. In the same period, the Chinese market as a whole eked out only a small 2.45 percent gain. China already buys about half of the 4.1 million SUVs sold in the United States last year. A monster market, ignored by American SUVs. Read More >

One fond memory I have of the pre-recession era was cheap cars. A pristine 1992 Mercedes 190E in a garage kept red that I bought for $1000.  The  two year old 2002 Infinit Q45 that I bought for $23,600 and sold for $32,500. Heck, even the beaters.  Old late 80’s Town Car’s and Crown Vic’s with only 80k or so. The last of the good Saab 900’s. Volvo 240 wagon’s that had been given Volvo OEM components from day one. All of them I bought for $500… or less.

It had been a great time to be a used car dealer and an automotive enthusiast. I sold over 150 vehicles in a space the size of a driveway and had plenty of time to travel, do some local bid calling, and begin my writings at TTAC.  I was a happy man.

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Who needs a HUMMER when we have the absolutely insane $7.9 million Dartz Prombron Black Dragon Special Edition? Well, “we” will only have it if “we” all move to China. Dartz, the Estonian maker of the world’s most expensive and most whacko 4×4, celebrates the Chinese year of the dragon with this special edition craziness. Only 12 will be made for 50 million yuan each, and they will only be available in China, where they undoubtedly will be snapped-up in no time at all. Read More >

After we wrote about the February forecast of Edmunds, TrueCar asked whether we had seen their forecast. We had to admit that we had overlooked it, shame on TTAC.

The projections by TrueCar.com are similar to those of Edmunds and Kelley.

TrueCar expects new light vehicle sales in the U.S. to reach 1,088,321 units in February, up 9.6 percent from February 2011.  That forecast translates into a Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate (SAAR) of 14.3 million new car sales, up from 13.3 million in February 2011. Says Jesse Toprak, VP of Industry Trends and Insights at TrueCar.com: Read More >