The top three Japanese automakers Toyota, Nissan, and Honda are slashing their production in China in half, says The Nikkei [sub]. The reductions are a response to sales drops triggered by anti-Japanese demonstrations and riots in China. Read More >
Category: Toyota
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Toyota ReviewsToyota 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. |
Some have quietly or openly been hoping the GM could cash-in on the misery of Japanese brands in China. It’s not happening. Sales across all of GM’s Chinese joint ventures were up a marginal 1.7 percent in September while sales of German marques received a boost. Read More >
M. Peerson writes:
Well, I think it is time to replace the Pug. My little 505 has crossed the country, oh I do not know how many times. I mean I just did a round about from Westminster CO (North Denver) to Roundrock TX (North Austin) back to Benton CA (Mammoth lakes) and it is still running fair to decent for a car that I have replaced the speedo on two times. Actual millage is up past 400K closer to 440,000 miles as I clock it with the log book. Read More >
Volkswagen workers who make the Passat at the Emden factory in Germany are enjoying a mini-vacation. After the national holiday last Wednesday, which celebrated the fall of the wall and the re-unification, Volkswagen workers can celebrate falling sales of the Passat, and stay at home, says Germany’s Handelsblatt. Meanwhile, managers at Volkswagen are busy down–revising their production plans.
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Toyota’s sales in China took a big hit in September, reports by the Yomiuri Shimbun and Reuters say. Executives of Japanese carmakers are putting on a brave face when it comes to China, but are worried that their significant China business could become a casualty of the East China Sea troubles.
No official data are available yet, but the Yomiuri says that Toyota’s September sales in China “halved,” after many Chinese customers canceled their orders in September. Reuters talks about a 40 percent reduction. A senior Toyota executive told the usually very reliable Reuters that Toyota sold about 50,000 cars in China in September, down from about 86,000 in September 2011. Read More >
Detroit carmakers continue telling their fairy tale of the closed Japanese market, and their UAW members eagerly hang on their lips. Both don’t want to admit that their products are largely unsalable in Japan, and they blame the mythical bad Nipponese wolf instead. At the same time, sales of imported cars are up for the third straight month in Japan. Sales of imports were 35,841 in September, the highest since September 1996, data released by the Japan Automobile Importers Association shows. Read More >
Japanese carmakers are worried about their sales in China after Japanese cars were smashed and dealerships torched during large scale anti-Japanese riots in China last month. As a first indicator that Japanese cars may be falling out of favor in China, Mazda reports via Reuters that September sales in China dropped 35 percent. Read More >
Shai Aggasi, the visionary behind the Better Place EV battery swap network, has been ousted, with Better Place Australia’s CEO replacing Agassi as global CEO.
“We do not need incentives for natural gas technology to drive adoption,” Bill Larkin, CFO of Westport Innovations, a Vancouver-based developer of technology that allows truck and bus engines to run on natural gas, told Reuters in an interview:
“It actually hurts the investment in this technology because the U.S. government has been dangling this carrot … and so investments are delayed.” Read More >
Coming straight out of the “I can’t believe people get paid for this nonsense” department is Scion’s new marketing initiative; picking heavy metal-listeners as its next target demographic.
September saw big gains for Volkswagen and Honda, two brands that have been pilloried by the motoring press for apparently sub-par products, while Chrysler led the Big Three in gains, if not volume.
Want a quick, agile, fun-to-drive vehicle you can stuff a bunch of kids into? Ford has what you’re looking for. Just one catch: you’ll have to move to Europe. Not that Ford sees no market here for a swift seven-seater. They do, just not for one like the S-Max. Instead, for 2013 we receive the Explorer Sport. CEO Alan Mulally’s “One Ford” vision apparently acknowledges that some models must remain regional. Here’s what real Americans want in a high-performance crossover…
First September sales reports are coming in, and they are a mixed bag. Chrysler says it had the best September since 2007 with sales up 12 percent. GM’s sales are up only 1.5 percent , while Ford reports zero percent growth.
Volkswagen sold 36,339 vehicles in September, up 34.4 percent. Toyota’s sales are up a whopping 41.5 percent to 171,910 units in September 2012.
Watch this space for more sales coverage throughout the day.
Sales won’t be the only thing up when September new car sales are reported today. (Keep an eye on TTAC.) “”Transaction prices in September are the highest in years,” said Jesse Toprak, research chief of TrueCar.com. Read More >
From Autoblog via Edmunds to Slashgear, the automotive blogosphere is buzzing about an INSECT from Toyota. INSECT is an acronym for “Information Network Social Electric City Transporter,” and, says Edmunds (along with pretty much everybody else who copied the press release,) the vehicle carrying the creepy name “is a single-seater that features facial-recognition technology and behavior prediction, marking the dawn of the car as mind-reader.” The INSECT officially hatched today, 1 ½ subway hours from where I currently live.
As an eye-witness, I can certify that a gullible media has been had. Read More >











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