Carnewschina has another indicator that the Chinese bubble must be bursting somewhere, somehow. I mean, didn’t we just got used to a Bling Dynasty, where any self-respecting supercar owner had his Lamborghini Gallardo covered in gold? If Chinese must economize, then they choose a gold-plated Infiniti G37?
Those heady days appear to be coming to an end. Instead of gold-plated Gallardos, now there are – silver-plated Ferrari 458 Italias. Read More >
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Tuesday rejected a class action lawsuit filed against the speed camera program in the nation’s capital. Motorists Henry Dixon and Cuong Thanh Phung argued the city violated their constitutional guarantee to equal protection of law by treating drivers pulled over for speeding more harshly than drivers mailed photo tickets for speeding.
The US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled against Nixon and Phung, finding no violation of the Fourteenth Amendment (through the Fifth Amendment) because drivers apprehended for speeding by police officers are not similarly situated to motorists photographed and accused of speeding by a photo radar device. The district judge reasoned that the camera is unable to confirm that the owner was the driver, so the greater punishment should not be imposed. The three-judge appellate panel agreed with the lower court’s conclusion, but for a different reason. The speed camera law can stand under the “rational basis test” used to insulate government actions from constitutional challenge.
The video above, which has been circulating through the Mustang community, shows what can happen when you pull the speed limiter from a stock Mustang V6 and run it to 135MPH: the driveshaft takes a hike and chews up everything around it. Obviously there are some compromises involved in delivering a 305-horsepower, rear-wheel-drive sporting car for the price of a loaded Chevrolet Cruze, and this is one of them.
On the plus side for Ford, the other famously fragile part of the current ‘Stang — the manual transmission fitted to all non-GT500 models — has just passed an NHTSA investigation with flying colors.
If, a few years ago, I would have suggested that the Chinese would buy more Mercedes, BMW and Audi than the Autobahn-addicted Germans, you would have suggested an increase in dosage. But the condition is incurable. China may overtake Germany as the world’s second-largest market for luxury cars, says Bloomberg. The largest market for upscale units remains the U.S. — until further notice. Read More >
A week ago, we predicted that „Toyota will start the year with guns blazing and the lines rolling.” Toyota agrees, and delivers the numbers to back-up the claim. According to data released today, Toyota and Lexus alone intends to grow global production in the coming year by 24 percent to 8.65 million units. This number does not include Daihatsu and Hino. This is an ambitious plan, slightly exceeding the peak level of 2007.
Toyota/Lexus Projections 2012 (Ex Daihatsu, Hino)
| Calendar 2012 | TMC | Diff |
| Worldwide sales | 8,480,000 | 20% |
| Japanese sales | 1,530,000 | 28% |
| Overseas sales | 6,950,000 | 19% |
| Worldwide production | 8,650,000 | 24% |
| Japanese production | 3,400,000 | 23% |
| Overseas production | 5,250,000 | 25% |
One question that Bertel and I find ourselves returning to again and again in our regular conversations is “what will be the first Chinese-made car sold in North America?” We’ve agreed for some time that the groundbreaking first Chinese-made import would come from an established non-Chinese brand, rather than one of the many newer Chinese brands, but our usual suspects typically ranged from GM to Volvo (EV maker Coda builds what are essentially “knock down” Chinese made-cars, but technically they qualify as US assembled, as does Wheego). I don’t think the name “Honda” ever came up in these discussions, but sure enough, the NY Times reports
the Japanese automaker Honda is crossing the threshold by importing subcompact cars into Canada from one of its plants in China. This month, Honda Canada began receiving its smallest model, the Fit, from China instead of Japan, as part of a strategy to produce more vehicles outside its home country.
The decision allows Honda to eke out higher profit in a segment of the auto market where margins are extremely thin, especially since the high value of the yen cuts into all Japanese automakers’ overseas operations.
“The yen has been getting stronger and stronger,” Jerry Chenkin, executive vice president of Honda Canada, said on Tuesday.
Of course, Honda has yet to bring a Chinese-made Fit to the US, where antipathy towards Chinese products is greater and automotive diversity is lesser than in the Great White North. Also, the importation of Chinese Fits is seen as a temporary response to the high Yen, while Honda builds a new plant in Mexico for Fit production, scheduled to open in 2014. Still, this is a significant development, presaging the inevitable importation to the US of Chinese-built vehicles.
Users of BMW Online in the US can now access Yelp in their vehicles, BMW says. Customers can yelp for everything from the best local restaurants and boutiques to parking garages and banks.
If you subscribe to the BMW Assist Convenience Plan and have a navigation-equipped vehicle capable of receiving the BMW Online you can yelp today, BMW promises. Mor apps are on their way.
I want you! To spend our national debt on a beater car!
145 vehicles. 100+ dealers. If there ever was a recipe for prices leaving the stratosphere and entering the ionosphere, it was Monday morning at Carmax.
On average Carmax makes $929 on every used car that they take in and sell to another dealer. If you take the latest quarterly profit they get from their wholesale auction operations alone ($78 million) and multiply it by four, you get over $300 million in earnings. That’s an amazing profit for what amounts to minimal reconditioning (if any) and a ‘quick flip’.
Then again, the car dealers who came to the sale were looking for the exact same thing.
