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Nissan ReviewsThe Nissan name was first used in 1933, but the company's history goes back much further. Originally known as Kwaishinsha Motorcar Works, the company produced its first automobile, the DAT, in 1914. DAT later became Datsun (son of DAT) in 1931 and Datsuns went on to become the first mass-produced vehicles in Japan. Americans got their first look at the Datsun in 1958 - the 1200 Sedan. The Datsun 240Z was released as a 1970 model and it became the best selling sports car in the world, selling 500,000 units in less than 10 years. |
The Nikkei [sub] says that Nissan will move the (or a) headquarters of its Infiniti brand to Hong Kong, and that Nissan “will begin manufacturing Infiniti-brand vehicles in China as early as next year, becoming the first Japanese automaker to produce luxury cars in that nation.”
Not so fast, say close-to-the-matter contacts in Yokohama. Read More >
On the way to TTAC’s Southern Tour, I filled some of the gaps in my automotive history by reading Car Wars by Robert Sobel. Written in the same year that Nissan opened its first US plant, a sprawling complex in Smyrna, Car Wars documents the early years of the Detroit-Import wars, starting with the Beetle and ending with the rise of the transplant factories. The book is full of lessons, but its most rattling reminders was that Nissan was the major Japanese automaker during the early days of the Japanese industry. Nearly thirty years after Car Wars was written, Nissan often gets lost in Honda and Toyota’s shadow when it comes to perceptions of the Japanese OEMs. And lately Nissan has fallen off more than a few radar screens for the simple fact that its key products are aging: Sentra, Maxima and Altima were introduced for the 2007 model-year, while Rogue is just a year younger. Together these four models account for over half of Nissan’s monthly volume… and yet despite this aged core lineup, Nissan’s sales (as a brand) are up over 17 percent year-to-date, maintaining the brand’s consistent growth.
After a largely flat year of auto sales, it’s looking like the analysts are getting it right and sales were good last month. Chrysler is leading the good-news parade with a whopping 27% bump in volume on strong sales of the 200, Wrangler and Grand Cherokee and 20%+ increases from every brand. GM had a more sideways kind of month, with 2% overall growth and only Chevrolet rising as a brand. For more, watch October’s sales results unfold at our evolving table after the jump…
Read More >
Regular Vehicle Sales Japan October 2011
| Manufacturer | Oct ’11 | Oc t ’10 | Change | FYTD’11 | FYTD’10 | Change |
| Daihatsu | 441 | 289 | 52.6% | 2,578 | 5,364 | -51.9% |
| Hino | 2,794 | 1,628 | 71.6% | 27,724 | 24,077 | 15.1% |
| Honda | 36,355 | 30,422 | 19.5% | 314,810 | 425,375 | -26.0% |
| Isuzu | 2,937 | 2,597 | 13.1% | 33,617 | 37,321 | -9.9% |
| Lexus | 4,308 | 2,068 | 108.3% | 36,328 | 29,814 | 21.8% |
| Mazda | 11,457 | 6,095 | 88.0% | 124,357 | 159,803 | -22.2% |
| Mitsubishi | 4,063 | 2,500 | 62.5% | 46,955 | 61,859 | -24.1% |
| Mitsubishi Fuso | 2,931 | 1,883 | 55.7% | 21,289 | 20,610 | 3.3% |
| Nissan | 33,631 | 25,373 | 32.5% | 372,341 | 442,894 | -15.9% |
| Subaru | 5,785 | 3,138 | 84.4% | 62,118 | 69,562 | -10.7% |
| Suzuki | 6,025 | 4,450 | 35.4% | 64,927 | 50,535 | 28.5% |
| Toyota | 122,208 | 101,518 | 20.4% | 935,800 | 1,357,027 | -31.0% |
| UD Trucks | 855 | 461 | 85.5% | 6,638 | 6,951 | -4.5% |
| Other | 14,137 | 10,836 | 30.5% | 165,396 | 155,612 | 6.3% |
| Total | 247,927 | 193,258 | 28.3% | 2,214,878 | 2,846,804 | -22.2% |
Sales of new cars in Japan rose 28.3 percent in October to 247,927 units, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association reports today. For the current fiscal year (April-October), sales are still 22.2 percent in the hole at 2,214,878 units, compared to 2,846,804 units sold in the same period of 2010. The numbers do not include sales of separately reported minivehicles. The numbers are not a sign of newfound health. They are simply the effect of a comparison with a market that had crashed in fall 2010 after subsidies were withdrawn. Read More >
Someone asked yesterday: “And what exactly is the difference between journalism and blog anyway?” Let me tell you a story:
Last Wednesday, I walked down the shop floor of Nissan’s humungous factory in Smyrna, Tennessee. A monitor pronounced that Volkswagen would end the year as the world’s largest automaker. My stomach knotted.
