Among journalists, the New York Auto Show is consistently a favorite on “the circuit”. Is it the interesting product size of the Javits Center? Of course not. It’s the chance to have an OEM fly you out to New York, put you up at a luxury hotel, wine you, and dine you. Unless you’re TTAC, in which case your base of operations is the Super 8 Motel in Bergen County, New Jersey.
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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. |
Our intrepid Brazilian correspondent Marcelo got the hearts of Canuckistani readers racing after he leaked news of an expanded Fiat lineup for Canada. According to Senhor de Vasconcellos, Fiat will add new product in Canada, where 500 sales have been much stronger than the USA. The only question is what the mystery product will be, now that Fiat head Sergio Marchionne confirmed the new model at a Toronto event.
It will be a suspenseful Monday. When new car sales numbers will be announced for March, I could look like carmageddon never happened. After J.D. Power had predicted sales of 1,372,400 units for March and Kelley Blue Book 1,425,000 units, real-time date equipped Edmunds now sees a total of 1,451,956 new cars changing hands. That would translate into a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of 14.9 million units. Read More >
Toyota will increase production of the Toyota RAV4 from 150,000 to 200,000 per year at their Woodstock, Ontario, Canada plant. The investment will add 400 new jobs and Toyota’s investment will total $80 million.
Following the many inter-company alliances and dalliances is becoming as cumbersome as covering the couplings in a swing club. PSA Peugeot Citroen is said to be in talks with Toyota. The same PSA that just hooked up with GM is reportedly talking tie-up with GM’s arch nemesis Toyota. They discuss sharing PSA’s Sevelnord plant in northern France, where PSA’s erstwhile partner Fiat pulls out. Still with me? Read More >
Our own Ed Niedermeyer recently penned an excellent and well-thought-out article involving the whole Fiat-Chrysler imbroglio. Now, I don’t work for Fiat. However, I do live in, arguably, Fiat’s most important production center. You can’t go anywhere without running into someone who works at Fiat. Heck, Fiat owns 50% of the car market in my city! Read More >
Renault has realized a new trend: Imports are hot in Japan. Nissan established a new company, Renault Japon Co., Ltd., to import and sell Renault vehicles in Japan, effective April 2, 2012. Previously, Renaults were sold in Japan by a division of Nissan.
While American automakers sit sulking in a corner and complain about mythical import restrictions to Japan, European makers are looking back at a great year exporting their cars to the island nation. While the Japanese market as a whole dropped 14 percent, imports to Japan rose 22.5 percent. Read More >
When do wholesale prices equal retail prices?
Think about it for a second. When do the prices of a consumer good become so expensive that there is virtually no markup?
Here are a few scenarios that I can come up with… given what I’ve seen at the auto auctions these days.
1) Extreme shortage of product and too many wholesale buyers.
2) Most everyone buying the product is financing it to sub-prime customers who only care about ‘the monthly payment’.
3) You have enough seasonal dealers, overseas buyers, and funny money that the laws of economics no longer apply.
Now having said that, I ended up buying five vehicles at one sale recently. My purchases were…
I visited my old stomping grounds in California over the weekend, which means I hit a bunch of self-service junkyards in the East Bay. I was thinking about some of the cars I used to drive during the 80s as I walked the rows of this yard’s import section, when there it was: my very first car! Read More >
Toyota released a teaser of a new sedan with an “…elegant yet athletic look.” The sedan is apparently a production ready car and not a concept and if it really is the new Avalon (what else can it be) it looks like that the stodgy old retiree-mobile is getting some youthful new duds. Sort of like seeing your Grandpa wear Air Jordans because he bought them for $29.99 at Marshall’s. Except this time, it seems to be intentional.
This coming Monday, new car sales for March will be announced. Forecasters increasingly are of the opinion that March will look like carmageddon never happened. Real-time data equipped TrueCar has released its opinions. Here are the highlights:
Last December, Toyota and BMW announced “a long-term technological partnership.” Ostensibly, it was about developing batteries together, and about BMW supplying diesel engines, in that order. Four months later, the priorities seem to have changed a little. Read More >
The 2012 Yaris! It’s a car! That might sound like the strangest marketing claim for a new car ever, but if you dig deeper it is Toyota’s attempt at saying “OK, we get it.” Why? Because Toyota, like most manufacturers, has had trouble staying on message with basic transportation. Need proof? Look no further than the Corolla. The Corolla was a small, cheap and cheerful vehicle that has since grown into a 15-foot long sedan that weighs almost 3,000lbs and can reach $20,000 with options. No matter how nice a Corolla might be, cheap to buy it isn’t.
Over the past few of weeks we have traveled to Chile and Georgia, Myanmar and Bolivia, the last 3 destinations being all your fault: you asked for it! Now I felt I had to interrupt this elan of generosity and hold on going to countries you asked for just for one week.
I have to rectify a very important ranking: the best-selling cars in the world.
You may remember earlier this year I wrote an article detailing the Top 10 best-selling models in the world in 2011, based on an article published on Forbes. Which I had a few issues with. Well a few official figures, a lot of work and a couple of long nights later, I now have a ranking that looks much more like reality…and is much bigger: the Top 100 best-selling models in the world in 2011!
All this after the jump.
But wait, if the world is too much for you to handle today, that’s fine because I have sales info for 160 countries for you to visit in my blog, all one by one. So don’t be shy and click away!
Back to the world.
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