Nissan announced yesterday that the current-generation Rogue would be concurrently produced for U.S. sales in Japan, Korea and the automaker’s Smyrna, Tennessee plant, which had us wondering: What about the Rogue Select?
According to a Nissan spokesman, the Rogue Select (which is essentially the last-generation Rogue) won’t be built alongside the current-generation Rogue in Japan, which may spell the end of the Select model in the states.
Ford will stop building the C-Max and Focus at its Wayne, Michigan plant in 2018, Automotive News is reporting.
Moving the production of the compact cars could signal a coming slowdown in small car sales, or a shift in strategy for the global automaker. UAW officials say they’re confident the C-Max and Focus will be replaced with a different product at the plant.
Nissan announced today they’ll expand production of the current-generation Nissan Rogue to its Japanese plant and import those cars into the U.S.
Nissan’s Kyushu plant produces a version of the Rogue already on sale in the U.S., called Rogue Select. It’s unclear if the current-generation Rogue and last-generation Rogue will be produced side-by-side or if Nissan will discontinue selling the Rogue Select.
U.S.-sold Rogues are sourced from Nissan’s Symrna, Tennessee plant and Busan, Korea.
Nothing is more American than a high-horsepower V8 in a muscle car. Thanks to increased demand, roads are going to feature more of that familiar V8 rumble as Dodge ramps up Hellcat production.
According to Car & Driver, the folks in Toyota City are smitten with the new Mazda MX-5 Miata. So much so they’re considering using the platform for the next Toyota GT86, sold as the Scion FR-S in North America.
The rumor states what goes for Toyota goes for Subaru’s sports car – the BRZ – as well. I’m not so sure about that.
Subaru has a problem, though it’s a problem many other automakers would love to have. The small Japanese automaker is growing at a rapid rate and it’s fully expected to run out of capacity to fulfill demand sooner rather than later. Most automakers would simply expand and flood the market with more units to feed the sales rush, but for Subaru it might mean becoming the opposite of the market position and perception they’ve taken years to cultivate.
As Bloomberg‘s Kyle Stock puts it, “Being small, though, is the reason Subaru has become such a big deal. With manufacturing capacity maxed out, it now has to decide what kind of company it wants to be.”
There’s nothing better in this business than a concept car to stir my imagination.
I can visualize myself in a brand new wondermobile as I crest a hill before diving into the next bend, holding a starship steering wheel (or maybe I am just kicking back and relaxing in some mechanical automaton), surrounded by glass and Star Trek-esque touchpanels with commands such as SPORT, HYPERBOOST, and OIL SLICK.
Yet, when those fancy-shmancy concepts make their way to production, sometimes their essence is lost. Other times, what arrives on the dealer lot is a completely different car altogether.
The new McLaren 570S
It sounds funny to say a car that costs almost $185,000 is a move downmarket, but the new McLaren 570S introduced at the recent New York Auto Show, and the detuned 540S version of the same “Sport Series” chassis (~$150K), are exactly that. The first McLarens to cost less than a quarter of a million dollars are aimed squarely at the Porsche 911. Since I’ve always been a best bang for the buck kind of a guy, whether I’m talking cars or stereo equipment, I wondered if McLaren might be interested in using their resources to bring their kind of high performance to an everyman’s sports car. So I asked Wayne Bruce, McLaren’s global director of communications, if there might be a sub-six-figure McLaren some day. (Read More…)
Electric vehicles are doing well in Europe, but their dominance over PHEVs may soon draw to a close.
After months of idling, the Dodge Viper will once again roll out of the assembly line to a roped-off display near you.
Toyota’s lone Mexican assembly plant will boost output by as much as 40 percent to increase production of the Tacoma mid-size pickup truck starting in April, 2015.
Kia announced Wednesday that it plans to build “a range of yet-to-be confirmed compact models” at its new plant in Monterrey, Mexico after Job 1 production begins in H1 2016.
Nikon cameras, condoms and the Mitsubishi Mirage are the only three products that come to mind when I think of “Made in Thailand”, but starting in 2017, we’ll have another to add to that list: the Ford Fiesta.
Toyota is not going to be expanding any plants in the United States, even as they are forced to absorb further production of the Toyota Camry as their assembly deal with Subaru winds down.
In today’s digest: General Motors issues another ignition-related recall; has fixed a handful of those affected by the original ignition recall; and unveils plans for three new compacts to be sold in emerging markets.
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