China’s Dongfeng makes a lot of cars with several joint ventures. It also makes its own cars. In a way. It’s ode to the Hummer is legend. Now, Dongfeng found inspiration in another legend: The Unimog. At a show in Shanghai, Carnewschina found the Dongfeng v-Tiger, or EQ2070FQJ, which it says is a spitting image of Daimler’s inconic Unimog workhorse. Well, that’s up to debate. One thing isn’t: Read More >
The US-Korean (not quite) free trade agreement will bear fruit, and U.S. cars will be shipped to Korea. The funny part is: Some of the first companies to do so are Japanese. The Nikkei [sub] writes that Toyota will begin exporting cars from the U.S. to South Korea in early November. Read More >
The Nikkei [sub] says that Nissan will move the (or a) headquarters of its Infiniti brand to Hong Kong, and that Nissan “will begin manufacturing Infiniti-brand vehicles in China as early as next year, becoming the first Japanese automaker to produce luxury cars in that nation.”
Not so fast, say close-to-the-matter contacts in Yokohama. Read More >
On the way to TTAC’s Southern Tour, I filled some of the gaps in my automotive history by reading Car Wars by Robert Sobel. Written in the same year that Nissan opened its first US plant, a sprawling complex in Smyrna, Car Wars documents the early years of the Detroit-Import wars, starting with the Beetle and ending with the rise of the transplant factories. The book is full of lessons, but its most rattling reminders was that Nissan was the major Japanese automaker during the early days of the Japanese industry. Nearly thirty years after Car Wars was written, Nissan often gets lost in Honda and Toyota’s shadow when it comes to perceptions of the Japanese OEMs. And lately Nissan has fallen off more than a few radar screens for the simple fact that its key products are aging: Sentra, Maxima and Altima were introduced for the 2007 model-year, while Rogue is just a year younger. Together these four models account for over half of Nissan’s monthly volume… and yet despite this aged core lineup, Nissan’s sales (as a brand) are up over 17 percent year-to-date, maintaining the brand’s consistent growth.
US Car sales are up a solid 10 percent in October, and Automotive News [sub] has the October Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) at 13.26 million. I need to hop on a plane to Tokyo, so I go with this number for the time being. 13.26 is pretty much the average of our analyst guesses. As for the Detroit 3, General Motors disappointed at 2 percent (and threw the analysts off), Ford and Chrysler came in as expected at 6 and 27 percent respectively. And how did our analysts fare? Read More >
Caught!
TTAC Commentator Diewaldo writes:
Hello Sajeev,
I didn’t know how to contact you otherwise, but I found your Sierra in Nürburg. It seems to be still in good shape. I have uploaded a photo, here is the link.
Greetings from the Eifel,
Diewaldo
TTAC commentator horseflesh writes:
Sajeev,
Last year I wrote to you seeking the B&B’s help in selling a car. Well, Grandma’s Park Avenue is gone now, in short, I found that the best way to sell a Buick is to befriend a used car dealer and supply him with BBQ meats until he calls some other guys he knows who move a lot of Grandma cars. Done correctly, this takes your friend 5 minutes on the phone, and costs you only 15 minutes at a dealer. It’s a beautiful thing!
But now that the Buick is gone I find myself needing another vehicle… also large, and perhaps also white. I’m looking for something cheap and boxy to haul my toys around in. Mountain bikes, scuba gear, model airplanes… These things can be moved around with a sedan, but it’s a chore and there is never enough room for everything. Oh, there is a Triumph Bonneville 750 in the garage too, so naturally it needs to be taken to the mechanic from time to time. And did I mention the pinball machines that I need to move sometimes? Currently I need to ask friends with trucks for help with those things, and I’d like to become self-sufficient.
So, the ideal vehicle will have a fully enclosed cargo area of TARDIS-like capacity, be indifferent to muddy toys, and be able to haul 500 lbs of broken British motorcycle plus two people. It will be a changing room and occasionally a workshop when a toy breaks. It won’t have to go off-road, but it will have to handle a dirt road. Some kind of sink and potable water tank would be a big plus too–that isn’t mandatory, but being cheap and reliable is.
