Ford has big plans for Europe. Within the next three years, 20 new or facelifted cars will be launched in Europe with the blue oval. Before that is done, Ford production all over Europe is being completely rearranged, reports Automobilwoche [sub] today. The basic strategy is called “single sourcing:” Read More >
The auto enthusiast world has been torn apart of late by the re-boot of the Lotus brand, which is transitioning from hard-core enthusiast niche manufacturer to mass-appeal, high-end, branded premiumness. The photo above shows the first steps towards building a Porsche or Ferrari-like brand: Lotus Originals sells leather jackets and other branded goods in order to build up the exclusive appeal that the brand needs to bank on once its new cars arrive. But in China, Lotus’s branding issues are going to require more than just some sexy young things pouting in leather jackets while artlessly assembled around a piece of Lotus’s brilliant past. China Car Times reports that Lotus parent company Proton’s China-market deal with new Saab partner Youngman has already created some issues, namely
UK’s Lotus will enter the Chinese market on June 15 this year, but its Chinese name is Lu Te Si (“路特斯” – a transliteration of Lotus) rather than the well-known Lian Hua (“莲花” – Chinese for Lotus Flower), because China’s Youngman Lotus has used the famous brand to market its cars first, and Lotus does not want consumers to get confused between the low cost products from Youngman and its own high end sports models.
Workers, government, the press, all want a clear statement from GM: Is Opel up for sale, or not?
No clear statement is forthcoming, and frustration runs high. There never had been an official denial of the possible spin-off. The stress is so enormous that an alleged telephone call in which GM’s Dan Akerson supposedly told Opel’s Karl-Friedrich Stracke that purportedly GM is not in talks with a buyer for Opel, makes headlines around the world. Is that for real? Read More >
Your worst nightmare. A pleasant drive along a yawning rural two-laner is met by a sudden ‘jolt!’ You quickly take your foot off the accelerator. Was it a transmission shudder? A miss in the engine? Some gravitational push from a UFO? After a couple of mini-jolts it looks like problem number one. You do what you can to not stress the tranny. But it gets worse and worse until ‘jolt!’ ‘JOLT!’ ‘Veeeee!!!!’ The engine spins over to the high rpm’s with nothing left to propel it. The tranny is toast… and now the fun begins.
As you know, the Russian government offered foreign automakers a deal: Invest heavily into the Russian auto industry, and Mother Russia will let you import parts and components at negligible or zero duty rates. Present your plans no later than July 1. Here is Volkswagen’s answer: Read More >
A campaign to reform or eliminate the use of red light cameras and speed cameras is heading up in Winnipeg, Canada. Earlier this month the group WiseUpWinnipeg kicked off the effort with a two-page, full-color advertisement in the Winnipeg Sun newspaper.
“Attention Winnipeg drivers, you are being deliberately deceived,” the ad warned. “The city of Winnipeg is engaged in a deliberate and dangerous campaign to induce photo enforcement violations and siphon your hard earned (cash).”
Honda joins other Japanese automakers in a delayed post-tsunami forecast. Percentage-wise, Honda expects to be much harder hit than Toyota. Honda expects a net profit of 195 billion yen ($ 2.43 billion) when the current fiscal year ends in March 2012.through March. Last year, there were 534 billion yen ($6.65 billion) left below the bottom line. That’s a decrease of 63.5 percent.
Analysts are shocked. Read More >
More people feel that the task of driving belongs to the driver, and do you really want to sort of hand over your safety to a machine? It’s possible the technology might one day be widely deployed. I just don’t think we’re anywhere close to that right now
NHTSA Administrator David Strickland came away from his first run-in with Google’s autonomous cars in a less-than-entirely optimistic mood [via the DetN]. You might think that Strickland, who is a central figure in Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s “War on Distraction,” would appreciate a driver that has no need for Twitter, Facebook or the other increasingly-common in-car distractions. Instead, he took his position to its remarkably solid core: that individuals need to think more, not less, about their responsibilities as drivers. It’s actually a fantastic message, especially given that he wasn’t kidding about the “technology isn’t ready” part, telling the DetN
There’s near misses. It’s not fool-proof. There’s a lot of work to go, [but] it’s a great piece of technology.”
