Things have been a little quiet around Better Place and their battery switching solution. Everybody is waiting for their Denmark and Israel projects to finally take off. The promised land of EVs of course is China: A huge population, a large untapped car market, and a government that gets nervous when thinking about long and perilous supply lines of foreign oil. The Chinese government demands EVs from its automakers, and just about each had a prototype or more at the Shanghai Auto Show that had a plug and a cord. Just don’t ask when you can buy one. Read More >
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Did you miss today’s meetup? Located somewhere else in the country? Are you interested in meeting a sensitive Scorpio? Want a ride around a racetrack? Are you furious about a particular article and want to confront the author directly? If the answer to any of these questions is “Yes”, then take a moment to take a look at my schedule for May and early June.
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Who will be the world’s most profitable carmaker this year? Canada’s CTV thinks that “this is going to be an interesting race. Will it be a big, multi-brand automaker from Germany, or a big, mostly one-brand automaker from the United States?” Both have a blue logo. One round, one egg-shaped. It’s Volkswagen against Ford.
Says CTV:
“Right now Ford is in the lead. Read More >
So Saab had called an all hands meeting for today. 3,700 employees attended with great expectations or knots in their stomachs. This could have been the first day of a great future or the last of Saab. Instead …. Read More >
Frank in Boston writes:
Sajeev,
I am the original owner and caretaker of a beloved 1995 Acura Integra LS. The car has only 68K pampered miles with all maintenance done based on “time-out” rather than mileage. It lives on a steady diet of E-10 Mobil regular dispensed in and around greater Boston. It is my ‘Orient Panther’ and ran like the proverbial Swiss watch until…
“This is the worst situation we’ve faced since the war,” a source close to Toyota told the Yomiuri Shimbun. The Japanese car industry is facing post-war-like shortages when it comes to auto parts. Toyota is short 150 parts positions, which can be anything from a bolt to a complete dashboard.
Dealerships are empty – of cars. Test drive cars do double duty as display vehicles. “We get a lot of customers coming in, but we don’t have cars to sell them,” a salesperson told the Tokyo paper. Read More >
As anybody who has ever listened to an automotive “journalist” knows, automotive journalists are some of the toughest people in the business. We urinate vinegar and chew nails. When the brakes in our Boss 302 fail at the rip-roaring speed of 70mph, we don’t even bother to use that pansy-ass E-brake before promptly lunching the transmission in an effort to slow down “through the gears”. We’re that tough.
But what happens when the irresistible force meets the immovable object? When Godzilla meets Mecha-Godzilla? When two autojournos meet in mortal press-room combat?
At a meeting of the Automotive Press Association at the old-money, establishment Detroit Athletic Club in downtown Detroit, a stone’s throw from GM’s headquarters, UAW President Bob King warned Detroit auto journalists not to listen to “extremists in the Republican Party,” just like people in Germany and Italy should not have fallen for Hitler and Mussolini. Read More >
You’ve probably noticed by now that things haven’t been quite up to speed here at TTAC, as both Bertel and myself are here in Detroit to meet with a few OEMs as well as our corporate overlords (who are actually quite nice people, as corporate overlords go) on the northern side of the border. Oh yes, and we’re making one other acquaintance: each other. Though Bertel and I have worked together for getting on three years now, and he’s been my right-hand man since I took over the reigns here at TTAC, we’ve never actually met in person until now. Needless to say, we’ve had a lot to catch up on, and frankly picking through the post-New York and Shanghai auto show media dead zone is nowhere near as interesting as being regaled with Bertel’s “too good for publication” tales.
The good news: if you’re in the Detroit area tomorrow, you need not wait as long as I did to meet TTAC’s managing editor, as both Bertel and myself will be taking up positions at the Detroit Beer Company (downtown Detroit, directions at the link) tomorrow (Wednesday, April 27th) starting around 7PM, and you are all invited to come down, sip a beer, grab a bite and talk cars. We’ll be hot off TTAC’s first-ever visit to the RenCen, and if the past is an indicator, it could be another three years before TTAC’s Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor are in the same place at the same time again. So drop your mid-week plans, and come down and say hello to your friendly, not-so-local car bloggers. After all, we’re anxious to meet you, the readers who make TTAC possible… and one of the most vibrant auto-oriented communities on the web.
They’re baaaack! Ever since Cadillac displayed its XTS Platinum Concept as a future flagship model, the brand’s lack of a range-topping super-luxo-barge has become an increasingly regular complaint. The XTS’s humble (Epsilon II platform) roots, modest proportions and general “Buick-in-Caddy-clothes” vibe led TTAC to dub it “The Phantom Flagship,” a criticism that has echoed throughout the automotive media. The issue isn’t so much whether or not the XTS is a good luxury car, but rather the fact that even Hyundai has a more plausible large, rear-drive, V8-powered flagship in the traditional mold. With Cadillac’s products and image steadily improving, the lack of a legitimate flagship is even more glaring. Last summer, after several months of griping from Cadillac fans, rumors began to surface that GM’s then-CEO Ed Whitacre was pushing for a “proper” rear-drive flagship. Well, the rumors are back… and as before, they’re as confusing as ever. Luckily, we’ll have more than a few years to speculate about this mythical beast… so let’s get the party started.
Ford beat expectations with a first quarter 2011 net income of $2.6 billion, an increase of $466 million from the first quarter 2010. First quarter 2011 pre-tax operating profit was $2.8 billion. Ford Credit contributed $713 million to the pre-tax operating profit. Read More >
Today, 3,700 employees of Saab received an invitation to come to an all hands meeting tomorrow, Wednesday. It will be a break from the doldrums. In Trollhättan, the lines have been down for three weeks now because Saab has no money to pay parts suppliers, reports Automobilwoche [sub]. Tuesday ended in Sweden without a solution. Suppliers, unions and Swedish politicians demand immediate action, or Saab will go down the drain.
Talk about a Chinese savior has died down. All hopes hinge on Vladimir Antonov, and the sale of the factory to the Russian, well, business man. The problem is: The real estate is collateral for a loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB). Saab told Automobilwoche that the sale is “no sure” due to harsh demands by the EIB. Read More >
12 years. That’s how long I drove a 1994 Toyota Camry LE coupe. It was red with a sunroof and ABS. Truly loaded for the time. But not quite loaded for the modern day. I never even considered anything else because to me this was just like an underpowered Lexus without the cost.
We’re talking the type of quiet and serenity that many compact vehicles (which this technically was) still can’t match. The 3rd Generation Camry was the absolute peak of Toyota’s over-engineering prowess and my car pulled a straight 239k with nary a hiccup. One owner later, it just recently crested the 300k mark with plenty of life left on the original powertrain. With that in mind I can…
I got the call yesterday from a friend of mine. His long-serving 1999 Land Cruiser V8, purchased new and driven well past the 150K-mile mark, had a bad alternator. Could I pick him up at the dealer? Sure could.
The fellow I picked up was a lot more annoyed than the relatively calm fellow who had pulled his Cruiser into the Toyota service bay. The prospect of losing an alternator after twelve years didn’t bother him in the slightest. Instead, it was what had happened when the service writer called his name…
Washington state’s second highest court endorsed the growing municipal practice of using extended vehicle impound periods to rack up fees. The a three-judge court of appeals panel considered the question in the context of whether Raymond Mann’s vehicle was rightly taken for thirty days by Kent police on March 13, 2009.
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