Gasoline prices are falling in Japan, not only due to lower crude oil prices, “but also because the widespread popularity of fuel-efficient vehicles has lowered demand for gasoline,” The Nikkei [sub].

The Tokyo paper predicts … (Read More…)

Associated Press writes (via the Clarion Ledger) that a company called GreenTech will today roll out a “two-seat neighborhood electric vehicle, a cross between a golf cart and conventional car, with a 115-mile range.” It won’t do more than 35 mph, and will cost around $10,000. The “car” might be unremarkable, the guest list of today’s event is not. The party in Horn Lake, Mississippi,will be attended by a lot of formers. Former President Bill Clinton and former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour will attend, with former Democratic National Committee Chairman and now chairman of GreenTech, Terry McAuliffe, doing the honors. The CEO is Chinese businessman Xiaolin “Charles X” Wang. (Read More…)

Car-shopping service TrueCar allegedly is getting disenchanted with its partner Yahoo. In January, TrueCar became Yahoo’s exclusive auto-shopping partner, for a fee. Automotive News [sub] says the price was $50 million per year over three years. AN also says that TrueCar ended that deal. (Read More…)

They do that in South Africa.  Use your phone for texting or gabbing, and police in Cape Town will arrest your cell. (Read More…)

Honda lifted the embargo on its updated NBOX+, a sister-model of its bestselling NBOX minivehicle that passed our feared “from the backseat” test drive with flying colors. (Read More…)

GM got itself a great new partner. Global sales of PSA Peugeot Citroen, the besieged company that is now 7 percent owned by the General, dropped 13 percent, Reuters says. PSA’s European sales dropped 15 percent, which illustrates how much PSA’s ill fortunes are tied to those of Europe. (Read More…)

Volkswagen wants to be the world’s biggest, most profitable, most innovative, and most loved automaker by 2018, and everybody at Volkswagen has been sworn-in to do their share. US managers promised that they will deliver a million sales a year to the group. It’s a tall order.  To get there, “American consumers will need to buy a lot more new Volkswagens, Audis and Porsches,” Reuters says. (Read More…)

Our patent-pending oracle for the Chinese market has spoken and predicts slight June gains for the world’s largest car market. GM China did this by announcing a 10.1 percent gain on 213,495 units sold in June. (Read More…)

The United States will report China to the WTO tomorrow, Reuters says. The contention: China’s decision to impose extra duties on more than $3 billion worth of cars imported from the U.S. According to Reuters, “the complaint comes as President Barack Obama campaigns in Ohio, where auto plants have been affected by the duties.” The Prez goes on a “Betting on America” bus tour. (Read More…)

At home, GM is at peace with the unions, benefits of having the UAW as a major shareholder. Abroad, GM Europe has been in a low intensity conflict with the European unions that oppose cuts at Opel. Now, a labor conflict flares up in an unexpected part of the world: Korea. (Read More…)

From London’s Telegraph to Fox News, from Autoblog to Autoguide, gullible media predicted impending doom for foreign carmakers in China. Last February, it was announced that the Chinese government will henceforth only buy Chinese cars. This was seen as a blow especially to Audi. China’s Global Times calls an Audi A6 “Chinese officialdom’s vehicle of choice,” and it was predicted that the officialdom will henceforth have to make do with Roewes and Geelys. Why am I reminded of that story?

Audi’s sales in China are up 37.8 percent for the first six months of the year. (Read More…)

They have been together for a while. Behemoth Volkswagen and tiny, but bigger than life Porsche shared technologies and booths at auto shows, Volkswagen generals are in key positions at Porsche. Fitting the German Zeitgeist, they lived together without being formally married. This will be rectified in a few weeks. (Read More…)

The results are in. There is a winner in the Where Am I Contest: After careful photoanalysis, TTAC’s independent and impartial one man jury declares PaulMorgan the winner of the Where Am I contest. Here is the post-game analysis: (Read More…)

This contest closed today, Wednesday, July 4^th 2012 at 2 pm Eastern Time.

Please stay tune for the results. (Read More…)

Germany’s new car market recovered slightly in June. Sales were up 2.9 percent to units, Germany’s Kraftfahrtbundesamt reports. (Read More…)