Ever since Steve Girsky an his “merry band of hatchet men” touched down in Rüsselsheim, Bertel has been warning that GM’s European division was about to embark on a serious cutting binge. But our worst fears, namely that Opel could go away entirely, have yet to be realized. Instead it seems that self-destructive mutilation will be attempted first, in order to stem the gushing red ink at Opel where at least €1b in losses are expected next year. Automotive News Europe [sub] reports that the first round of cuts will hit Opel’s Internationalen Technischen Entwicklungszentrum (ITEZ, “International Technical Development Center), as an IG Metall union document foresees some 1,420 product development position cuts (from a staff of some 6,000).
Quick: Where is the largest plant in the Renault/Nissan empire? France? Japan? Tennessee? Nope. It’s in China. At least since today it is.
Today, Nissan’s joint venture with China’s Dongfeng officially opened phase II of its plant in Huadu, near Guangzhou, the former Canton. Across the street from the current plant, a new factory was erected that adds capacity of 200,000 units to the current 400,000 unit per year facilities. Read More >
As long as a police officer cites his own safety as the reason, he may frisk any motorist during a traffic stop and remove objects from his pockets, according to a ruling handed down Tuesday by the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. A three-judge panel evaluated whether Officer Joe Moreno was following the law when he searched driver Ivan Rochin after he was pulled over in Albuquerque, New Mexico for driving with an expired registration.
“No one likes being pulled over for a traffic violation,” Judge Neil M. Gorsuch wrote for the court. “Still, for most drivers the experience usually proves no more than an unwelcome (if often self-induced) detour from the daily routine. But not every traffic stop is so innocuous. Sometimes what begins innocently enough turns violent, often rapidly and unexpectedly. Every year, thousands of law enforcement officers are assaulted — and many are killed — in what seem at first to be routine stops for relatively minor traffic infractions.”
T.J. writes:
Hey guys,
The day I knew was coming but hoped would never arrive is here. I have to decide whether its time to replace my trusty ride, a 1996 Infiniti I30 with estimated 235k miles (odo was broken years ago, repaired, and reset to a mileage amount we now think is low. actual miles is probably around 250-260k). The issue is an oil leak.
It’s now leaking at the rate of about 5 quarts every 3000 miles. I’ve been content to keep topping off the oil, but now the leak is causing other problems; specfically, the a/c and alternator belt will not stay on because the pulley is soaked in oil. Fixing the leak would be over $1000, and this would the third or so leak that we’ve plugged, only to have another pop up, so I’m convinced that if I was to fix it, a new engine is the way to go. I have an estimate from my mechanic (a very reasonable, trustworthy independent shop) for $2200 or so ($850 for a used local engine with 90k miles, $200 in other parts, and 13 hours labor).
To be clear, we aren’t talking about the next brand to linger on long past its kill-by date, pitting the brand loyalty of its fans against common sense for an agonizing eternity. No, now that Saab is dead and its warranty coverage has been suspended [per Automotive News [sub]], Saabophiles need an alternative. TTAC commenter Pig_Iron writes:
Now that SAAB is gone, who is the new SAAB? By that I mean, who makes the best winter handling front driver in coupe, sedan and wagon avail with man trans?
Your pal,
Pig_Iron
My answer: Buick’s Regal. It’s a rebadged Opel, available in several states of turbo tune, it’s got a distinctively European feel inside (firm seats, dark cockpit), and a fine-handling front-drive chassis. What more could you want from a Saab? On the other hand, what Saabista is going to buy from GM now that The General has cruelly slain mercifully euthanized their beloved brand [PDF on the definitive causes of death here]? So, if GM is out… possibly some kind of Volvo? An Audi? What say you, Best And Brightest?
It’s been a fascinating year for the compact car, as all six of the segment’s leading competitors brought out new or updated models over the last 18 months. But as our Chart Of The Day shows, the competition has hardly sent the segment into overdrive, as after an early-year boom, compact car sales have slackened considerably. Intriguingly though, Honda and Toyota, which lost sales early this year due to supply interruptions in the wake of the Japanese Tsunami, seem to be the only brands with recovering compact sales. What’s especially interesting about this is the fact that Toyota’s modest refresh and Honda’s poorly-received new Civic were once widely considered by automotive pundits to be under threat from the resurgent competition. Indeed, Honda’s Civic has been especially hard-hit by media criticism, earning a harsh review from TTAC’s Michael Karesh, losing its coveted “recommended” rating from Consumer Reports, and engaging in some ugly media-bashing. But now that the Civic seems to be one of the only compacts to enjoy a late-year sales rebound, Honda’s announcing that it will be upgrading the Civic for the 2013 model-year, just one year after the new model was introduced.
Ever since emerging from bankruptcy, the Chevrolet Cruze has been something of a symbol of GM’s rebound. Widely hailed by the automotive media as General Motors’ strongest effort to date in a compact segment that has become increasingly important in recent years, the Cruze seemed to show that the “new” GM was capable of selling smaller cars on their merits, rather than as afterthoughts to more profitable truck, SUV and large car offerings. And indeed, through the first half of this year, it seemed that the Cruze was something of a roaring success, regularly outselling its segment competitors. But then, in June, when production shifted from 2011 models to 2012 models, something changed: sales started to slow, and inventories started to rise. As Cruzes began piling up on dealer lots, GM trimmed production moderately, but still, inventories began to grow out of control. Clearly something was going wrong.
UPDATED: “Big Six” compact sedan monthly sales graph (Jan-Nov, 2011) added to gallery after the jump.
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