Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, the massive Chinese conglomerate that owns Volvo Cars and a controlling stake in Lotus, wants to turn the British sports car maker into a big deal. Potentially, a deal big enough to give Porsche bouts of anxiety.

That’s what sources with knowledge of Geely’s plans tell Bloomberg. The parent company’s efforts will reportedly include new facilities and assembly plants, funded by a cash injection totalling nearly $2 billion. (Read More…)

You have to wonder if Donald Frey and Lee Iacocca knew what they had when the first Ford Mustang rolled off the assembly line in 1964. Despite having a storied career of dramatic highs and lows, the model has been an overwhelming success, standing the test of time. This week, Michigan’s Flat Rock Assembly is celebrating that history after finishing production on the 10 millionth Mustang to grace this planet.

While this represents a grand achievement for a vehicle that’s undoubtedly an American icon, its sales volume is nothing compared to the mighty Toyota Corolla — which has sold 43 million units worldwide. Still, 10 million cars is incredibly good for any model and exceptional for a performance model. In fact, the Mustang is the best-selling sports car in history and has been for years. For the sake of comparison, Chevrolet has built roughly 5.5 million examples of the Camaro since its introduction in 1966.  (Read More…)

Jaguar Land Rover’s mysterious Road Rover name, now trademarked, has been the subject of speculation ever since the British automaker began tossing it around in internal communications. As the company prepares a slew of new or redesigned models based largely around a versatile new architecture, the name has cropped up again.

It seems “Road Rover” won’t appear on the flanks of the mystery vehicle, even if it is built. (Read More…)

Tesla announced Wednesday that it lost $743 million in the second quarter of 2018, instantly pushing the automaker’s stock up by nearly double digit figures. No, this particular tidbit isn’t what investors hoped to hear, but CEO Elon Musk, who, unlike in past weeks, made it through the day without saying something overtly controversial, told them enough of what they wanted to hear.

The company’s revenue is up by over a billion dollars compared to the same quarter a year ago — $4 billion as a pre-tax total. Cash on hand was the lowest Tesla’s seen in two years ($2.2 billion), but the automaker’s reduced cash burn impressed some skeptics and reassured believers in Musk’s pledge to return to a positive cash flow in the third and fourth quarters. Having achieved its 5,000-Model-3s-per-week production goal, Tesla claims volume will crank up to 6,000 per week by late August. 10,000 per week comes in 2019.

There was even an apology from Musk for his bizarre behavior during a May earnings call, in which he snubbed analysts while acting like a bored teenager.

And did you know the Model 3 outsells all premium midsize sedans combined? Yeah, about that… (Read More…)

Who isn’t talking about the Infiniti Q70? Okay, maybe more than a few people. The Infiniti brand’s largest passenger car enjoys low but fairly stable sales, returning volume in the high 5,000s in both 2017 and 2016.

Alongside the rear-drive, V6- or V8-powered four-door was a hybrid variant, but that green companion dies for 2019 — leaving just one gas-electric model in the Infiniti stable. (Read More…)

Take the following information with a golf ball-sized grain of salt. Faraday Future, the automotive startup that’s been teetering on the verge of collapse for years, says deliveries of the FF 91 will begin in December. Despite being ghost-funded by a Chinese billionaire who’s been blacklisted due to unpaid debts, losing a factory deal with the State of Nevada, witnessing a mass exodus of its staff, and accumulating heaps of debt, Faraday claims it’s ready to move forward with assembly.

You’ll have to excuse the skepticism. But the brand has burned us in the past — delivering an ambitious but incomplete prototype, loads of hype, and little else.

Saying that production is an assurance with no request for additional investment is like getting an email from a Nigerian prince who just wants you to know that he’s good on the money front and wishes you well.  (Read More…)

The second quarter of 2018 returned pleasing sales figures for General Motors, but there were no champagne corks popping over Buick’s performance. While GM’s sales rose 4.6 percent compared to Q2 2017 (and 4.2 percent year-to-date), Buick sales headed in the opposite direction — down 12 percent in the quarter, and roughly six-tenths of one percent over the first half of the year.

Swirling menacingly in the background of all of this is a threat from President Trump to levy a 25 percent tariff on all automotive imports, a move that would leave Buick especially exposed. As numbers crunched by Automotive News show, the only thing sparing the brand from an emergency overhaul, should such a scenario come to pass, is a subcompact crossover — one which may or may not be exempt from the proposed tariffs. (Read More…)

Despite it being the most abundant element in the world — but one of the hardest fuels to source — automakers aren’t giving up on hydrogen. That group includes Toyota, which launched the world’s best-selling hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, the Mirai, in 2015.

Early this year, the 3,000th U.S. Mirai found its way to the driveway of a California customer. Cali remains the only American jurisdiction where FCV vehicles, and refueling infrastructure, are offered (though a hydrogen shortage last week saw SoCal stations dry up).

