There’s inventories to be filled with trucks and crossovers, and time’s wasting. After staging a cautious, production-limited restart of its North American assembly plants on May 18th, General Motors is prepared to put its foot down, boosting output at numerous locations.

Hungry dealers can’t wait. (Read More…)

A seldom-mentioned player in the compact crossover arena, the Chinese-built Buick Envision had a complicated introduction to the U.S. market, landing in the middle of the 2016 model year with only pricey uplevel trims in tow.

Buick quickly rectified the problem, adding lower-tier fare and sinking the Envision’s entry price to a more palatable level. Still, the model failed to make a big splash in a hugely competitive segment, with sales peaking in 2017, its first full year on the market. Can this second-generation model make up for a bad first impression? (Read More…)

Hoping to reduce the coronavirus pandemic’s strain on its balance sheet, Tesla slashed prices on three of its four models on Wednesday. While the company posted a surprise first-quarter profit last month, no one expects Q2 to be similarly rosy.

Tesla only recently fired up its Fremont, California assembly plant amid a cloud of threats and a lawsuit targeting Alameda County officials. With sales severely hampered by both the weeks-long shutdown and state-level stay-at-home orders, getting new Teslas out of the factory and into driveways becomes even more important than it was before. Perhaps consumers respond well to lower prices… (Read More…)

We’re still a day away from the (online) debut of Acura’s next-generation TLX sedan, and already there’s catnip to be had for the performance and handling crowd. And for lovers of tradition and heritage, too.

Late Tuesday, Acura revealed that the TLX won’t just feature a slinky body and potent — yet unspecified — powertrain. The new sedan will also break from its predecessor by reaching further into the past, returning to a suspension type that made past Acuras top performers in their class. (Read More…)

It could be a blip, a fluke, but it could also become the norm as consumer buying habits struggle to return to something approaching normal. Via data from J.D. Power, we can see that U.S. auto sales failed to make any headway in the week ending May 17th, ending a six-week climb out the lockdown sales pit.

Finding a guilty party on which to pin the result is proving difficult. (Read More…)

Reeling from the pandemic-born financial crisis, Hertz is unloading some particularly cost-intensive vehicles from its rental fleet. While plenty of these vehicles are old stock it would have had to get rid of eventually, Hertz is limiting fleet turnover this year, recently cancelling roughly 90 percent of new vehicle orders it had on the books for 2020. The company’s also selling some of the special performance vehicles slotted into its lineup every year ⁠— and not all of them seem to have accrued the kind of mileage that would normally warrant a sale.

We’ve chronicled the rental agency’s plight for a while now; Hertz seems to be on the brink of declaring bankruptcy, making it a good case study for the perils confronting auto rental groups everywhere. While we don’t think selling a handful of high-horsepower Chevrolets will be anyone’s saving grace, it might help Hertz scrounge up some loose cash — and provide a half-decent opportunity for enthusiasts to procure a bargain project car.  (Read More…)

The analysts at BloombergNEF foresee a rough year ahead for global auto sales, putting their crystal ball in alignment with everyone else’s. Hardly a shock that the worst pandemic in a century would weigh heavily on consumer spending and confidence.

For electric vehicles, however, the virus stands to rock this segment’s boat to a lesser degree than its mainstream counterparts — which isn’t to say there’s smooth sailing ahead. (Read More…)

As you read last week, the U.S. auto industry continues its climb out of the coronavirus ditch, with foreign automakers pushing back at a briefly dominant Detroit in a bid to restore sales sanity.

The domestic three managed to unload an awful lot of big-margin trucks during the lockdown, propelling scared customers into dealers with zero-interest financing on long-term loans. Detroit’s rivals have now fully caught on, fighting back with their own offers. For Lexus, the new proposal to buyers doesn’t even end at the new-car lot. (Read More…)

Mitsubishi Motors’ membership in the great Renault-Nissan alliance won’t protect it from economic realities arising from the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, the automaker announced an 89-percent drop in operating profit for the year ended March, with black ink totaling just $119 million.

Rocked by the virus that’s thrown every automaker’s balance sheet into disarray, Mitsubishi scrapped its planned dividend and held back from issuing a projection for the current year. It’s also thinking small. The virus has changed the global landscape, and Mitsubishi says it will have to change to meet the challenge. (Read More…)

Long overdue for a revamp, the fourth-generation Toyota Sienna bowed today, ditching the previous model’s 3.5-liter V6 engine in favor of a more fuel-conscious alternative.

Before, the long-running minivan offered buyers the option of braving wintry weather or semi-rugged excursions with the confidence of all-wheel drive. That option remains — but it’s coupled with a standard feature previous Sienna buyers couldn’t get their hands on: a hybrid powertrain. (Read More…)

The Venza was an interesting product for Toyota. With the benefit of hindsight, we can agree it was a model just slightly ahead of its time.

A car-based, ever-so-mildly upscale crossover with two rows of seating and a choice of powertrains, the Venza offered buyers a more stylish alternative to the smaller RAV4 and midsize Highlander. Alas, the model ended its six-year run in 2015.

Well… it’s back. (Read More…)

Yes, it’s true. The news that marred your sunny and/or drenching weekend cannot be ignored: the slow-selling, highly complex Acura RLX flagship will not stage a return for 2021.

If it did, would anyone have noticed?

That’s doubtful, given the model’s shrinking sales volumes. (Read More…)

You read earlier this week how midsize pickups, despite adding the Ford Ranger and Jeep Gladiator to their ranks, suffered in terms of market share this year. It’s been a wild ride, these past few months, but the biggest strike against the purchase of a midsize truck remains the same as before: the existence of full-size trucks — which automakers seem far more likely to discount, boosting their vehicle-per-dollar proposition.

Especially in these pandemic times.

Detroit moved an unexpectedly large number of half-tons over the past two months, greasing the wheels via a sudden love affair with zero-interest, 84-month financing. Full-size trucks dipped instead of dived, but midsizers have now picked themselves up and dusted themselves off. (Read More…)

Production at General Motors’ Mexican assembly plants could start up next week, following a go-ahead from the country’s leadership to resume factory activity. The faster GM’s able to come back online south of the Rio Grande, the better.

In an earnings briefing last week, GM, like its rival Fiat Chrysler, pointed to a declining inventory of lucrative pickups — a segment that proved extremely resilient over the past two months, even during the depths of the coronavirus lockdown. With U.S. plants resuming work on Monday, a concurrent Mexican restart is what the company needs. (Read More…)

The fiscal year that wrapped up at the end of March was not a good one for Mazda, the company claims, with profit cut almost in half amid fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. On Thursday, Mazda revealed a full-year operating profit of just $408 million — its lowest showing in 8 years.

Smaller than its Japanese rivals and heavily dependent on the North American consumer, Mazda was hit hard by lockdown orders that dried up sales in the U.S. and Canada in March. (Read More…)