Thought the Toyota brand had been dealt the death blow during the recall crisis? That brand seems to be more resilient than imagined: The latest Kelley Blue Book Brand Watch study has Toyota on top “as the most-considered auto brand among new-car shoppers.” That according to a press release just released by KBB. (Read More…)

Global alliances between humongous corporate entities are always intimidating and mostly ill-performing. Oftentimes they just don’t work (née Daimler-Chrysler). Other times we just don’t see the point (Ford and various ex-PAG members or GM-Saab). The Renault-Nissan Alliance, who-would-have-believed-it is maybe, just maybe, the most successful of the lot. As TTAC itself has reported earlier, the French car known as the Nissan Tiida is now America’s best-selling compact car. In Brazil, Nissan has just sprinkled some of its Nippo-fairy-wand-dust on Renault’s latest gambit in the relatively small, but very profitable executive level segment in Brazil.

Now, let’s clarify a bit. (Read More…)

Uh-oh. Septuagenarian Ferdinand Piech is expressing youthful impatience with octogenarian Osamo Suzuki. Volkswagen’s Chairman of the board “is reportedly irked at the slow progress of his firm’s alliance with Suzuki,” says The Nikkei [sub]. The reason? “A year after Suzuki and Volkswagen agreed on a capital and business tie-up, the track record of their partnership remains devoid of significant accomplishment.” (Read More…)

Equal time: While Prez. Obama test-sat the Volt’s European sibling, the Ampera, in Lisbon, Nissan had its own celebrity test driver for the Leaf EV. “John Roos, U.S. ambassador to Japan, test-drove Nissan’s “Leaf” electric vehicle in Yokohama one afternoon in mid-November, just before the APEC summit got under way,” reports The Nikkei [sub]. Then the Ambassador deeply inserted his foot in his mouth. He said he was particularly intrigued by the way the Leaf was able to charge its battery with solar power, a feat he saw at a “smart-city” exhibition sponsored by the Yokohama city government. Roos then asked officials running the demonstration whether the technology could help reduce oil dependence in Hawaii. Oops, wrong question. (Read More…)

TTAC has been keeping an eye on China’s near-monopoly on the rare earth compounds required to build hybrid and electric cars for some time now, and we’ve seen the materials become an increasingly controversial issue, culminating in this year’s diplomatic tiff between China and Japan. But, as Bertel has pointed out,

That the Chinese have a stranglehold on rare earth is not because they are the only ones who are are sitting on it. It’s due to laziness and lack of money.

Now, Toyota Tsusho (a partially-owned subsidiary of Toyota Motor Company), has announced plans to stop being lazy and spend money on a rare earth materials plant in the Indian state of Orissa. Tsusho says the factory should come online in 2012, and should produce 3,000-4,000 metric tons of the magnet-hardening materials. Meanwhile, Japanese firms aren’t limiting their search for rare earth materials to India. Bloomberg notes

The shortage in rare earths has brought delegations from Canada, Mongolia and Bolivia to Japan in the past two weeks as these countries promote themselves as alternative sources to China.

Unimpressed by BYD’s aborting of the pure plug-in EV, Nissan is betting the farm on us plugging in instead of gassing up. A few days ago, Nissan officially introduced the Leaf, the world’s first mass-produced EV in the standard passenger class, seating five. It won’t totally replace the internal combustion engine, at least not at the plant where it is made. (Read More…)

Toyota looks very cautiously into the future. This is the bottom line of an article that just appeared in the Asahi Shimbun (in Japanese. You just have to trust me, or rather Frau Schmitto-san, who provided the translation.) According to the piece, Toyota downrevised its projection for the 2011 fiscal year (starting April 1 2011) to 7.8 million for Toyota alone, excluding Daihatsu and Hino. With those two backed in, total worldwide production of TMC would be around 8.8 million. Meaning: Until further notice, Toyota’s world is pretty much flat. (Read More…)

“Toyota is in trouble. The Japanese automaker is playing defense as sales slump, dealer inventories swell — even for the Camry and Prius — and consumers demand larger discounts to remain loyal to the brand once viewed as unstoppable,” so beginneth a lengthy article in Detroit’s Freep that reads like a swansong for a formerly mighty ToMoCo. First, the requisite recitation of the ode to the obvious: (Read More…)

It’s probably a bit of a stretch to call the 1947 Tama a “Nissan.” This lead-acid battery-powered two-door was developed in response to post-War oil rationing by the unemployed aircraft engineers of Tachikawa Airplane Company, a firm that later renamed itself the Tokyo Electric Motorcar Co. That company later became the Prince Motor Company, which in turn merged with Nissan, making the Tama a tenuous but real part of Nissan’s EV legacy. When tested by Japan’s ministry of transport, the Tama beat its claimed performance, going 96.3 km on a single charge and reaching a top speed of 35.2 km/h from its 36V motor. Tamas were sold until 1950, and were used mostly for taxi service, although a pickup truck version was made as well. With Nissan rolling out its Leaf and generally betting its shirt on EVs, we wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see the Tama pop up in future Nissan ads and promotional materials. Let’s just hope they leave out the “born from jets” angle…

Good news, bad news times at Toyota. First, the bad news. (Read More…)

The Japanese are usually first to report last month’s sales numbers. This time: Very bad. New car sales in Japan fell 30.7 percent in November. After Japan’s generous subsidies were withdrawn, the market is down for the third straight month, and there is no end in sight. (Read More…)

When Volkswagen bought 20 percent (well, 19.9) of Suzuki, everybody assumed it would be one of Volkswagen’s favorite “win-win-win” deals: Volkswagen gets better access to India, where Suzuki owns half the market. Suzuki gets better access to China, where Volkswagen is the largest passenger car brand. Both will work happily together to rule the world by 2018. Now Suzuki Chairman Osamu Suzuki says at least the Indian part is not true. (Read More…)

Mazda has barely thrown off the shackles of Ford, but the Japanese already make their new freedom felt. In a way that won’t make Ford happy.

Mazda and their new largest shareholder Sumitomo will spend anywhere between $350m and $475m, and will open a plant in Mexico that will start making lots of little Mazdas as early as 2013. According to The Nikkei [sub], Mazda will build its bread & butter Mazda2 and Mazda3 models in Mexico. They will not be shipped north. The cars are destined for the Mexican, Brazilian, and other Central and South American markets. Mazda will initially make some 100,000 units there, later more. An engine plant is also in the cards.

This marks a series of firsts for Mazda. (Read More…)

Remember the just-released Toyota Ractis? It’s just dropped in Subaru form, giving the Japanese market the tantalizing choice of two distinct brands for an identical four-door subcompact hatch. Moreover, the Trezia marks a changing of the guard at Subaru: whereas Subaru used to develop and sell a wacky rainbow of subcompact and “kei” cars and trucks (some of which are still visible at Subaru’s Japanese website), all future Subarus smaller than the Impreza will be rebadged Toyotas. This change won’t materially affect the US market, but it can’t help but erode Subaru’s image as an independent small maker of quirky cars. Apparently there is just no place for that kind of automaker in the future… the revolution will be rebadged.

Japanese carmakers are becoming increasingly worried about the Korean competition.

Everything looks good for South Korea:

• The Korean currency, the Won, is low
• Quality is improving
• Korea hammers out trade deal after trade deal, making Korean exports even cheaper

Japan on the other hand: (Read More…)