Did you know that there is rogue SUV production? Not to worry, it will be brought under control: Nissan will move production of its Rogue crossover from Kyushu, Japan, where it is built now, to Smyrna, Tennessee in 2013, Nissan’s America chief Carlos Tavares told The Nikkei [sub] today. (Read More…)
When it comes to new cars, trucks and buses, Japan’s can look back at the first sales increase in seven years. Sales rose 10.6 percent in all of 2010, powered by the generosity of the Japanese government. The country will remember 2010 with woefulness. This year, the sales will be down hard. After 14 months of government-induced growth, Japan cut the buying incentives last September, and the market keeled over.
December sales gave a preview of sales not to come: Sales were down 28.3 percent in December, according to data provided by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association to The Nikkei [sub]. These numbers do not include mini (“kei”) cars and trucks.
Japan’s total new vehicle sales including minicars rose only 7.5 percent in 2010 from the previous year to a total of 4,956,136 units, the Mainichi Shimbun reports. The total was dragged down by the poorer (sales-) performance of the small cars. Mini vehicles sales rose only 2.3 percent to 1,726,420 units, the Japan Mini Vehicles Association said.
The way the incentive program was set up, it had an immense pull-forward effect. The program had a cash for clunker component, but that was hardly used. Japan doesn’t have the number of old cars like the U.S.A. or Europe. The extra cars bought in 2010 will be sorely missed in 2011. Compared with an artificially high 2010, Japanese domestic 2011 numbers will look very ugly.
Yes, this is for real (if not brand-spankety new). Multimedia artist Soomi Park swears that her LED eyelashes are a comment on cross-cultural notions of beauty, explaining
The LED Eyelash project is brought into the world from a simple question: Why do women want larger and bigger eyes? Asian women tend to have stronger needs for bigger eyes as a standard of beauty, but relatively few of them are born with naturally big eyes. Those without big eyes can only look for alternative ways to make their eyes look prettier, i.e., larger, by using a repertoire of skills such as putting on makeup and wearing jewelry. Sometimes, the desires for bigger eyes can become almost obsessive, and many women opt for plastic surgery in order to make their dream come true. Soomi calls this, the fetish of Big Eyes.
We prefer to think of the idea as being inspired by the Audi-led proliferation of LED mascara… but that’s just us. [via Michael Banovsky]
We are picking up more and more signs of an impending revival of assumed dead fuel cell technology.
Here is another one: The Nikkei [sub] says that the Japanese government is supporting an initiative to draw a hydrogen from a surprising source: Oil refining. And they need to be ready by 2015. (Read More…)
It looks like Gawker can find solace in the reassuring fact that they are not the only ones who ended up with a purloined database, containing the privates private details of all their customers. Intimate customer data of Honda has also been robbed and plundered. See, it happens to the best of them. (Read More…)
You have heard the whole year about the exploding Chinese car market. Surprise: Production growth in the U.S. appears to be stronger than China. In a few days or weeks, we will have the 2010 sales numbers. In this economy, what’s more important than spending money is making money, and that means jobs. For that, we have to look at the motor vehicle production numbers by country. For those, we will have to wait many months until OICA gets around to tabulating them. Let’s make a best guess estimate for who’s on top and by how much. (Read More…)
If there’s a face of Toyota’s overinvestment in the United States market, it’s the company’s Blue Springs, Mississippi assembly plant. Construction on the billion-dollar plant was begun in 2007, but was halted in 2008, when plummeting demand for new automobiles forced Toyota to cut back on is US manufacturing capacity. For the past two years, Toyota’s 170 workers at the Mississippi plant have been doing their best to stay busy, but the Wall Street Journal reports that hiring has now been restarted and the plant will begin producing Corollas next fall. But will demand be high enough for Toyota to justify its eighth production plant in the US? Not everyone seems to think so…
(Read More…)
Developing and manufacturing new cars is expensive. You need a lot of volume to amortize the cost. That’s why more and more Japanese automakers skip the development and manufacturing part altogether. They outsource both and slap their badge on someone else’s car. Last in that development has been Mitsubishi. Ten days ago, Nissan and Mitsubishi snuggled closer and added more OEM deals to the ones they already had. Yesterday, it was announced that Suzuki would supply subcompact vans to Mitsubishi.
Suzuki will supply its latest 1.2 liter subcompact van Solio to Mitsubishi, which will start selling them as a yet unnamed Mitsubishi vehicle beginning in spring 2011. Just another OEM deal? Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun sees a bigger picture. (Read More…)
If there ever will be a sequel to jet-gate (original brought to you by Brian Ross, yeah, that Brian Ross), Honda has a get-out-of-jail-free card. They just call it a proficiency flight.
Honda sees a great future in the business jet market. Their wholly owned U.S. subsidiary Honda Aircraft Co. has successfully completed the first flight of the production version of its HondaJet business aircraft, reports The Nikkei [sub]. (Read More…)
One of Toyota’s best selling cars, with cumulative sales exceeding 3.5 million units since its first-generation launch in 1999, and with sales in more than 70 countries around the world, is the Vitz.
The what?
Well, Vitz is what the car is called in Japan. You will probably know it better as the Yaris. The first generation Vitz was sold as Echo in some markets. Now it’s Vitz in Japan and Yaris in most of the rest of the world.
Today, Toyota showed the 3rd generation Vitz (Japanese spec) to the Japanese press in Yokohama.
As I had already been in the neighborhood, I popped in and checked it out. Dozo. (Read More…)
EVs are, nice wouldn’t there be (putting range and price aside for a moment) one niggling problem: The power has to come from somewhere. And currently, the exhaust that will no longer be produced by the car, will come out of the smokestacks of a mostly coal fired power plant. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could power our cars from sunshine alone? Definitely renewable. And free. Honda is trying to do just that. (Read More…)
This Monday, Nissan’s all-electric Leaf will officially go on sale in Japan. All of the 6,000 Leafs scheduled to be made this fiscal year has already been reserved, reports Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. A lot of them are in the grips of pre-orderer’s remorse after a trip to their garage: (Read More…)
What the government giveth, the government taketh away: After the Japanese government discontinued subsidies for “fuel-efficient cars” (well, just about anything that was street legal, including a handful of American gas-guzzlers that received preferential treatment) Japan’s domestic auto sales are forecasted to drop 9.9 percent in 2011 from this year, Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association JAMA tells The Nikkei [sub] today. All in all, no big drama. (Read More…)
At a press conference announcing new cooperation between Nissan and Mitsubishi, Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn presented the tie-up as a far-sighted move that will help both sides prosper. The Renault/Nissan boss explained
In the global auto industry, cooperation on specific projects among automakers is becoming increasingly common. It is a signal of how our industry is evolving to sustain success over the long term
But if his words were saying “cooperation,” Ghosn’s body language said “I’m hungry and your company looks bite-sized.”
We have said the race for who will be the #1 luxury brand in the U.S.A. is too close to call and that it will come down to the wire. Now, those weenies of Mercedes throw in the towel and concede defeat. “I’m pretty sure we’ll be No. 3,” Ernst Lieb, president of Mercedes-Benz’s U.S., told Bloomberg. Whatever happened to “we will never surrender?” (Sorry, that was a Brit.) But look at those numbers, and join us in shouting “boohoo” at Lieb. And Mercedes. No fight left in them no more? (Read More…)
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