If you are a carmaker, you need to have a hybrid and maybe even a plugin in the program, or at least on the schedule – whether your heart is in it or not. Even avowed petrol (and diesel) heads such as BMW and Volkswagen are dabbling with electrified powertrains – officially. Where are the last holdouts? In hybrid-country Japan.

“Mazda and Fuji Heavy are pursuing unique growth strategies as they continue to bank on refinements to the international combustion engine, in stark contrast with larger automakers that are rushing to roll out hybrid and electric cars,” reports The Nikkei [sub] to an aghast readership. Read More >

I’m in that odd camp of being both a Scion owner and a Scion hater. It has to do with their gen2 replacement models, which all arrive with a death wish. My scathing review/styling analysis of the gen2 xB launched a whole genre of reviews comparing it to various greasy foods. The current xD escaped my wrath; I just couldn’t be bothered. And both the current xB and xD are selling at one-third the level of their predecessors: the gen 1 xB sold at about a 5k/month clip in 2005-2006; the current xB is down to about 1700/month. The xD has dropped similarly from 2400/mo (xA) to 800/mo. And now it’s the tC’s turn. Read More >

It seems unlikely: Canadians prefer smaller cars and those with high fuel efficiency, but they’re shunning hybrids. Monvolant, via autoblog, reports that Honda will be dropping the Insight and Civic hybrid models, due to poor sales. Only 748 Insights have found Canuck buyers, and even fewer Civic Hybrids. Honda had planned to sell 10k Insights in Canada this year. Pop!

The Insight has been a major sales disappointment stateside too. But here’s the real shocker: Only 2,272 Toyota Prius have been sold in Canada through July of this year. Are the Canadians hybriphobic? Or just genuinely frugal? (The two top selling cars in Canada are the Civic and the Corolla)

Okay, everybody, take out your old Waitresses or Bouncing Souls songbooks, and sing along with me:

I know what girls like
I know what chicks want
I know what girls like
Girls like
…the Ford Edge.

Ford’s rolled 400,000 Edges out the door since the model was introduced five years ago. For reasons I cannot understand, it completely obliterated the Flex and the Freestyle/Taurus X at dealerships, outselling them combined by a factor of two or three in most months. Half of the Edges sold are registered to women, which likely means that far more than half of them were selected by, and are driven by, women. According to Ford, among buyers in this segment, “styling” ranks as the #5 reason to buy a vehicle, but Edge buyers rank “styling” as the number one reason they chose one.

So here’s the new one. Ford has made a solid effort to address the Edge’s shortcomings. It has more power, less weight (in some models), better brakes, and a much higher-quality interior. The dynamic package is significantly improved, and I had the chance to test that in a literally life-threatening situation, as we’ll see below. None of this will matter too much to the Coach-bag set, however. They’ll be blown-away by the new “myFord Touch” system… and if you care at all about the state of in-car electronics, you will be, too.
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I love video displays at auto shows. For example, I’m hoping and really looking forward to Toyota playing the Swagger Wagon video on heavy rotation all day, every day this auto show season. I’m sure it will only start to get old after the first 17 times in a shift. My sources tell me Toyota is ditching the live performances this year (I know how broken up you’ll be about missing the Avalon Lounge Act) so they’ll need something eye-catching to fill the void.

Video displays at the auto show don’t get enough love or attention from consumers. It’s a shame, really, because what is put onscreen is often very clever. Sometimes they’ll even throw in some of their overseas commercials, and then you’re in for a real treat. Here are a few I hope we’ll see on overhead displays this auto show season. Read More >

Stefan Jacoby, formerly chief of Volkswagen of America, took over the wheel at now Geely-owned Volvo. That answers the question raised a few weeks ago whether he still has the job. He does.

Jacoby moved with his whole family to the Hissingen district of Göteborg, Sweden. close to Volvo’s headquarters. That answers the lingering question whether Volvo will be dismantled and moved to some city in China nobody has ever heard of and nobody can spell.  Not going to happen. At least not for the moment. Volvo will be managed from Sweden by a German who answers to Chinese owners. And who daydreams of a Bentley … Read More >

The Japanese auto industry is staring at the calendar like a rabbit at the snake. October 1, the rabbit will be dinner. October 1,  government subsidies for purchases of “environmentally friendly vehicles” (read pretty much any new vehicle that passes Japanese rules) will be no more. According to popular wisdom, come October, the Japanese new car market that had enjoyed double digits growth rates, will go poof and implode.

So what to do in a country where with the exception of flu masks, the Top 10 list of popular products ”was dominated by low-priced retail merchandise and eco-friendly products as consumers pinched pennies and took advantage of government stimulus subsidies” as Reuters put it? Simple: Local subsidies. Read More >

We are sorry you were inconvenienced and had to worry about where your car was parked while you covered the signing. The UAW member you encountered in the UAW Local 249 parking lot meant no personal disrespect to you. Accomodating [sic] vehicles not made by UAW brothers and sisters is a passionate subject for our members.

He and UAW members across the country know that foreign automakers that allow workers to freely join unions in their home countries while denying that same right to U.S. workers are denying the First Amendment right of American workers to freely organize. Yet foreign automakers accept U.S. taxpayers’ dollars in incentives to build assembly plants, jeopardizing the future of middle-class workers in the domestic auto industry.

