Detroit Three automakers need to invest in their Canadian operations or it’s no deal, the president of the union representing hourly workers said yesterday.
Contract talks kick off tomorrow between the automakers and Unifor, but a cloud already hangs over the negotiations in the form of recent threats of a strike and GM’s reluctance to talk about its Oshawa plant’s future. Read More >
TTAC Commentator Land Ark writes:
Hello again, Sajeev!
I’ve been wondering about tire pressure for a while. I changed the wheels and tires on my car which originally came with 14-inch wheels and high profile bias-ply tires. The new tires are 255/40/18.
How do I account for the drastically different sizes when it comes to determining the correct air pressure I should run in the new tires? Read More >
General Motors just released pricing and performance figures for its 2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, and unless Ford comes up with a hotter Mustang, it looks like Dodge still holds the domestic performance crown.
Billed as the most powerful production Camaro ever, the 650-horsepower ZL1 comes with an MSRP of $62,135 for coupe models, $69,135 for drop-tops. Lower-end models stand to benefit from Chevy’s 1LE performance package. Read More >
As our own Tim Cain reported this morning, if not for the mid-sized truck sector, total U.S. new vehicle sales volume would have risen by less than one-tenth of one percent. Now, forecasters are reducing their outlook for the remainder of 2016, leading some automakers to start fighting the stagnating market by deploying aggressive incentives.
Sound dangerously familiar? It should. A quote from George Santayana is very appropriate at this juncture: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
New Jersey Democrats are pushing a wide-ranging distracted driving bill that would lead to harsh penalties for motorists, but does it mean cupholders will soon be outlawed in the Garden State?
The answer: probably not, but the bill would give law enforcement the blanket regulation they need to lay a charge for anything from eating behind the wheel to fixing your hair. Read More >
How do you buy an Arizona vacation home, a boat, two Porsches and an office building on a $210,000-a-year salary?
According to the CBC, the vice-president of information technology for the Alberta Motor Association managed to find a way, and it sure wasn’t legal. Jim Gladden is accused of draining $8.2 million from the AMA through fake invoices, then spending the money like a high-flying tycoon. Read More >
Midsize pickup truck sales shot up 29 percent in the United States in July 2016, enough to drive the sub-sector’s share of the overall pickup category up three points to 17 percent.
Indeed, without the gains produced by the midsize truck sector, overall U.S. pickup truck volume would have flatlined in July on declining sales of the two top-selling truck lines, Ford’s F-Series and the Chevrolet Silverado. Moreover, without the midsize truck sector’s additional 8,973 July sales, total U.S. new vehicle sales volume would have risen by less than one-tenth of one percent.
Instead, because of a dramatic increase in sales of the second-generation Honda Ridgeline in its first month of availability, another huge uptick in Nissan Frontier sales, and continued growth from GM’s Colorado/Canyon duo, pickup truck sales grew four percent and the American auto industry reported nearly 10,000 extra sales in July 2016, year-over-year. Read More >
The record-setting surge of new vehicle sales as America climbed out of the recession sparked a whole new kind of automotive competition.
A surge in off-lease vehicles returning to dealer lots means the certified pre-owned (CPO) market — once an unsexy afterthought — is now a battleground, and Kia Motors wants everyone to know how well it’s doing. Read More >
U.S. sales of America’s three pony-muscle car coupes slid 2 percent in July 2016 despite meaningful gains from both the Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger.
Blame?
Cast it all in the direction of the Chevrolet Camaro, sales of which plunged 26 percent, a loss of nearly 2,000 sales for Chevrolet dealers compared with July 2015.
Camaro sales declined in 7 of the last 12 months, diving by 9,517 units during a span of three consecutive year-over-year decreases between May and July. After the Camaro outsold the Ford Mustang in five consecutive years, it now appears certain that 2016 will be the second consecutive year in which the Mustang easily outsells the Chevrolet Camaro.
One might even say the Mustang is going to win, “by a lot.” Read More >
It worked for Porsche. Now, another luxury automaker is reaping the rewards of catering to the utility crowd.
Jaguar’s decision to market an SUV raised the ire of purists, but it also turbocharged the brand’s U.S. comeback, Bloomberg reports. The British automaker is now the fastest-growing brand in the U.S., with sales propelled by the new F-Pace SUV and entry-level XE sedan. Read More >
Three unapproved software programs were found on Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche models outfitted with 3.0-liter diesel engines, a German newspaper reports.
The publication Bild am Sonntag said that U.S. authorities discovered the software, though it didn’t reveal a source for the information, according to Reuters (via Automotive News). Read More >
The short-lived Toyota Prius Plug-in hybrid was never a popular vehicle, and the subject of one man’s lawsuit could answer why.
A suit filed against Toyota in an eastern Michigan court claims the plaintiff’s 2012 Prius Plug-in didn’t come close to offering the meager advertised range of the upgraded hybrid, CarComplaints reports. Read More >
It’s hot, it’s the middle of summer, and the beach beckons from afar. But if stripping down around a bunch of muscle-bound surfer hunks causes bouts of anxiety and insecurity, fear not. Ford Motor Company has a solution.
The great thing about 1960s car commercials is the complete disregard for political correctness and subtlety when it comes to stroking a driver’s ego. It’s hard to imagine a world where manufacturers so nakedly sold a lifestyle by pumping out vast quantities of innuendo in a bid to lure buyers into dealerships. Trigger warning!
Hocking a menacing GTO or Charger is easy, but what if you had to sell a low-priced base model in the ’60s? Easy. Stick with the plan. Read More >
Ford plans to add top-shelf muscle to its Mustang lineup and take the Dodge Challenger Hellcat and Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 down a peg.
Spy photos of a camouflaged Mustang variant published by Motor Authority shows a winged, high-performance beast that should appear in 2018. The existing Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 is a hot number, but its power output doesn’t measure up to its Detroit competition. Read More >
The same two guys who brought you last year’s remote hacking of a Jeep Cherokee on a Missouri highway (and resulting 1.4 million vehicle recall) are at it again.
This time, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek entered the same Cherokee’s electronic brain, bypassing security software to gain control over key driving functions, according to Wired. Read More >
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