After ending a 35-month streak of improved U.S. sales with a 3-percent year-over-year decline in September, Jeep volume slid 7 percent in October 2016, the second consecutive month of decline for the previously white-hot SUV brand.

Jeep’s best-selling Cherokee recorded the most significant plunge in October 2016, falling 23 percent from year-ago levels to rank third in Jeep sales. Only the Grand Cherokee, quickly becoming Jeep’s top seller, and the departing Patriot posted October improvements.

Jeep, so often the engine behind FCA’s growth when Chrysler, Dodge, and Fiat have struggled, was instead partly to blame for FCA’s 10-percent October decline.  Read More >

Debt-heavy Fiat Chrysler Automobiles could do with some more spending money, so why not try something new?

Figuring it can squeeze more money out of its products — and boost its stock — if it focuses less on volume, FCA has embarked on a new sales strategy that isn’t new in the industry. Call it the General Motors Approach.

Imitation, as they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. Read More >

It was a bombshell decision that Fuji Heavy Industries describes as “extraordinary.”

Subaru’s parent company announced today that its board of directors has decided to eliminate its industrial division to free up resources for its car division. FHI built its empire on small industrial powerplants, spawning a quirky car company in the process, but that car brand is now the corporation’s main focus.

What does the new love mean for Subaru? Read More >

In October 2016, after a 68-month gap, Chevrolet was once again the top-selling automobile brand in the United States.

Despite a modest sales slowdown, General Motors’ highest-volume brand increased its market share, outsold Ford Motor Company’s namesake Ford brand by 3,341 units, and produced the Bow-tie brand’s best October retail volume since 2004.

Ford, on the other hand, tumbled 13 percent, a loss of 26,000 sales compared with October 2015, due to sharp declines in its car and utility vehicle divisions. Read More >

Updated with Ford, Lincoln, and Ford Motor Company results.

Delayed by a fire at the automaker’s Michigan headquarters, Ford Motor Company sales figures weren’t released until this morning, a day after every other automaker issues their monthly reports.

Now, with Ford numbers included, the auto industy lost 6 percent of its October volume in 2016, a year-over-year loss of more than 86,000 units that’s causing observers to question the likelihood of a second consecutive annual sales record for the U.S. auto industry. Ford’s 12-percent drop in October certainly didn’t help. Read More >

For the second time in a month, a union official’s loose lips has spilled information on a looming change in Ford’s lineup, only this time the product news isn’t an addition — it’s a funeral.

Yes, if the report is true — and Ford isn’t confirming it — the mighty Ford Flex will bow out of existence in 2020, leaving fans of the polished brick heartbroken. Still, there’s a mystery as to the fate of its leviathan-like platform mate, the Lincoln MKT. Read More >

There is something sincerely wrong with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ math, although things are starting to add up for why some of its sales numbers were so inflated.

That, Ford decides to get a little less global at the expense of the small car, Hyundai pays the price for lying, and parts suppliers see doom and gloom on the horizon for the automotive industry… after the break!

Read More >

The next-generation Ram 1500 is still expected to trundle out of Sterling Heights in January of 2018, but don’t expect a familiar face to go away just yet.

As it readies a new full-sizer to better challenge Ford and General Motors, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles plans to keep the old Ram 1500 in production for the 2018 and 2019 model years, Automotive News reports. Read More >

Cars. They still make ’em, don’t they?

Automakers do, in fact, still produce cars, but they’re the last thing those companies’ bosses want to talk about, and they’re no longer on the top of most buyers’ shopping lists.

For the world’s largest automaker, the U.S. public’s shift towards trucks, SUVs and crossovers presents a problem. Toyota has them, but can’t build enough of them. With the rapidly declining interest in cars threatening its tentative No. 1 standing, Toyota needs to find a way to give buyers what they want. Read More >

First it was Hyundai flinging special discounts in the direction of imminently carless Volkswagen diesel owners. Now Volvo has added its name to the list of automakers attempting to woo this unique crop of vehicular nomads.

The approval of Volkswagen’s massive settlement deal with U.S. owners and environmental regulators on Tuesday is apparently a sales opportunity not to be missed, but Volvo is approaching it from a different direction than Hyundai. Read More >

The used car market? Saturated. The battle? About to begin.

America’s largest new-car retailer knows there’s money in them there pre-owned vehicles and has hatched a half-billion-dollar plan to take on the country’s largest used-car retailer. Read More >

Is there a tiny pinpoint of light that can stir some meager hope in the heart of the compact and midsize passenger car segment? No, no there isn’t.

Even as sticker prices for these vehicles rise and as manufacturers endow them with enough technological goodies to make your mom’s car from yesterday look like a chuckwagon, retained value is dropping as fast as the segments’ market share.

Once a driving force, the segment has now become a red-headed stepchild at auction. Read More >

Feeling burned by your former suitor? Want to get even with the German who caused you so much trouble and heartache?

Hyundai wants disenfranchised Volkswagen diesel owners to run into the warm arms of their caring South Korean friend and has a tailor-made deal ready to rope them in.

Commence operation “V-Plan.” Read More >

General Motors is teaming up with IBM to implement Watson’s artificial intelligence so that it can advertise while you are trying to drive. Your dashboard is about to become a billboard.

That, Uber delivers a truckload of beer using a self-driving vehicle, Mini’s Countryman gains size and compatibility with electricity, and Hyundai’s earnings tank… after the break!

Read More >

Ram’s September sales surge grew its share of the full-size pickup segment, but only after Fiat Chrysler Automobiles threw incentives at buyers that easily topped those of its Detroit Three rivals.

Expect that to continue, says FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne. While some automakers, namely Ford, have slowed production to keep pace with lower demand, FCA sees an opportunity to spend more to sell more. Read More >