The ubiquitous Ford E-150 van looks like the right sort of thing, but I don’t know anything about its reliability when well-used, or what other good options might be.
Having royally pissed off all of cyclist-dom with a tone-deaf, multi-brand ad in college newspapers, GM just so happens to have a concept car for the SEMA tuner show featuring a mountain bike. Not that the two are in any way related though, as NASCAR racer Ricky Carmichael is the creative force behind the concept. The 15-time American Motorcycle Association champion explains in a Chevy press release
The car looks so cool, colorful and fun to drive. I live my life on the go and this Sonic really represents that active lifestyle and my desire to have fun when I’m off the race track.
See? Cycling is cool… as a hobby. On the other hand, maybe the bike just a way to escape the photoshopped beach when this slammed Sonic inevitably gets stuck in the sand. Or perhaps it’s there as a reminder that even if you want to drive a Sonic you may be stuck on a bike, as Automotive News [sub] reports that GM has to idle production of the subcompact for two weeks over a parts shortage. Either way, it’s an improvement on shaming cyclists into buying cars.
After a largely flat year of auto sales, it’s looking like the analysts are getting it right and sales were good last month. Chrysler is leading the good-news parade with a whopping 27% bump in volume on strong sales of the 200, Wrangler and Grand Cherokee and 20%+ increases from every brand. GM had a more sideways kind of month, with 2% overall growth and only Chevrolet rising as a brand. For more, watch October’s sales results unfold at our evolving table after the jump…
Read More >
Regular Vehicle Sales Japan October 2011
| Manufacturer | Oct ’11 | Oc t ’10 | Change | FYTD’11 | FYTD’10 | Change |
| Daihatsu | 441 | 289 | 52.6% | 2,578 | 5,364 | -51.9% |
| Hino | 2,794 | 1,628 | 71.6% | 27,724 | 24,077 | 15.1% |
| Honda | 36,355 | 30,422 | 19.5% | 314,810 | 425,375 | -26.0% |
| Isuzu | 2,937 | 2,597 | 13.1% | 33,617 | 37,321 | -9.9% |
| Lexus | 4,308 | 2,068 | 108.3% | 36,328 | 29,814 | 21.8% |
| Mazda | 11,457 | 6,095 | 88.0% | 124,357 | 159,803 | -22.2% |
| Mitsubishi | 4,063 | 2,500 | 62.5% | 46,955 | 61,859 | -24.1% |
| Mitsubishi Fuso | 2,931 | 1,883 | 55.7% | 21,289 | 20,610 | 3.3% |
| Nissan | 33,631 | 25,373 | 32.5% | 372,341 | 442,894 | -15.9% |
| Subaru | 5,785 | 3,138 | 84.4% | 62,118 | 69,562 | -10.7% |
| Suzuki | 6,025 | 4,450 | 35.4% | 64,927 | 50,535 | 28.5% |
| Toyota | 122,208 | 101,518 | 20.4% | 935,800 | 1,357,027 | -31.0% |
| UD Trucks | 855 | 461 | 85.5% | 6,638 | 6,951 | -4.5% |
| Other | 14,137 | 10,836 | 30.5% | 165,396 | 155,612 | 6.3% |
| Total | 247,927 | 193,258 | 28.3% | 2,214,878 | 2,846,804 | -22.2% |
Sales of new cars in Japan rose 28.3 percent in October to 247,927 units, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association reports today. For the current fiscal year (April-October), sales are still 22.2 percent in the hole at 2,214,878 units, compared to 2,846,804 units sold in the same period of 2010. The numbers do not include sales of separately reported minivehicles. The numbers are not a sign of newfound health. They are simply the effect of a comparison with a market that had crashed in fall 2010 after subsidies were withdrawn. Read More >
| Analyst | GM | Ford | Chrysler | SAAR |
| George Magliano (IHS Automotive) | NA | NA | NA | 12.9 |
| Rod Lache (Deutsche Bank) | 5.5% | 4.1% | 24.0% | 13.0 |
| Itay Michaeli (Citigroup) | NA | NA | NA | 13.1 |
| Jeff Schuster (J.D. Power) | NA | NA | NA | 13.1 |
| Chris Ceraso (Credit Suisse) | 7.2% | 7.5% | 20.0% | 13.2 |
| Himanshu Patel (JPMorgan) | NA | NA | NA | 13.2 |
