The AP [via Google] reports that Toyota’s board has voted to pay $32.4m on top of the $16.4 it already paid the US Department of Transportation in connection with its handling of several recalls. The first involved Toyota’s handling of gas-pedal entrapment by floormats in its vehicles that were part of the Unintended Acceleration scandal earlier this year. The other involved steering rods in certain 4Runners and T-100 pickups that were not recalled despite a 2004 Japanese market recall for the same parts on Hilux pickups.

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Despite being introduced to the US back in 2006, sales of Nissan’s Versa are hardly slacking with age. Sales of the Versa have increased every year since its introduction except for last year, when volume dropped by about 2,000 units, and this year the subcompact sedan/hatch has already set a new annual sales record. Even the newer, arguably better-looking Kia Soul hasn’t been able to unseat the Versa from its perch as king of the subcompacts, having sold only about 60k units this year to the Versa’s 89,500. But despite this continued success, Nissan is replacing the slightly geeky-looking Versa with this, the 2012 Nissan Sunny, which has just been unveiled at the Guangzhou Auto Show in Southern China.

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Ever wonder what they call Canadian geese in Canada? Me too. I asked a Canadian, but she didn’t speak much English, she was facing away from me during the dance, and I couldn’t hear her over the DJ anyway.

This is the new “Grand C-Max” by Ford. In Europe, the C-Max is a “tall wagon” five-seater that competes with both the “Golf Plus” and the 1987 Honda “Wagovan”. VW sued on that. Said it was too close to the Vanagon. Anyway, there’s a bit of a fetish in Europe for hatchbacks that are just like regular hatchbacks only taller. I have no idea why. They aren’t any more useful. Think of it as our mini-SUV fetish. It’s just that stupid.

Back to this Grand C-Max, which is a small seven-seat minivan. Here in Sarah Palin’s America, there’s no regular C-Max, so the Grand C-Max is now the C-Max. You can have a turbocharged engine with it and a panoramic roof. Remember when you were trying to impress someone else on your favorite web forum and you said that, and I quote, “the only thing keeping me from buying a new car is the COMPLETE LACK of European turbo minivans?” Oops!

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“The next 24 months will be tough for us,” said Soh Weiming, Volkswagen’s company’s executive president for China, to Bloomberg. Is Volkswagen running scared in China? Will the bubble finally burst? Soh Weiming is worried. Read More >

Certain misguided members of the not-so-mainstream media perpetuate the myth that American cars are unsalable in Japan, that nobody wants them, that they are “dasai” or uncool. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Japanese love American cars so much that they lay on a big festival a few times of the year, dedicated to the celebration of the great American car. I blew TTAC’s travel budget and went all the way to Yokohama to attend today’s Amefes, and to snap a lot of pictures of a lot of old and new American cars in Japan.

Right this way, dozo…

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The Toyota pickup has become such a dominant vehicle in its class worldwide, its easy to assume that it was always that way. Not so. It was Nissan’s little Datsun trucks that essentially invented the modern mini-pickup genre, and was top puppy in the US for well over a decade before handing over the throne. In fact, trucks were the only vehicle that Datsun imported for quite a few years, and made its reputation with them. They’re a significant piece of automotive history, and many are still hard at work, at least hereabouts. Read More >

Lotus has approved its Emas city car concept for production in 2013, giving the sportscar firm an in-house competitor to Aston Martin’s Cygnet rebadge of the Toyota iQ. The extended-range electric car was first shown at the last Geneva auto show,  when our own Martin Schwoerer praised its “enormous’ interior space, and well-engineered packaging. The Emas uses Lotus’s three-cylinder range extender, mated to an electric drivetrain with a peak output of 75 kW (101 HP) and 206 lb-ft of torque, and will be the only non-performance vehicle in the Lotus range. But it won’t be the cheapest bit of Lotus-branded kit you’ll be able to buy when the brand relaunches, as the NYT reports

Lotus will also put its name on an array of quotidian objects like key fobs, cellphone holders and laptop bags, which a Lotus publicist described as “cool, high-end pieces that provide an entry level to the brand.”

But with so much emphasis being placed on turning Lotus into a “lifestyle brand,” there’s a major cloud hanging over the whole project: though Lotus is one of the quintessentially British brands, the firm says it will shift production to a supplier on the European continent (think Valmet and Magna-Steyr) if the British government doesn’t make with a £40m ($62m) Regional Growth Fund loan to support a new factory in Hethel. Which means that if the British government doesn’t take a huge gamble on a firm that even Bob Lutz thinks only has a 60 percent chance of success, Lotus will not only no longer be a true British brand, it won’t even build is own cars. But  should British taxpayers bankroll such a risky play at a luxury niche?

