While everybody is afraid of China flexing its muscles, the Middle Kingdom is stretching its feet. And its cars. Long versions are very popular in the world’s largest auto market, where one can hire a permanent driver for a few hundred $ a month. Read More >
Didn’t BMW make noises that they “want to be the number 1 luxury carmaker in the United States by 2012?“ If that’s still the case, then the boys from Bavaria better get their act together. Currently, they don’t look so good. In the March 2010 sales round-up, they came in with a measly 3 percent growth, while the market grew 24 percent. Then, as Automotive News [sub] points out, there is a dark horse: Read More >
Bob Lutz, set to retire May 1, feels confident he’s left GM fixed and on the right track. In an interview at the Detroit News, Lutz states: “I think I’m leaving the company finally focused back on the right thing, General Motors spent 30 years chasing every kind of metric — hours per vehicle, base-engineered content, parts re-use, attainment of diversity targets — 50 different metrics, and excellent products was sort of one. The naïve belief was if you track every one of the metrics and you do well on every one, the end result is a great car company — not,” According to Maximum Bob, that’s all behind now: “Over 8 1/2 years, we have been able to destroy that whole culture.” And bankrupt the company. Oops; I know, Bob had nothing to do with that. Read More >
The NY Auto Show? Let’s talk about what is not there: The star of the Geneva Auto Show, the gas-electric hybrid Porsche 918 Spyder Concept. It is not there because it’s, as Motortrend reports, “en route to the Beijing Auto Show.” Read More >
Flights are delayed, so let’s hear Toyota’s take on on March sales: “We out-retailed both Ford and GM by nearly 40,000 units,”according to Don Esmond, head of automotive operations at TMS USA. “Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. sold more vehicles to retail customers than any other automaker.”
In an article at Automotive News [sub], Toyota makes the case that the momentum is back, and that its incentive programs for March didn’t steal forward sales, but picked up those waiting on the sidelines during the recalls. And the incentives are not about to stop now. “Toyota Division boss Bob Carter said the New York auto show that the company has no plans to halt incentives. “Short-term, we gotta sell cars.'” Read More >
As you are reading this, worker bees in the employ of Volkswagen are putting the last touches on a revamped model of the venerable Phaeton, overtime be damned. When everything is in Ordnung and the Spaltmass (panel gap) is as tight as a vise, the Phaeton will be loaded on the next Lufthansa freighter, and – eat your heart out, Jack Baruth – it will be flown to Beijing. As China Daily has it, “Volkswagen AG is speeding up a face-lift of the $88,000 Phaeton sedan in time to unveil the model at the Beijing auto show and target China’s millionaires.” Read More >
A few days ago, we reported that Toyota had caved in to demands of the Commerce Bureau and the Consumer Protection Committee of China’s Zhejiang Province. Under the agreement, Toyota will reimburse Zhejiang customers for losses sustained from the RAV4 recall. Toyota will send people to pick up and deliver the affected vehicles, and will provide a loaner while the car is in the shop. The whole thing was started by New York’s AG Andrew Cuomo who strong-armed Toyota into supplying similar services to recall-affected residents of the Empire State. The Zhejiang-accord had The Nikkei [sub] worried: “Such an agreement could lead to demands for similar deals from customers in not only other provinces, but also other countries.” It didn’t take long. Read More >
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon approved a $185m settlement between Daimler, the Department of Justice (DOJ,) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Feds had alleged that Daimler violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by drowning foreign government officials in money and gifts until they relented and ordered Daimler products. According to Reuters, Daimler’s German and Russian units each agreed to plead guilty to two minor counts of violating U.S. anti-bribery laws. Its China subsidiary will be subject to the two-year deferred prosecution agreement as well. That said, the bad boys from Sindelfingen may go forth and sin no more. Except for one niggling detail … Read More >
If you are in the market for a Toyota, then there is no rush to run to your dealer over the Easter weekend and to make any rash buying decisions. Toyota will extend its generous (or not so generous, depending on who’s doing the counting) incentives well into April. Read More >
When you are a Chinese car company, especially one that is mostly government owned, reporting profits is not one of your prime objectives. As long as you don’t lose money hand over fist, as long as you provide jobs for many people, as long as you grow in market share and influence, having money left over is sometimes just a (taxable) nuisance. But in times like these, it’s unavoidable. And it doesn’t hurt your stock when you are a publicly traded company. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, better known as SAIC, has announced that their net profit for 2009 jumped 900 percent from the previous year, reaching a record of nearly $1b ($966m, to be exact.) Read More >
It’s that time of the month again: In the first days of the month, market observers in China eagerly await the GM China sales number. GM usually is first to report. What’s more, GM is the canary in the (ooops) Chinese coal mine, a very good indicator for the overall market. Looking back at March, that canary happily tweets that GM’s March sales in China, including Wuling vans, accelerated 68 percent to 230,048 units. Shanghai GM’s sales of Buicks, Chevys, and a few Cadillacs rose 89 percent annually to 86,967 units. That according to Associated Press. This is another record Middle Kingdom month for GM, the 15th in a row, and it indicates a March surprise for the Chinese market. Read More >
Well, this looks very familiar to me. Take that as a (rare) hint, if you like. Time to recognize our winners of the last Clue, wich was a two-fer. tklockau was the first to guess both the Prelude and Colt. But let’s recognize hotdogmaki for the first Prelude ID; and Shoichiro B. Hara as the first Colt recognizer. Congratulations, and happy guessing. Sorry about the lateness.
Since we’re hanging out in the seventies with Ford, I remembered this truck I shot a couple of weeks ago. It sports the Free Wheelin’ decor package, that was quite the hot item in 1978. The splashy graphics made their way across a whole palette of Fords. It’s been quite awhile since I saw one. You? Hey, let’s go free wheelin’… Read More >
The literal answer is that it’s not the very last vehicle built at NUMMI. A red Corolla had that honor, but this is the very last Tacoma to be built by the UAW. And with that, the grand experiment between GM and Toyota is over. Could anyone have guessed way back in 1984 that the joint venture would eventually fall victim to a GM bankruptcy and Toyota overreach? Perhaps a few, but then who can say what firm, or even what industry, will be busying NUMMI’s production floors 26 years from now? The times, they are a-changing.
We no longer have the dubious honor of leading this category. We’ve been down that road before, and we know it’s a dead end.
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