| Patrick Archambault (Goldman Sachs) | 8.7% | 6.5% | 35.0% | 13.2 |
| Adam Jonas (Morgan Stanley) | NA | NA | NA | 13.3 |
| Brian Johnson (Barclays) | 4.3% | 8.8% | 19.0% | 13.3 |
| Peter Nesvold (Jefferies) | 7.1% | 1.8% | NA | 13.3 |
| Alan Baum (Baum & Associates) | NA | NA | NA | 13.4 |
| Jesse Toprak (TrueCar.com) | 4.7% | 7.4% | 33.0% | 13.4 |
| Jessica Caldwell (Edmunds.com) | 6.9% | 8.0% | 27.0% | 13.4 |
| Seth Weber (RBC) | 9.2% | 8.6% | 36.0% | 13.4 |
| Average | 6.7% | 6.6% | 28.0% | 13.2 |
Today, October new car sales will be announced, and they are expected to be good. Analysts polled by Bloomberg show rare unity: They expect a Seasonally Adjusted Average Rate of sales (SAAR) of 13.2 million on average, and the spread is only 500,000. Likewise, analysts agree that Ford and GM will each add around 6 percent in sales, whereas Chrysler will jump by around 28 percent. Read More >
If you haven’t read Brendan McAleer’s very funny article in defense of press junkets, it is worth your time to do so. Brendan whips his metaphorical pen around and around in the liquefied candy of the public-relations game until a delightful froth appears, just light-hearted enough for guiltless consumption. Savor it, enjoy the sweetness of the metaphors and the tastiness of the characterizations…
…and then come back here and click the jump for your vegetables, as I explain how the PR machine creates journosaurs from idealists, use a little bit of “Freakonomics” to show how “it’s very effective!”, and tell a story about the day I decided to step off the gravy train.
Motorists searched during a traffic stop may find their iPhone data electronically grabbed by police in ways that would not be possible or acceptable with written material. Some police departments, including the Michigan State Police, are equipped with a mobile forensics device able to extract images, videos, text messages and emails from smartphones. In some cases, the device is able to bypass password protection. Several states have been reluctant to curtail law enforcement access to this information.
Well, it’s Halloween…. the time of year when a young man’s thoughts turn towards death. Bertel gave us a double-shot of the macabre earlier today, but it was an unplanned spin-and-a-half (no, not on public roads) that most recently and viscerally reminded me just how deadly this whole driving a car business can be. And that particular bit of man-machine miscommunication didn’t even happen in the most scary car I’ve ever driven (thank goodness).
Honda has shown off its CR-V in “concept” form already, so today’s leak of the first production-spec images from Japan ahead of the reveal in Los Angeles isn’t a huge revelation. On the other hand, it does come at a bad time, as the leak comes just as Automotive News [sub] reports that flooding in Thailand means
Honda will cut its North American output by 50 percent, starting Wednesday. All six North American plants will be affected through Nov. 10… Production likely will be affected for at least “the next several weeks,” Honda said. More cuts could be announced later. In addition, the December on-sale date of the redesigned 2012 Honda CR-V may be delayed by several weeks. (emphasis added)
So, if you’re jonesing for your fix of frumpy new CUV hotness, you’re just going to have to be patient. Speaking of which, while we patiently wait for October sales, Honda is telling Bloomberg that its sales went up in the last month, its first such gain since April. But between the ongoing problems in Thailand, a 50% production cut in North America, and the awkward looks of this CR-V, it looks like Honda had better enjoy this moment of good news while it can.
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