Bloomberg reports that the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano has seen its sales drop from the point where it had to hold a lottery to choose buyers for its first 100k units to last month’s all-time low of only 509 units sold. Tata has raised the price twice this year, bumping the MSRP by 4 percent in July and then adding another $200 to the price in October. This, in addition to the Nano’s fire-related issues and the inability of Indian consumers to secure financing for the microcar is being blamed for the sales drop. Says Mahantesh Sabarad, an analyst with Fortune Equity Brokers (India) Ltd:
The product has had a difficult time in terms of its perception ever since those fire incidents came in. A lot of people bought the car in the initial sales period for its novelty factor and didn’t go for loans
Tata’s response: hire more sales staff and work with banks to secure loans for Nano customers. After all, the Indian automaker has 250k annual production capacity assigned to the Nano, so sales had better start picking up soon.
Even when marketers are locked in an epic struggle for the hearts of consumers, they still treat each other with a basic level of respect. After all, the competition is just competition; the real enemy is the consumer. But the competing impulses towards ruthless competition and collegial courtesy can often just cause more confusion. Take this spot from Hyundai, which makes a big joke out of a problem that isn’t especially widespread, and yet refuses to actually land the punch. What Hyundai is trying to do here is mock Chevrolet for coming out with a special “Eco” version of its Cruze that gets 42 MPG highway, and then using that claim to advertise all Cruzes with just an asterisk to remind buyers that the Eco model costs extra. Which is an interesting approach, except that we haven’t been able to find much evidence of this tactic… in fact, it seems that at least some Cruze ads cop to a 36 MPG, and the asterisk only references that the number is from the EPA. Did Hyundai jump the gun on this one? If so, the brand’s decision to break out sales of every 40 MPG vehicle it sells should help get things back on track.
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday reaffirmed a decision handed down in January (read decision) limiting the ability of police to taser motorists over minor traffic violations. Coronado, California Police Officer Brian McPherson blasted motorist Carl Bryan, then 21, with a 1200-volt taser during a traffic stop over a minor infraction on the Coronado Bridge near San Diego, five years ago. Bryan lost four of his front teeth and was hit with “resisting arrest” charges. He sued, claiming excessive force had been used.
“We concluded that Officer Brian MacPherson used excessive force when, on July 24, 2005, he deployed his X26 taser in dart mode to apprehend Carl Bryan for a seatbelt infraction, where Bryan was obviously and noticeably unarmed, made no threatening statements or gestures, did not resist arrest or attempt to flee, but was standing inert twenty to twenty-five feet away from the officer,” Judge Kim Wardlaw summarized.
Did you hear that sound? That was a sigh of relief coming from Germany. Germans are buying cars again. In November, they bought more cars than in October 2010, and even more than in November 2008. What’s more, November 2010 is only 6.2 percent below the Abwrackprämien-exaggerated November of the prior year. The usually very conservative Kraftfahrtbundesamtthat released the official registration data even dares to prognosticate that “year and sales are expected to be 2.9 million cars.” Translation: Read More >
So check it out. I tried every approach to living, I tried it all. I haven’t tried every thing, but I’ve tried every approach. Sometimes you don’t have to try everything to get the approach the same. But… — John Mayer, rambling in a throughly demented fashion at a concert
Honda has tried every approach to selling hybrids. There was minimalist sportiness (first-gen Insight), complete anonymity (Civic Hybrid), max-power range-topping (Accord V6 Hybrid) and lolz-at-you-when-you-thought-you-were-getting-a-CRX-successor (CR-Z). For 2011, Honda is trying the final approach: save up to $611 over the course of your ownership with hybrid technology!
