Our friends at Carnewschina always keep an eye on the latest developments when it comes to bling in China. Today, they bring you a chrome covered  Buick Regal. The car in question is owned by a member of the of the Beijing Buick Regal club. Yes, they have a Buick Regal club. Read More >

Low cost cars? Who needs them. BMW’s CFO Friedrich Eichiner thinks that the premium segment is where the growth is. Eichiner projects the global auto market to go basically sideways by growing 4 percent in 2012. He expects the premium segment to grow twice as fast at 8 percent. That according to an interview given to Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung today. Of course that growth is not spread evenly around the world. Eichiner predicts that the European car market will remain flat this year. Growth potential is seen in the U.S. and China. Read More >

An op-ed piece in  The Washington Post praises the wisdom of Congress that refused to renew the 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for corn-based ethanol and the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, thereby exposing alcohol to the rough treatment of the market. Also not extended was the tax credit for installing a charger at home or in a commercial location.

The WaPo thinks killing the $6 billion incentive to turn corn into fuel, and letting EV owners buy their own charger was righteous, but only a half-measure. Congress should have finished the job and should have finished handing out $7,500 tax credits to buyers of EVs. The WaPo thinks it’s a waste, and the technology is going nowhere. Read More >

When U.S. new-vehicle sales will be announced tomorrow, there should be gains of around 10 percent compared to December the year before, a panel of 30 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters reckons. The gain will mostly go on account of the fabled pent-up demand, which suddenly is a bad thing. Gains are linked to buyers who delayed purchases do not indicate a strengthening economy, analysts tell Reuters. Read More >

First it was Honda that had issues with TrueCar. Now, it is regulators in several states, along with dealer associations that claim that TrueCar’s business model is at odds with “long-standing state laws designed to protect the interests of car dealers and shoppers,” as Automotive News [sub] reports. Says AN:

“Regulators in Colorado, Wisconsin and Virginia have issued bulletins to dealers or sent letters to TrueCar concluding that legal problems exist with TrueCar’s business model of charging dealers for leads that turn into a sale. And dealer associations in three more states — California, Kansas and Ohio — say members who use TrueCar may be violating state law.”

This looks like an opening volley of an all-out war. Read More >

China has 1.4 billion people, and despite rumors to the contrary, it has some 200 million children that have to be ferried to school every day. Since there were no rules for this sort of transport, local schools used whatever vehicles they could find to bring children to class without paying any attention to safety. Because of that, things went wrong now and then, especially in the messy countryside.

Since it was usually about small numbers, one or two children dead, nobody really cared. Recently, three big school bus accidents happened where altogether more than 30 children died. China suddenly woke up and the central government belatedly announced strict rules for school-buses. Sure enough, car companies jumped at the opportunity to earn some good old government money. They came up with brand-new ‘super-safe buses-’In this article, we take a look at three of them. Read More >

While on holiday in the great city of Nandaihe in Hebei province, I took a few pictures of a tired, old tricycle. Back home in Beijing, I completely forgot about it until I went through my holiday pictures a few days ago, actually looking for a car completely different. The old tricycle caught my attention again, and this time I decided to research the damn thing. Well, I found this oldie was an old neighbor … Read More >

Honda had been, on these pages and elsewhere,  accused of perpetrating vehicular boredom. At the Tokyo Motor Show, Honda even admitted its sins: “Frankly speaking we think that in the past few years the cars have been a bit boring,” creative director of Honda’s styling design development division Yoshinori Asahi told the Sidney Morning Herald.

A remorseful Honda president Takanobu Ito now tells The Nikkei [sub] that the criticism was warranted and that things will change. First, however, Ito denies responsibility for the flagrant boredom, using the trite and true “I just followed orders” defense: Read More >

Rodrigo writes:

Hello Sajeev,

I’m being offered a 2005 BMW 545i with 78,000 miles on the clock. Well-equipped with the sport package and manual transmission, it’s being offered at $18,000 (negotiable) by a co-worker’s family member who “wants to get rid of it quick so he can replace it with a new truck.” I’m told it’s been babied, but I’ll definitely be asking for service records and a chance to have it inspected by a German car indy mechanic that’s 3 blocks from my apartment. Read More >

This is the time of the year when we lift TTAC’s no flaming policy to chronicle a strange New Year’s custom: The burning of cars.

This year, the flames reached Hollywood. Over the three days before New Year’s Eve, 43 fires were set in Hollywood, most of them to parked cars. Read More >

Danny writes:

I am looking to buy an RX-7 (FC) convertible. I currently own a hand me down 2000 Honda Accord V6 from my mother in law. this car drinks WAY too much gas. 20 dollars in 89 octane gas DAILY! my commute is about 50 miles round trip. but I always loved Mazdas my dad had a 1984 323 with a 1.3, a 929 with the V6. I grew up playing with FDs in Gran Turismo. now that I can buy a cheap used car I was thinking about an FC convertible. BUT the major problem that I have is my job, I work for a Chevy dealership as a salesman. The GSM and the SM fired a guy who bought a Toyota Corolla S brand new.

I don’t wanna lose my job but I LOVE the FC and will not buy anything else, I know rotaries are as unreliable as an iron duke but that doesn’t matter. I have access to a repair shop so free labor is there. the parts might be a problem, though i think there are plenty of them in my local junk yard. so please help me figure out my dilemma I Don’t want to drive that POS accord in the summer heat, because it has no A/C, brakes are almost shot.

Read More >

Quick: What does the Chevy Sonic have in common with the original Bugatti tourers? Simple: they were built to go, not to stop. Well, the Sonic isn’t necessarily built to “go” as such, but you get the idea.

In its continuing effort to make life easier for burned-out TTAC headline writers, General Motors announced their latest “Mark Of Excellence” today: a recall campaign covering 4,873 Sonics sold in the United States and Canada. What’s wrong with these Sonics? As John Mayer would say, something’s missing…

Read More >

TTAC Commentator Jimal writes:

Sajeev and Steve,

I have one of those quandaries that most adults will go through sooner or later in life and I figured I would tap into you and the B&B for suggestions. My father passed away recently after a long illness and I’m helping my mother with settling his estate; cleaning up finances, etc. Among the things my father left behind were his 2005 Buick LeSabre, which my mother hates, and her cherished 1996 4-door Chevy Blazer. Read More >

Hongqi is the most famous brand in China when it comes to parade cars. In 2008 however, Chery tried to change that with help from the Chinese army and some astronauts. The Eastar parade car debuted in April 2008 and was used for a very special military parade. Or more like a parade of parades. Read More >

Yesterday, the alleged enthusiast blog did play its usual “if we would tell you, they would shoot us” about a possible suitor from India:

“We are not allowed to reveal the identity of the company yet, but we are allowed to reveal some facts about it. They are of course based in India but acts on a world-wide basis with much more than 100’000 employees worldwide. They are a multi-billion dollar company, that work on multiple fields such as energy, logistics, real estate and of course within the aerospace and automotive industry.” Read More >