OK boys and girls, we’re working on our last month of the first half of 2011… and it’s time for a gut-check. Here are the studs of the light-duty vehicle sales world, the top 25 total volume sellers in the US through May. But remember, we have no fleet sales breakouts by model (data donations accepted at our contact form)… so this isn’t necessarily a measure of the cars that are selling best with private consumers. Still, it’s an interesting list of cars, with a surprise for everyone (RAV4 barely beating Prius, for starters). We hope you enjoy it.
It’s not difficult to understand why the UAW has never contemplated agreeing to a wage rate tied to the profitability of its employer firms: simply put, it’s been a long time since big profits were the norm among the union-represented Detroit automakers. But now that Motown is back in the black and handing out record profit-sharing checks, it looks like the UAW could finally tie its own fate to that of the automakers… on certain conditions. UAW boss Bob King tells The WSJ [sub]
It would be an advantage if you can guarantee to the [Detroit] companies certain things on fixed costs so that they would remain competitive. When you’re successful, that’s good. But if you’re sharing more of the risk, you need to have more of the upside
OK, so it’s a somewhat facetious headline: as an auto manufacturer, Saab either builds and sells cars or it disappears. But in the aftermath of Saab CEO Victor Muller’s pledge that “We will definitely ensure that this [production stoppage] will not happen again,” Saab’s most recent shutdown sent shockwaves of concern through the Saab community. After all, Saab’s official line is that “we knew this would happen,” a position that’s more than a little at odds with Muller’s now-broken promise. And though the just-signed Youngman deal could mean more cash with which to get production at Trolhättan back up and running, there’s a bigger question that remains unanswered: why restart production at all?
Whenever I mention Daimler’s Über-Benz Maybach, even people in the know often remark: “Haven’t they stopped making them a while ago?” No, they have not. But they might. Or not. Read More >
If Ring times have joined skidpad numbers and 0-50 times in the trash can of marketing history, what’s next? Subaru thinks they have the answer. A mostly stock United-States-spec STI (hmm, why a US-spec car in Europe, I wonder?) broke the twenty-minute mark around the Isle of Man course to set lap records on two consecutive days.
To see the car that used to hold the record, click the jump.
Since Nissan’s PR and communication folks are probably having a busy morning anyway, we thought we’d bring this video to their attention. According to this apparently quite tech-savvy Leaf owner, the Leaf’s CarWings system will automatically send your location data to any third-party RSS feed you sign up for. As he puts it in the video
“There’s a lot of personal data there. I’m not sure if you really want Fox News to know exactly where you’re at, how fast you’re driving, that kind of thing… when you read those RSS feeds in your car, you might want to think twice about hitting that button”
Why would signing up for an RSS feed require that constantly-updated locational data be sent to the RSS provider? The video’s maker assumes the data is for “CarWings internal use” and yet he shows that it gets sent to third parties. We know GM monitors Chevy Volt user data anonymously through Onstar, but one assumes that this kind of data is fairly well protected from third parties. In the case of the Leaf, that may not be the case. We’d sure like to know if this is true, and why…
[UPDATE: Nissan tells us: “Owners have to opt in or agree to share their data every time they sign in. If they don’t, then they pass on the benefit as well. They will however, lose any remote control or data logging capability but the choice is in the hand of the driver every time.”]
Bloomberg’s running a lede that’s sure to ruffle a few feathers at Nissan’s communication and customer service organizations this morning: “Nissan Motor Co. is aggravating the customers it needs most.” How so? According to the report
Nissan, which wants to become the top seller of electric cars, repeatedly delayed deliveries to some U.S. buyers who reserved the first 20,000 Leaf plug-in hatchbacks, according to interviews with customers. They said Nissan unexpectedly dropped some from the waiting list temporarily, asking that they reapply if they couldn’t prove they’d arranged installation of home- charging units that can cost more than $2,000.
Nissan has long admitted that the Leaf rollout would be a challenge, and the recent tsunami-related chaos in Japan hasn’t helped. But Bloomberg doesn’t quantify how many customers have been dropped due to their lack of charging system installation, other than to report that 45% of the 20k customers who reserved Leafs by last September have continued the ordering process. And it turns out that the delays aren’t irritating so much because of Nissan’s intransigence or lack of transparency, but because certain buyers stand to lose their California tax credit before their Leaf arrives.
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