So far, it had been striking workers at Chinese parts suppliers that brought Japanese car makers to their knees, praying for parts needed to re-start the lines. Here is a new  twist: Japan’s Hitachi ran out of chips for ECUs (commonly called “car computers”). And Japanese carmakers are shutting down the lines. Read More >

Volkswagen, Daimler, Audi, BMW: Despite tanking sales in Europe, they all report record numbers. Why? Exports and a weak Euro. It’s not just a German thing. Same across the Rhine: Agence France Press (via Google News) reports that Renault is very bullish on the back of strong sales in the first half of 2010.  Renault is up an amazing 21.6 percent to 1.35 million vehicles. Growth of 21.6 percent is good in Renault’s eyes as they claimed that the global market grew 16 percent. Meaning: Renault gained global market share. Read More >

Kia’s Soul didn’t have the most electrifying launch sales-wise, but with the release of its second buzz-worthy ad, the funky little box is becoming a major player in our A/B/Small Hatch segment. The Nissan Versa is clearly the dominant player here, selling nearly twice as well as the Soul. Meanwhile, there’s a tight pack of offerings that have moved at least 20k units this year, that ranges from the aged HHR to the MINI Cooper. Look for a big shake-up in this segment once Ford’s Fiesta production hits high gear.

Poetry, Wordsworth told us right before he and that dope fiend Coleridge pissed all over English literature with the freakin’ Lyrical Ballads, is “emotion recollected in tranquility.” By “emotion”, he meant having a nice walk in the Lake District, and by “tranquility”, he meant the sweet, sweet song of opium. Hate that guy and his wack-ass aversion to meter. You want to read some real literature, I recommend Pope’s Epistle To Dr. Arbuthnot. But I digress.

While Acura struggles with its current beaky big rig, reviewed by Mr. Karesh yesterday, I thought I would recall some emotion in tranquility and detail my drive of the 1998 Acura 2.5TL. Truth be told, though, there wasn’t much emotion involved. Perhaps this is tranquility, recollected in tranquility. Never mind.

It is a five cylinder Acura,
And it cost about twenty-five G.
“By thy frameless windows and generic grille,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?
Read More >

Nissan has released more teasers for its forthcoming 2011 Quest, and we’re starting to get the feeling that it could just be the first mold-breaking minivan in some time. It’s not necessarily the most exciting looking thing, but under that blunt-nosed skin, this Quest likely boasts the RWD/AWD chassis of the newest Japanese Elgrand van and an optional 3.5 liter VQ V6. We’ll wait for official details before we start getting too crazy, but the possibility of a 300 hp, RWD minivan is a little to perversely thrilling to ignore. With all the talk of “Swagger Wagons” and “Man Vans” lately, Nissan may just have the most exciting minivan since the first-gen Mazda MPV (to date, the only minivan to be appear in a rap video) hiding up its sleeve…

We continue our look at the rock stars of car magazines, the concept cars splashed across the covers, cars that rarely if ever went anywhere.

The cover concept dream cars that I find most intriguing are the stillborn ideas, cars that were not quite vaporware, but that also never made it past prototype stage into production. Some were from specialist manufacturers, others from new startups and yet others from large and established firms. Some, like the six-wheeler Panther, were so unique that they have stuck in my memory for decades. Others completely slipped my mind. Most of them, I’m sure, sold more magazines than cars.

If I asked you to name a major Japanese automaker that developed a mid-engine sports car you’d most likely mention Toyota and the MR2 or Honda’s highly esteemed Acura NSX. You probably wouldn’t mention Nissan. Read More >

There was a time, in summer of 2007, when a dollar bought more than 120 yen. Once you arrived in Tokyo, you quickly wished it would have bought more. Now, the dollar buys about a third less. The dollar/yen rate had been at a downward trajectory since that summer of 2007. What made the yen really expensive was a company called Lehman Brothers, and the fallout following their bankruptcy in 2008. For inexplicable reasons, the yen is seen as a safer currency than the greenback. Should you make the mistake of stepping off the plane with Euros in your pocket, you would be in for an even bigger shock. In July 2008, a Euro bought 170 yen. Now, it’s down to 109.  For even more inexplicable reasons, some mentally unstable people still talk about an undervalued yen.

