Toyota Motor Co., the world’s largest automaker, has been producing cars for more than 70 years. It wasn’t until after World War II, however, that production started to pick up. Toyota went from making 8,500 cars a year in 1955 to 600,000 in 1965. Models like the Toyopet and Land Cruiser hit the United States in 1957. Today Toyota is among the leaders when it comes to hybrid technology.
When people talk about red hot car markets, the usually mean BRIC: Brazil, Russia, India, China. Nobody ever mentions Indonesia. Indonesia? That island nation has some 235m people, three quarters the population of the U.S.A. But it’s very under-motorized. Last year, Indonesians bought only 486,000 cars, 20 percent less than in the year before. Indonesia’s car production is not much to write home about either. According to OICA, Indonesia produced 464,816 motor vehicles last year. In 2005, they made 500,710. So let’s forget about them, right? Not so fast. Read More >
We live in annoyingly ideological times, in which people get worked up about gay marriage, Christopher Bangle, or what religion their neighbor belongs to. This is foreign to me. If it works for you, then go for it, I always say. You like some wheels, you buy ’em; if you don’t, don’t.
So, it’s hard for me to understand what the fuss is about the Chevrolet Volt. It’s just a car, for Pete’s sake! On the other hand, I am a notorious gearhead and can appreciate the importance of what seems to be a totally new automotive concept. It’s new, but does it point toward the future? Let’s discuss it.
My initial self-appointed assignment was to come up with a comprehensive cost analysis of the Volt in comparison to the Prius and other vehicles. I first took this on two and a half years ago, and the results from that gazing-into-the crystal-ball exercise are actually still remarkably accurate, except for the Volt failing to meet its then-promised 50mpg fuel economy. The task, given the infinite variables, is essentially impossible, and thankfully, I was forwarded a link to this Electric Car Calculator. It’s far from perfect, given that it doesn’t account for depreciation, finance costs, leasing, maintenance, etc. What it does do is allow you to input your driving regime, both weekdays and weekends, electric and gas costs, and come up with a comparison for overall fuel costs with your choice of another vehicle; a good start: Read More >
For a vehicle named after a unit of measure, the Chevrolet Volt is a difficult car to pin down. From its drivetrain to its efficiency rating, the Volt defies categorization. From price point to performance, it defies comparison. It’s a rolling contradiction, this car, part electric car and part gas-burner, part high-concept moonshot and part workmanlike commuter. And yet for all its mysteries, contradictions and (yes) compromises, the Volt is also a deceptively simple car to use. Which makes it what exactly?
In almost perfect contrast to Ford’s rapidly rising average transaction prices (previous post), Toyota is having to keep incentives and dealer discounts high in order to keep moving the metal. Automotive News reports that Toyota dealers, once money printing machines, are having to accept lower gross profits. Transaction prices on new 2011 models are the lowest, as a percentage of sticker prices, of all mainstream brands, according to TrueCar and Edmunds.com. And Toyota dealers aren’t denying it: Read More >
If you regret not buying Ford stock when it was $1, you might want to reconsider even at the current $14. Bloomberg reports that Ford may well report a record third quarter profit of some $1.37 billion, based on the projections of five analysts. Considering that the market is still depressed, some analysts see plenty of potential left on the upside, projecting a possible $20 share price within the next 12 months. The keys to Ford’s success? Here’s just one: the new Fiesta is fetching $3,000 to $4,000 above its $14k base price, because buyers are happily taking them loaded with options. The result is that average transaction prices for the Fiesta are higher than Honda Civics and Toyota Corollas. And the Fiesta is a class smaller. The small cars-can’t-be-sold-profitably-by-Detroit curse has finally been exploded. Read More >
Despite government witch hunts (recently cancelled, supposedly) and subsidized competitors, Toyota is holding its own. Just. But like Toyota said, they’re going on the offensive. They’ve upped the incentives (but are still below industry average) and launching new warranties to confirm their commitment to their products. But they’re also pushing into new markets to offset their reliance on the North American market (and also to make more money). Now one of those markets is India. The formula is very simple there. Cheap, reliable, safe, and cheap. And that’s what Toyota is trying to do. About time. Suzuki is eating everybody’s lunch in India.Read More >
While we are all waiting for Ed’s report on the Volt, let me waste some of your time by mentioning that GM will introduce the thing in China some time in the second half of 2011. They already concede that it will be a flop. Read More >
Everybody, please help me out here and look out of the window: Is the sun rising in the west? No? Are clocks running backwards? No? Then WTH is going on? NHTSA Chief David Strickland praised, yes praised automakers for their dispatch on recalls, and wait until you hear this: Strickland gave a gold star to Toyota for its improvements. Read More >
Welcome to Tinfoil Time. A public service for paranoids and their enemies. When the NHTSA went after Toyota for their runaway cars, some people (me, included) saw this as a transparent attempt to undermine Toyota in order to make GM and Chrysler (A.K.A new arms of the US government) more attractive both in terms of purchasing their products and the IPO’s. But now that the circus is leaving town, is the NHTSA looking for a new victim? Whilst searching the net, I saw (part of) an article (sub) which mentions how Ford’s North American market share is on the rise. Sure, Toyota’s market share in the U.S. dropped by 1.5 percent compared to September 2009. But GM did not pick up those sales. They lost 2.8 percent. The winners were Ford (+ 1.4 percent), and Chrysler (+2.1 percent).I also remember a poll that was taken which claimed that how 54 percent of people were less likely to buy a GM car because of their bailout. Rising sales at Ford and bad will towards GM? I’ve seen this scenario before! The next stage is now the NHTSA will tell us to stop driving our Fords. Trouble is, Ford doesn’t have any recalls of recent. So what can the NHTSA do? You recycle a recall. Read More >
We’ve spent a lot of time in the sixties and seventies lately, probably alienating some of our younger readers, so lets set the time machine a bit closer to home. Why did I pick this? Because I think its a pretty fine looking car, as well as being one of the last of its genre: affordable fun-to-drive, lightweight RWD coupes. Kind of ironic, that this vintage of the SX/Silvia was a looker, because most of its predecessors sure weren’t. Some things do improve with age. Read More >
GM is the market leader in the United States. Volkswagen has Europe. Toyota has Australia and Japan. Fiat has…. Brazil? That’s right. Fiat is the number one in Brazil. Brazilians do love a good Fiat. But with Volkswagen’s global ambitions, that number one position in Brazil isn’t safe for Fiat. Volkswagen is number 2 there and if it one thing Volkswagen doesn’t like, it’s playing second fiddle. This is why Fiat is going on the offensive. Read More >
Toyota, king of the hybrids, won’t sell their first plug-in hybrid before 2012. But they already have their kind of a perception gap. The car will be able to go 23km (14.29 miles) on battery alone, then, the ICE engine will kick in and start making electricity. However, research shows that only a few people know about the electric-only feature. Or do they care at all? Read More >
About once per decade since the 1960s, GM has introduced a compact car that was going to slaughter the imports, only to have it flop miserably: Corvair, Vega, Cavalier, Saturn (Chevrolet focused on trucks during the 1990s), Cobalt. Okay, including the last isn’t quite fair. It was introduced with much less hype, and ironically didn’t fare too badly. And now, the Chevrolet Cruze. Not too much hype—that’s for the Volt. But has GM finally figured out how to build a class-leading compact sedan? Read More >
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