May sales were down in Japan, and this time around, small kei cars could not bail out their bigger brethren. Imports into the allegedly closed market Japan on the other hand are zooming, despite the weaker yen that makes imports more expensive. Read More >
Nissan, Ford and Chrysler led the way in April. GM and Toyota made smaller gains. Mitsubishi was this month’s loser, down 15 percent.
Chrysler sets the tone for a most likely very happy sales day, reporting an 11 percent increase in its May U.S. light vehicle sales to Reuters. Read More >
New and current Honda Fit EV customers can look forward to a reduction in their lease costs.
Something I’ve long maintained (and that has been backed up by many of the B&B) is that young people still like cars and do care about them. The issue of falling car ownership among young people is largely an economic one. The cost of living is going up while wages are stagnating. Gasoline is expensive. Student debt, smartphones and rent are more important obligations than car payments, insurance and fuel. All of that can be quantified with data.
What hasn’t been so easily demonstrable was that young people still like cars, despite the wishful thinking of many who cheer for the end to the automobile era. Now we finally have some good research that backs up my gut feeling.
The last week or two, I’ve been getting the Toronto Sun free of charge. The Sun, as it’s known, could be compared to, say, the New York Post, but it’s really more in the vein of a British tabloid paper. Like the Post, the front page always has some sensationalized headline, and it’s often looked down upon as the newspaper of the uneducated middle class, but if you want to know what’s really going on in Toronto, especially our farcical municipal politics, The Sun cannot be beat.
Juan Barnett of DC Auto Geek tweeted some interesting information last weekend regarding the last generation of CTS-V; just 1,200 examples of the CTS-V wagon were sold during the car’s lifecycle; by comparison, Cadillac sold a total of 254,000 examples of the CTS.
Like the GM EV1, Volkswagen is planning a lease program from their XL1. While VW hasn’t announced pricing, the idea behind leasing is for VW to maintain a measure of control over the cars, specifically to ensure they’re located close to proper servicing centers and to avoid a secondary market for the cars. VW’s Mark Gillies confirmed to Autoblog that the lease program is the most likely avenue for customers to obtain an XL1.
When the NSX was last available for sale, the rest of the world knew it as a Honda product. But now that the next-generation NSX is intended to be a flagship for the Acura brand, Honda has run into a small problem – Acura doesn’t exist in much of the world.
Expect May auto sales to come in 6 percent to 8 percent higher than in May 2012, and the SAAR to rise above 15 million. This according to Reuters, and “after a disappointing result in the prior month” – for some. Read More >
A sad day for both Ford and Australia. The Blue Oval has officially announced an end to building cars in Australia, which Ford has done since the 1920s.
A piece in Bloomberg that could hardly be seen as anything but relentless Detroit homerism puts forward the thesis that cutting-edge design is helping Detroit capture increasing market share in a white hot new car market. Per Bloomberg
From the fires of Detroit’s descent into near-death, GM, Ford and Chrysler Group LLC have forged some of the most distinctive designs since tail fins were soaring in the halcyon days of the postwar-era. Models such as GM’s Cadillac ATS sports sedan, Ford’s Fusion family car and Chrysler’s Jeep Grand Cherokee are turning heads and stoking sales.
On the strength of stylish new showroom offerings, GM, Ford and Chrysler all gained market share in the first quarter for the first time in 20 years. Meanwhile, Toyota Motor Corp. (7203)’s staid standard-bearer, the Camry, has endured three months of declining sales as the automaker ceded U.S. share this year. Read More >
As predicted by TTAC, European car sales were up slightly in April. Car sales in the EU rose by 1.7 percent in the month, Europe’s car manufacturer association ACEA says. We warned you before not to read too much into it, and we warn you again. Read More >
Beleaguered EV start-up Better Place faced yet another blow this week, as Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn declared that rapid-charging, not swappable batteries, will be the predominant charging technology for EVs.
Cadillac may be gunning too hard for Germany’s domain of rear-drive sports sedans, but one area where The Standard of the World won’t be gunning for them is in the volume race. GM CFO Dan Ammann told Automotive News that unlike BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, “We’re not going to be in every single segment that they’re in”.
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