In the hopes of boosting the fuel’s prevalence and stimulating demand, Toyota plans to enter mass production with its second-generation Mirai, expected early in the coming decade.  (Read More…)

For those wealthy enough to afford a Ford GT — and lucky enough to be chosen by Ford for the current model run — relax, things could be worse. But there’s no denying that waiting on a car, especially one as scarce and desirable as the GT, is a painful experience. It’s one made all the more painful by the fact that GT production didn’t exactly lift gracefully from the launch pad.

Of the 250 GTs Ford planned to build for the 2017 model year, only 138 carbon-fiber beasts left partner Multimatic’s Canadian facility. (Read More…)

We’ve mentioned Chinese startups working on electric vehicles in the past. You’ve got the American-based (but Chinese-owned) Faraday Future that couldn’t pay its bills, its big brother LeSEE (which is facing similar troubles), the performance-focused NIO, the luxury-minded Byton, the German-named Weltmeister, and a handful of others making ink every so often.

While EV startups from other countries (Tesla, Rimac, etc.) garner their own headlines, it’s more common to see a Chinese startup angling for media exposure as of late.

Of course, established automakers are busy setting up their own electric divisions to fulfill the nearly absent Western consumer demand for EVs. They’re gambling on a future where electrification replaces internal combustion, but nobody is betting more on “green” than China. As of today, it’s estimated that the country has 487 electric car companies, and the nation feels this still isn’t enough. Holy shit.  (Read More…)

Unlike Volvo’s S90 sedan, which is built half a world away from its V90 wagon stablemate, the Chinese-owned Swedish automaker has some flexibility in where it sources its XC60 crossover. Two plants — one in China, one in Torslanda, Sweden — crank out the second-generation utility vehicle, but the U.S. market gets its full share from the Orient.

After the Trump administration imposed a tariff of 25 percent on Chinese-built vehicles, Volvo’s XC60 suddenly found itself dragging a financial anchor. Hardly a great situation for a model that outsold all other Volvos in the U.S. last month. To side-step the tariff, Volvo’s already making changes.

Say goodbye to the Chinese XC60. (Read More…)

In the wake of Volkswagen Group’s diesel emissions scandal, VW turned its attention to electric vehicles. Yup, EVs, and many, many crossovers. Can’t forget those.

At the time, building the brand’s future EVs in America seemed like the right thing to do — good PR, and good penance for its dirty crimes. The plan’s still a go, as VW’s Chattanooga assembly plant has plenty of excess capacity, but it’s now focused on two particular models. (Read More…)

The phrase “Nisan just built its one-millionth Juke” would probably be the first question on a Voight-Kampff test for automotive lovers residing in North America. The information is totally incompatible with everything you thought you understood about the world around you, and processing it begins scrambling your brain as you frantically hunt for an escape from it. An open window? The sweet release of death?

Relax. While the news is scary and difficult to comprehend, don’t forget that there is an entire world out there with a populace that’s not subject to the same predilections as ours. The Juke may have been too funky to become a massive hit in the United States and Canada, but it had a few good years and Nissan planted seeds all across the globe.

Japanese sales of the model almost matched the U.S., despite having a comparatively minuscule population. Volume also exceeded expectations in Europe, and China has a weird luxury version of the Juke called the Infiniti ESQ. But it wasn’t a good fit for North America and sales suffered as a result, forcing Nissan to call in the Kicks as the Juke’s successor after annual deliveries started plunging a few years ago.  (Read More…)

General Motors has officially confirmed the discontinuation of the Chevrolet City Express work van, which the automaker has sourced from Nissan since 2014. Its sister vehicle, the Nissan NV200, is one of the many vehicles you see serving as a replacement for the Ford Crown Victoria in New York City’s taxi fleet.

However, the City Express is a vehicle you’ve probably never noticed, as they don’t sell particularly well. General Motors moved 8,348 in the United States for 2017, which — believe it or not — was one of its better years. Meanwhile, Ford had a pretty mediocre year with its Transit Connect, managing only 34,473 deliveries. It looks like General Motors is willing to concede the segment to its Blue Oval rival as the NV200 soldiers on sans the Chevy badge.  (Read More…)

Tesla Motors announced Thursday that it officially reached 200,000 deliveries this month, which is good news in terms of overall sales. But the figure also means the company has surpassed the threshold requiring that federal tax credits be phased out, which is bad news.

Some speculate that, without government incentives, fewer people will be willing to buy Tesla-branded vehicles. While that’s a possibility, the brand offers unique, trendy models not readily available elsewhere. We’d presume a discount on an iPhone would probably help sales as well, but affordability it isn’t the main reason people purchase them.

We’ll see what kind of impact it has on the automaker as the $7,500 federal electric vehicle tax credit for new owners is gradually phased out. It will also be telling for the electric vehicle market as a whole, as Tesla is the first EV producer to reach the limit.  (Read More…)