Tata is doing everything possible to revive the shriveled sales of the Nano. Sales of the ultra-lowpriced Nano recently crashed to ultralow levels: In November, only 509 units changed hands, reluctantly. The success of the much hyped diminutive conveyance more and more looks like a flash in the pan, literally. The Nano became infamous for going up on flames. Then, Tata had to raise the ultralow price a few times. On top of that, Nano buyers were seen as bad credit risks by Indian banks and were hit with ultrahigh interest rates. Stir, simmer, and you have a recipe for disaster. Now, Tata has decided to fight back. However, the counter-offensive appears less inspired compared to the enthusiasm when the car was launched. Read More >

[Graph courtesy:opensecrets.org]

Newly freed from the government’s controlling interest, GM is turning the tables back on the government by accelerating its lobbying efforts some 83 percent in the third quarter of this year. GM spent $2.72m on lobbying in the second quarter of this year, and $2.49m in the third quarter, a massive increase over the $1.36m GM spent in the third quarter of last year (Chrysler spent $846k last quarter). Bloomberg reports

The Detroit automaker had nine registered lobbyists speaking with federal agencies and Congress on free trade agreements, distracted driver legislation, tax credits for electric vehicles, pension legislation, climate change bills [as well as] Wall Street reform; fuel economy regulations; U.S.-Asia trade; pending free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama; funding for renewable fuel research; defense spending; emergency response privacy regulation; event data recorders; pedestrian safety and other issues

But let’s be real about something: some of these issues are just a little more important than others….

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This week’s Silversides Bus and Tempest CCs were high on my wish list, and finding them motivated me to put in some serious overtime. So today I need a breather, say an urban hike from our house to Skinner Butte, the geographic focal point of Eugene. Now some of you have asked if you could join me sometime on a CC hunt in Eugene; of course you all have a standing invitation; just show up. In the meantime you can join me on a virtual tour/hunt of the Skinner Butte District. I’ll just point out the highlights of the neighborhood, and you just give a shout out when you see something that interests you. Read More >

I knew Mercedes GL.
Mercedes GL was almost a friend of mine.
And you, Dodge Durango, are no Mercedes GL.
Thank God.

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As we saw in the prerace sneak preview, the 2010 Arse Freeze-a-Palooza 24 Hours of LeMons featured a brain-dissolvingly great assortment of entries, so impressive that one of the greatest of all time may have been lost in the frenzy: the Apollo 18 Mini Moke. Read More >

Lotus has perplexed and antagonized a number of auto enthusiasts by announcing its intent to expand beyond niche sportscars and become a global sport-luxe brand in the vein of Porsche and Ferrari. By announcing five future cars at once, Lotus made an audacious splash in the industry, and painted a giant target on its back. At the same time, Lotus’s initial plans called for the use of Toyota V8s and hybrid systems, leading some to wonder if Lotus was even being audacious enough. After all, assuming it could play with Porsche’s and Ferraris using only mass-market customer engines was somehow cravenly conservative to the point of being obnoxiously ballsy. Surely Lotus realizes that bespoke drivetrains are crucial to building a global sportscar brand? Well, apparently the Hethel boys didn’t get it… at least until their potential customers made an issue of it.

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We’ve been slacking a bit on our sales analysis over the last few months, but with the end of the year rapidly approaching we’re getting ready to look back at a year of sales, statistics and trends. To catch you up on the evolving US market sales picture, we now present the top six sellers in each of the six most important segments. Midsized and compact sedans, midsized and compact crossovers, pickups and “luxury low” (better known as “3 Series Fighters”) are all represented with today’s wide but shallow snapshot of car sales in 2010. Will the Sonata pass Malibu this year? Having beaten the Toyota Highlander, will Subaru’s Outback take down the Honda Pilot? Will the CR-V hold off the Escape? Best And Brightest, this is your cue to start prepping those year-end sales analysis talking points…

Alex writes:

I have a 2000 Honda Accord Coupe EX-V6, 253k miles, original automatic transmission. I’ve had 2 motor mounts replaced, a heater core, and otherwise just standard maintenance (transmission service every 50k miles, new belts every 100k, along with new water pump; new alternator whenever I burn the old one out). Last year, the tranny started whining, giving the inevitable death wail of the Honda slushbox. But it’s still going strong, the wail has stopped, and the transmission fluid looks and smells as clean as ever. My wife and I are looking into buying a 2009 Honda Fit Sport to replace it. The question: do I sell this bad boy or keep it, and do I wait till it dies to buy the Fit (or Pontiac Vibe, or something else)? Full disclosure: my father in law is a GM mechanic, who would love it if I bought a GM.

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