The Jeep brand is Fiat-Chrysler’s biggest money maker, so it’s no wonder that CEO Sergio Marchionne is scattering factories around the world like a sailor’s offspring.
The company’s head honcho outlined his business plan for the brand in an interview published by Automotive News, and it involves no longer having to make a “Sophie’s Choice” decision with Jeep output. (Read More…)
News from Dearborn this morning will please recent purchasers of F-150s, Transits, and Fiestas — Ford Motor Company is absolutely on fire financially, earning $2.5 billion in a very large first quarter.
Ford’s pre-tax profit of $3.8 billion was a record for the company. (Read More…)
Will Volkswagen TDI owners who opt for a buyback be soured on the brand, or can they be lured into a new model?
It’s a big question for dealers, who could stand to benefit from the dealership traffic they’ll see when Volkswagen’s buyback program gets up and running later this year. (Read More…)
There’s happy faces inside the Renaissance Center today.
General Motors saw its first-quarter pretax profit rise 28 percent, despite continuing trouble in foreign markets, Automotive News has reported.
A net income of $1.95 billion means investors will reap $32.66 a share, a 1.5 percent increase. Revenue was up four percent in the first quarter, at $37.27 billion. (Read More…)
The heavy financial cost of Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal is becoming clear.
After reaching a settlement yesterday with U.S. consumers and regulators, the automaker is more than doubling the size of its “make the problem go away” cash pile, Bloomberg is reporting.
Volkswagen set aside 16.2 billion euros ($18.6 billion) today to deal with the scandal’s fallout, up from the 6.7 billion euro ($7.6 billion) figure previously stated. (Read More…)
Jaguar’s design chief just broke the hearts of that tiny, tiny group of enthusiasts who were holding out for a new Jaguar wagon.
Ian Callum threw an ice cold pot of tea onto speculation that the British automaker would offer a wagon version of one of its new sedans, telling a group of auto journos in London that they were done with estate cars, Automotive News Europe has reported.
The reason for this has a lot to do with why Callum and the journalists were in the same room. The event concerned the 2017 Jaguar F-Pace, the automaker’s first crossover SUV. (Read More…)
The Russian automaker that manufactures Lada vehicles won’t see Carlos Ghosn at its board meetings after this June.
The Renault-Nissan CEO and chairman is expected to be replaced as chairman of AvtoVAZ at the company’s June 23 shareholders meeting, the automaker has stated, with Dr. Serguey Skvortsov taking his place.
Ghosn remains the chairman of Alliance Rostec Auto BV, the holding company that controls AvtoVAZ. Renault-Nissan bought a majority stake in the company, which is a joint venture with Russian Technologies, in 2012. (Read More…)
Will there be a Green Mile edition?
The slow-selling Volkswagen Beetle is living on borrowed time, if a tweet by industry insider Autoline can be believed, but aside from nostalgia, why should the world mourn a vehicle that few buyers want?
In the wake of the disruptive and wildly expensive diesel emissions scandal, Volkswagen needs sales in a big way, and they’re not getting them from the Beetle. Seven months out from the diesel revelations, Volkswagen’s sales are still dropping, and the Beetle’s popularity with buyers has all the power of, well, an original Beetle engine. (Read More…)
Orders of the life changing, marriage-saving Tesla Model 3 are poised to hit 400,000, but Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne doesn’t think they’ve got the right stuff.
Diarmuid O’Connell, Tesla’s vice-president of business development, confirmed the number of orders at an electric vehicle conference in Amsterdam yesterday, two weeks after the low-priced model’s glitzy unveiling, Electrek has reported. (Read More…)
After partnering with the Russian company Sollers for the past five years and investing more than $1 billion into car and engine factories, Ford Motor Company is betting on a Russian rebound and still sees the beleaguered country as a long-term play.
Amid GM’s retreat from Russia, Ford stuck to its game plan by spending cash on new models and plants in that country, presumably to avoid a catch-up situation similar to the one it faced in China. According to Automotive News, the commitment paid off in the first quarter of 2016, sending sales up by 93 percent in a market that saw a 17 percent decline over the same period. (Read More…)
As promised, Tesla has revealed the tally for first-week orders of the upcoming “affordable” Model 3 electric car, and it’s good news for the company.
It’s also bad news if you ordered late and are hoping to show off your ride anytime soon.
As of today, the electric automaker has taken over 325,000 reservations on the 215-mile range Model 3, which translates into an eventual $14 billion in revenue if no one backs out. With each buyer putting $1,000 down on their order, that means Tesla just made a cool $325 million that could be used to ready the vehicle, and the company’s facilities, for production.
I worked at a Ford dealer in Silicon Valley from 1994 to 1999. It was a transitional time in the car business; a time when old-school car guys told war stories about back-lot portables stocked with sales incentives, while young consumers arrived with astonishingly accurate invoice and holdback information. We packed payments, sold $79 undercoat for $1,500, and occasionally found customers smarter than us.
By 1999, more than 40 percent of Americans were online and the Internet was democratizing information everywhere. If someone asked me then if the retail auto environment would be different 17 years hence, I would have emphatically responded yes.
I would have been wrong.
The car business and the customer experience are all but identical. The biggest change is perhaps the relocation of the smoking area.
The Sterling Heights, Michigan facility that manufactures the Chrysler 200 will have its output halved this summer, with about 1,420 workers laid off indefinitely as a result, reports the Detroit News.
Both production lines of the midsize sedan were idled for nine weeks earlier this year to compensate for an inventory glut and low demand. Now, only one line will stay open, employing about 1,900 workers.
Tesla Motors is cranking out EVs at its fastest clip yet, but buyers who put money down on the Model 3 should still have serious questions about the timeliness of their delivery date.
In the first quarter of this year, Tesla delivered 12,420 Model S sedans and 2,400 Model X SUVs — nearly 50 percent more volume than the same period last year. The electric automaker said a parts shortage in January and February hampered Model X production, but with the issue resolved, deliveries of 80,000 to 90,000 Teslas can be expected this year.
Mitsubishi has a plan to gain market share in the U.S. that’s right out of the ’80s.
Dealers were told during last weekend’s National Automobile Dealers Association conference that Mitsubishi will introduce turbocharged engines to model line, according to Automotive News.
The forced-induction renaissance will begin with a 1.5-liter mill powering the automaker’s planned midsize crossover, expected in 2018, which will slot between an enlarged Outlander and the Outlander Sport.
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