You may not travel to Tokyo frequently enough to give a hoot. But Japanese auto manufacturers don’t want to take it any more. Read More >

A hybrid version of the Nissan Fuga (better known as the Infiniti M35/45 on these shores) could deliver an up to 90 percent better fuel-efficiency than its  conventionally powered model, Nissan’s chief engineer for hybrid systems told The Nikkei [sub] today.

“We expect fuel economy to improve by 60 percent to 90 percent” over the conventional model, chief engineer Koichi Hayasaki said at a media briefing. Read More >

The BBC reports that new car registrations in the UK have inexplicably risen 10.8 percent in June 2010 compared with this time, last year. What makes this “inexplicable” is the fact that sales have risen, despite the fact that the “cash for clunkers” scheme had ended on March the 31st, 2010. “The new car market continued to perform above expectations in June,” said the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) chief executive Paul Everitt said, “The results indicate improved business confidence and a strengthening economic recovery.” However, a quick look at the SMMT report reveals a potential answer. The article shows that fleet sales grew 25.3 percent. Those pesky fleet sales! Let’s take a quick look at some of the brands and their performance, shall we…? Read More >

Despite having more cash than debt for the first time in decades, GM is going back to Wall Street in search of fresh debt. Over the weekend, The General has been in talks with several banks to secure a $5b revolving line of credit to shore up its liquidity position ahead of an IPO that’s rumored to take place in August. At $5b, GM’s desired line of credit would essentially replace the $5.8b the automaker has repaid to the Treasury, and will help it deal with a number of pressing cash needs to maintain its shaky global empire. But with so many pressing uses for the cash, and political pressure mounting for a rapid IPO, can GM deal with its issues and take on more debt and be worth what the government wants it to be worth? Troublingly, the answers to these questions are not to be found on GM’s balance sheet.

Read More >

Behold the mighty off-road prowess of the Grand Cherokee SRT-8! Yes, my ratty-looking lawn is about as far off-road as most JGCs ever go. The 2011 Grand Cherokee even offers a couple of optimized drivetrain-and-suspension setups for those people who, as the nice Jeep PR man said during the introduction, “only go off-road… in their minds.”

The autojourno business is an odd one. Your not-so-humble author was one of the first people to have the chance to drive the 2011 JGC anywhere, and also very possibly the last journo on the planet to obtain a 2010 Grand Cherokee as a press vehicle. I’d like to think that, at the moment I achieved 88 miles per hour in the 2011 truck, I went back in time and successfully snagged a 2010 as a loaner.

There’s no SRT-8 in the 2011 lineup, although I strongly suspect there will be one debuting later on in the year, so if you want the combination of big-cube HEMI and Brembo brakes in your SUV, this is your only choice for now. The question is: with the demonstrated excellence of the new model, is there any reason at all to choose a 2010?
Read More >

Still convinced that the Yen is undervalued? Japanese carmakers beg to differ. They think the Japanese currency became so expensive that it gets cheaper for them to build abroad and to import to Japan. We’ve reported that Nissan is moving the production of their Micra (called March in Asia) to Thailand. When they did this, The Nikkei [sub] saw “huge implications for the future of the Japanese auto industry as a whole.” It certainly looks like Nissan’s exodus to the Land Of Smiles (and occasional riots) started a trend. Read More >

Auto Express reports that GM is going to sell the Chevy Chevrolet Camaro in the United Kingdom by May 2011, with a convertible version later that year. It will only be available in the top level Gestapo SS trim, and will have the 6.2 litre, 426bhp V8 engine. Unfortunately, GM couldn’t be bothered to respect local driving customs and will sell the car in left-hand drive only. That’s right. Pricing is yet to be confirmed as exchange rates are sensitive at the moment, but GM is aiming to keep the pricing in line (I thought it was a V8?) with the Nissan 370Z, which starts at £28,345. Now while there are many American-philes (probably located in the North of England) who are doing a “dosey-doe” around their living rooms at this news, there are a few of problems (and here comes the pessimistic part). Read More >