Two days before, Bloomberg had made the same proclamation: “VW Likely to Overtake Toyota as Top Carmaker in 2011, GM to Remain Second.”
I immediately warned the world that this is nonsense. But it didn’t stop the story from going viral. After all, who are you going to believe, a blogger at TTAC, or the professional journalists at Bloomberg?
The following day, I received a surprising email from someone very high up the food chain at Bloomberg … Read More >
You know, it’s getting goddamned hard for a chap to enjoy a decent corporate-sponsored nosebag from time to time what with the ever-imminent prospect of Jack “Banquo” Baruth popping out from behind a silver soup tureen and shouting “J’accuse!” like some sort of admonitory, jort-clad Visigoth. At least, such I was thinking to myself as I lined the walls of my pericardium with the rich yellow fat best produced by overly-sauced food and moderately crappy wines.
This was in the latter stages of a lunch – sorry – launch I was attending in, admittedly, a very unprofessional capacity. I’m still not entirely sure how I ended up here, but I’m one of those people who can’t say no when offered work; here though there would be no byline, and theoretically therefore, no conflict of interest.
Still, I was keeping one eye open, metaphorically-speaking, for our own favourite Sword of Damocles, as – pardon me good sir, but I believe your trotter is in my trough!
Lifer Automotive Journalist the Size of a Small Moon: “Oh, do beg pardon. Snarfle-snarfle-glub.”
It’s safe to say that most of the seemingly infinite number of “car of the year” competitions are so utterly bunk that they’re not even worth the effort of exposing. But the reality is that you still see advertisements for cars proudly proclaiming them the favored choice of some local, national, or media outlet’s car of the year competition. So, to show just how non-representative and unscientific these awards can be, we thought we’d share the categories from the Automotive Journalist Association of Canada (AJAC)’s “Test Fest,” which will determine the “Canadian Car Of The Year” as well as the favored cars in several categories. Our Canadian tipster writes:
They do all kinds of crap that skew the results. For example, they use the cars “as tested” price to determine what category it falls under, rather than MSRP. So what category the car falls under is completely at the whim of whatever car the manufacturer drops off and what category THEY want the car tested in. You could have an Elantra fall into the “Over $21,000” category or “Under $21,000” category depending on content. Same car, 2 different categories. But it gets better. Some of the categories I call “lump” categories because they just throw everything in one category. My favorite is Sports Car Under $50K. They actually have the Veloster competing against an Charger SRT8 and a C Class Merc. No, I’m not making this us. I’ve included the list for you, so that you may try and decipher WTF these boobs are doing.
Hit the jump to check out the categories for yourself. But first, it should be noted that despite previous questions about the AJAC award’s ethics, the competition now has a page on its website dedicated specifically to enumerating the ethical obligations of participating journalists and the award’s organizers. Unfortunately that page is limited to the following content:
Code of Ethics
AJAC Ethical Guidelines
Under review.
Oy…
Scion is quite sure of one thing: the new iQ is a much better car than the smart fortwo. What they’re much less sure of: how many of the targeted fine young North American urbanites will buy one rather than periodically use Zipcar. I’m neither young nor urban, but I’m going to do my best to pretend. Why might I buy this car—or not?
“I see no need for union representation,” says Adrian Leslie, line worker at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant. “We are being treated fairly here.”