UAW Boss Bob King half-apologizes to Kansas City Business Journal reporter James Dornbrook, who was forced to remove his American-built Toyota Camry from the parking lot of UAW Local 249 in Kansas City while reporting a story there. The DetNews notes that King’s predecessor Ron Gettelfinger had loosened the UAW’s long-standing ban on non-UAW-made cars in its parking lots five years ago, when he allowed Marine Corps reservists who report to a nearby office park at UAW headquarters. But King is on a mission to reconnect the UAW with its old-time religion, and his letter proceeds to lecture Dornbrook on the standard talking points concerning the anti-middle-class evils of non-union transplant factories, and the general sanctity of all things UAW-approved.

King’s letter is a tedious read, but it’s proof that self-righteousness trumps self-preservation at the UAW, even when it comes to something as (relatively) easy to control as press relations. Reporters may not be quite as popular as Marines, but they have immense influence over public perception of the UAW (which, incidentally, is not in great shape just now). Kicking one off UAW property because he drives a non-union, American-built car and then lecturing him with UAW dogma is just plain stupid.

Since taking office in June, UAW President Bob King has ramped up the rhetoric level at Solidarity Hall considerably, as he seeks to portray the union as a defender of the American middle class. But, as the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words… and King’s actions this week couldn’t paint a clearer picture of the UAW’s priorities.
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Suddenly it’s 1960 (again)! Well no, not that 1960. How about this one, the (more) real 1960? Yes, history repeats itself, and every so often, Detroit was forced out of its  delusional slumber and denial to face the music that always seemed to grate on its ears: small cars. In response to a growing avalanche of European imports led by the VW in the fifties, in 1960 the Big Three launched their first-ever compacts: Ford Falcon, Chevrolet Corvair and Chrysler’s Valiant. By the mid/late seventies, those were all gone, but the Japanese were all here. So Detroit geared up for the second big import showdown of 1980-1981. Once again, Chrysler’s weapon was clearly aimed at the traditional American-car buyer: more technically advanced this time (FWD!), but conservatively styled, still smarting from the painful lesson of their bizarrely-styled 1960 Valiant.

The K-cars set out to recreate the 1960 Falcon’s success, all-too eager to recapture its spirit: small, boxy, roomy, pragmatic and all-American, right down to the front bench seat. Well, maybe a bit too 1960 America; just like the Falcon, the K-car appealed to traditional American-car buyers, but had no apparent impact on the the explosive growth of the Japanese imports, just like the Falcon failed to dent the Volkswagen’s success. So ironically, although the K-car saved Chrysler in the eighties, it did little or nothing to stem the tsunami that ultimately overtook the Pentastar a second time. History repeats itself… Read More >

1. VW Jetta
2. VW Santana
3. VW Lavida
4. Buick Excelle
5. Honda Accord 
6. Hyundai Elantra Yuedong
7. BYD F3
8. Toyota Camry 
9. VW Bora 
10. Toyota Corolla

I am looking under every rock and asking the question: Is there anything wrong or unusual about our pedals? We are continuing to look to see if there is something that we could do differently.

Toyota’s Steve St. Angelo tells the WSJ [sub] that Toyota is reviewing its pedal designs in search of a cause for its recent Unintended Acceleration scandal. Thus far, Toyota’s UA issues have been traced only to sticky pedals and floormat interference. Attempts to trace UA to malfunctioning throttle units have thus far been abortive, with a government research panel finding that brake misapplication occurred in many of the Toyota UA incidents.

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Autocar reports that Renault workers in France are jumping on a bus and heading to the Paris Motor Show. Are the doing it because they fancy a day out? Maybe they want to see all the nice cars on display? Nope, they’re going there to protest. OK, so who do you think they are going to protest? Hyundai? Toyota? Ford? Nope. They’re protesting against Renault. So, a bunch of French Renault workers are going to the Paris Motor Show to protest against their own company? Why?

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Thanks in part to help from TTAC readers, TrueDelta received a record number of responses to last month’s Car Reliability Survey—nearly 18,000. Updated car reliability stats have been posted to the site for 458 cars, up from 404 three month ago. There are partial results for another 351.

These stats cover through the end of June. Other sources of car reliability information will not cover the most recent months until the summer or even fall of next year.

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Honda’s Civic Hybrid has always been something of an afterthought in the marketplace, as Honda’s “mild” hybrid system consistently fell behind the Toyota Prius in terms of mileage, electric-only range and green street-cred. Then, late last year, Honda settled a class action lawsuit alleging that the Civic Hybrid couldn’t hit its EPA numbers. And though the weak-selling Insight has replaced the Civic Hybrid as Honda’s problem hybrid of the moment, the Civic Hybrid woes are still piling up. The latest bad news comes from the LA TImes, which reports that Civic Hybrid batteries have been dying before their time, and that Honda’s software “fix” for the problem reduces mileage from 45 MPG to 33 MPG. Since the standard Civic is rated at 30 MPG, a number of Civic Hybrid owners are wondering why they paid extra for what amounts to a 3 MPG improvement on the highway… and they’re accusing Honda of refusing to replace batteries under warranty. In other words, this looks to be one of the first major battery warranty-related fiascos of the hybrid era… and it’s shaping up to be a nasty one. Electric car makers, take notice.