GM China, our recently no longer so reliable oracle for the Chinese market, raised its November sales by 11 percent, compared to an absolutely batty November 2009. 11 percent are not the same growth as the 109.5 percent GM China had recorded in last year’s November, but how much battier do you expect them to get? The more meaningful number is that for the first 11 months of 2010: From January through November, GM’s China sales jumped 33 percent to a mind-blowing 2.17 million units. GM China will most likely close out the year in the 2.35 to 2.4m area – this is higher than the total sales of some of Europe’s larger countries, and definitely a whole lot more than GM sells back home. Better get used to it. Read More >
As is often the case, owners of the Clued CC have a substantial advantage. But when the very piece of sheet metal is sitting in the next room for handy reference, it’s almost cheating. Our last winner majo8 is restoring a ’67 XR7, so he’s highly worthy even if he was clued in. And there were a particularly amusing and wide range of guesses. Keep up the good work!
Lincoln’s recent styling direction has certainly generated its fair share of controversy here at TTAC, and certainly Lincoln’s sales need to improve if dealers are going to swallow the loss of Mercury. Accordingly, Ford has hired Max Wolff, former head of exterior design for Cadillac to reshape the look of Lincoln. Which is an interesting choice considering that Cadillac’s exterior designs, though distinctly superior to Lincoln’s of late, have not been without their controversies. Besides, what are you supposed to expect from a designer who’s been sticking to Cadillac’s Art&Science playbook for years? But there’s a bigger question here: is Lincoln a mere makeover away of success in the brutally competitive luxury space? Would an MKS in a freshly-tailored suit be a real threat to the E Class or 5 Series? And if not, what should Mr Wolff be wrapping in his Cadillac-sharpened sheetmetal?
This, according to TrueCar.com, is what automakers spent on incentives last month. Though Chrysler and GM have cut compared to November of last year, their incentive spending is on the march compared to last month, and they still vie for industry “leadership” in these profit-sapping spiffs. But that’s just TrueCar’s perspective…
Lots of car enthusiasts have heard of the AAR ‘Cuda, a homologation special that Chrysler made in 1970 to go racing in the SCCA. What’s not widely known is that there was a CUDA designed ten years earlier, and it came out of the styling studio of American Motors, not Mopar. Read More >
In a supplemental memo related to forthcoming fuel economy standards for the years after 2017 [full doc in PDF here], the EPA has revealed the results of its consultations with stakeholders including the auto industry, and it seems that there are tradeoffs to high standards. The industry’s complaint seems to be that the government has underestimated the impact of higher fuel economy standards on such details as
vehicle performance, utility (e.g., towing capability), and comfort (e.g., noise, vibration, and harshness), the role of competing regulatory or technical requirements (e.g., criteria pollutant and/or safety standards), and assumptions regarding future gasoline fuel properties (e.g., octane levels).
All of which comes with a real price. The government is targeting a 2-6 percent increase in fuel economy standards between 2017 and 2025, which amounts to a range of 47-62 MPG. The NHTSA/EPA estimates show that this level of increase will cost automakers between $770 and $3,500 per vehicle to meet, but automakers insist that these estimates are too low. And apparently, the government takes these concerns seriously enough to blow its end-of-November deadline for narrowing the range of possible standards. At the top of the list of issues for study: the age-old trade-off between efficiency and safety.
Now that Bob Lutz is lounging on the beach and catching early-bird specials (between Lotus board meetings and GM dog-and-pony shows), it’s good to know that there are still a few good men left to sprinkle The Detroit News with a few double-take-inspiring quotes. Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics is a reliable source of controversial gems, and thanks to one particularly context-free quotation, he’s provided the perfect place to kick off an age-old debate: Vette or Viper. But Hall wasn’t talking about either car’s performance, instead forwarding the thesis that:
Dodge used the Viper better as a halo vehicle for the brand than Chevy ever did with the Corvette
Which is an interesting assertion indeed, given that the ‘vette is bathed in pedigree and sells 10k-30k more units each year. And though the Viper makes sense as a halo for the Ram pickup line, Dodge’s second-best-seller is the Caravan… and the Viper helps minivan sales how exactly? But the debate doesn’t end there…
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