If it would be him alone to decide, then any plans of the UAW to unionize Volkswagen Chattanooga are doomed. Leslie is not alone in his opinion, and the plans are doomed. Read More >
There are days when I wish industry analysts and auto industry journalists should be required to carry maltreatment insurance. This is one of those days. Bloomberg reports that “Volkswagen AG will probably become the world’s biggest carmaker this year, vaulting past Toyota Motor and General Motors on gains in emerging markets.” Pure and unadulterated nonsense. Read More >
(Before you start reading you need to play the video above – just for the music)
Over the last few weeks we have visited Cambodia, Panama, Colombia and China. Not quite sure why there is so many countries starting in C in that list… which is partly why we are now off to Indonesia.
You’ve been to Bali recently and can’t bear to hear any more about it? That’s fine, I’ve prepared 159 other countries for you to visit in my blog, and I can tell you it is sangat baik (very good), so click away!
Toyota is experimenting a little bit in Indonesia, including releasing twin models quasi-exclusively to this country under its Daihatsu brand…
We’ve reviewed a lot of Korean designs here lately. The Soul. The Rio. The Veloster. The Sorrento. The Genesis. The Optima Hybrid. The Cayenne S. Actually, rumors that Porsche made a straight-up trade of engineering (the original Hyundai Santa Fe’s 2.7L V-6) for styling (the original Cayenne is clearly pretty much the same as said original Santa Fe) are completely unfounded. Some of these cars may not be quite up to the standard of their competition, but others are either the critic’s choice of the segment or the actual freaking segment sales volume leader.
Price has been a big part — for a long time, maybe the only part — of Korean-brand appeal in the United States since the very first Excel arrived with “$4995!” plastered on the windshield. In 2011, however, the Hyundai, Kia, and Daewoo vehicles aren’t always the cheapest choice. Which leads us to the question:
My brother wasn’t the most adventurous member of the family. When we were kids he was always whining: “mommy I don’t wanna go in the hot air balloon”, “mommy, I don’t wanna ride the pony”. These memories came flooding back when I stepped out of a cute, light little Fiat 500 and into the high-beltline V6 Mustang. As the Mustang pulled up, my first thought was: mommy, I don’t wanna ride the pony. My problem with the Mustang V6 wasn’t the car itself, it was the driver: me. Maybe it’s because when I was a kid my Mustang was killed by the Mustang II. Maybe it was because the last 5.0 was really just a weak-sauce 4.9. Before I even got behind the wheel, I was asking myself: what is the point of the pony car? Is it just to look cool? Deliver easy burnouts? Why not buy something else? The new V6 ‘stang is headlined as the holy grail of RWD car shopping; 300+ HP, 30+ MPG or as I like to say: all the hoon, half the gas. Because of the hype I had to see for myself if the V6 pony car is the perfect RWD companion, or should if $22,000-32,000 would be better spent on something else. Let’s find out.
Japanese carmakers, which barely have recovered from the effects of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, find themselves in another catastrophe. Floods in Thailand cost Japanese automakers approximately 6,000 cars a day, Toshiyuki Shiga, chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, said today in Tokyo. Read More >
According to U.A.W. talking points, the Japanese car market is closed to foreign imports, and the yen is kept artificially low. Utter insanity on both counts. The customs duty on new cars imported to Japan is exactly zero, and the yen is so obscenely expensive that Japanese carmakers openly threaten to leave and privately are shifting as much production as possible out of the country. Unbeknownst to talking point readers, Japan has had a thriving car import market for decades. For more than a year, imports to Japan showed an uptick. TTAC has been taking about this for quite a while, here, then here and also here.
Today, The Nikkei [sub] did wise up to the fact that imports are getting hotter in Japan despite a tepid new car market. The Nikkei sent a reporter to an Audi showroom, interviewed a BMW customer, and noted a societal change: “My wife prefers foreign cars, so that’s why we bought one,” a bank employee who traded his domestic car for a BMW told The Nikkei. “They have lower fuel efficiency than Japanese cars, but that is not a big problem because we drive only on weekends.”
Now what’s really going on with imports to Japan? Let’s look at it a little closer. Read More >
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