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May 15, 2008
Toyota Prius: 1 Million Sales and Counting
By Michelle Krebs
The Model T of hybrids.
That's how a former Toyota executive described the Toyota Prius.
And, today, as the Prius hit a hugely significant milestone -- 1 million plus sales since going on sale in 1997 -- that title seems all the more appropriate.
Toyota said Thursday it had sold 1,028,000 Prius cars worldwide -- it is sold in 40 countries -- as of the end of April.
Like the Model T, the Prius has become a brand on its own. Yet, Toyota is looking for even bigger things from the little car -- 1 million sales annually and the introduction of the next-generation model next year reportedly arriving in a number of variations.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:00 AM under Analysis, Technology, Toyota | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 15, 2008
GM Crossovers Soon Resume Production and Settles with CAW
By Michelle Krebs
It looks like General Motors soon will resume production of its hot-selling Buick Enclave, Saturn Outlook and GMC Acadia crossovers as well as launch its new Chevrolet Traverse now that the union members who build those vehicles have settled their month-long strike with the automaker.
Early Thursday morning, GM announced it had reached an agreement with UAW Local 602, which represents the 3,300 workers at GM's Delta Township, Mich., plant who build the crossovers. Officially workers will remain on strike until they ratify the contract; it was unclear Thursday morning when that vote might be taken.
Also on Thursday morning, the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW) announced it had reached a tentative agreement for a national contract with GM. The CAW also reached a tentative agreement Chrysler Thursday.
And GM averted a strike with one of its locals in Ohio.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:48 AM under Chrysler, Companies, Ford, GM | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 15, 2008
Tata Motors Joins Automotive X Prize Competition
India's Tata Motors, famous for its upcoming $2,500 Tata Nano car, will compete in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize, a competition aimed at inspiring a new generation of super fuel-efficient vehicles.
Tata signed its official letter of intent to compete in the United Kingdom Thursday. It joins more than 70 teams from 12 countries and 22 U.S. states who have signed similar agreement to compete for a share of a $10 million prize purse.
(Read more...)
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May 15, 2008
Maverick Chrysler Generates Interest in Gas-Price Cards
By Dale Buss
More than a week after Chrysler announced its Let's Refuel America incentive program, no other major OEM has imitated Chrysler with its own program to price-protect consumers against gasoline over $2.99 a gallon. But Chrysler executives say they don't mind going it alone - because many of their customers are going with them.
Early indications are that the announcement of the incentive program, and significant resulting publicity, have boosted purchase consideration of Chrysler's brands very little. Edmunds.com reported a two percent increase for the best-performing of its brands, the Chrysler marque, based on visits to the New Vehicle Detail Pages (NVDP) for the company's products on Edmunds.com. However, a handful of specific vehicles fared considerably better.
"Overall," said David Tompkins, executive director of industry solutions for Santa Monica, Calif.-based Edmunds.com, "it's not doing much for them."
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:53 AM under Analysis, Chrysler | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 15, 2008
Don't Look Now, but Ford's Selling Some Stuff
By Bill Visnic
DEARBORN, Mich. -- To paraphrase Jim Morrison and The Doors, Ford's been down so long that it looks like up to them.
But within the cloud that has been Ford's long-declining market share - and its shared pain with the other domestic automakers who drank too long at the well of fullsize pickups and SUVs - there's a portion of silver lining: Ford is quietly making moves in some important and competitive market segments. In some cases, with product that ain't exactly new.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:44 AM under Analysis, Featured, Ford | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 14, 2008
Chevy Volt: Traveling Public Roads and Hitting Its Mark
By Michelle Krebs
WARREN, Michigan -- General Motors inched closer to making the Chevrolet Volt a reality in November 2010 as the vehicle's innovative gas-electric powertrain is being test-driven for the first time on public roads and is hitting its target of 40 miles on pure electric power.
"Today is a big day," GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz told Edmunds' AutoObserver in an exclusive interview Tuesday. "Today is the first day it is running on the street on battery power."
Lutz said the Volt's powertrain, comprised of an advanced lithium-ion battery and a small gasoline engine, was installed into a mule vehicle and is being driven on public roads around the automaker's proving grounds in Milford, Michigan. More important, Lutz said, the battery is hitting GM's goal of 40 miles on pure electric power.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 3:57 AM under Companies, Featured, GM, News, Personalities, Technology | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 13, 2008
Saleen-ASC Combine Motor City Grit, California Glamour
By Joseph Szczesny
TROY, Michigan -- Behind the introduction of the Saleen S5S Raptor at the New York International Auto Show in March is the story of a corporate reorganization that blends two companies previously struggling on their own.
The new Saleen Inc. combines Motor City grit of the former ASC and the California glamour of the former Saleen operations in finely calibrated balance, said Paul Wilbur, CEO of the new Saleen.
Wilbur told AutoObserver that the Raptor is the first project in which both sides of the house have contributed. It combined the efforts of Saleen engineering and ASC's creative team, which usually labors in anonymity for big clients such as General Motors.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:17 AM under Business, Chrysler, Companies, Ford, GM, Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 13, 2008
Shipping Shortage Wearing on Automakers
By Bill Visnic
and Michelle Krebs
If an eroding U.S. economy and commensurately sliding auto sales aren't enough to worry about, several global automakers can add a new worry for 2008: a vexing lack of ships to carry vehicles from port to port and skyrocketing increases in the cost of shipping vehicles.
A General Motors executive called the issue "a matter of global strategic importance," warranting attention from the highest levels at the automaker, and a major issue facing all manufacturers.
(Read more...)
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May 13, 2008
Chrysler Picks Small Car Over Chrysler Crossover
Chrysler will focus on designing a small car to be manufactured by Nissan and forgo plans
to build a Chrysler version of the Dodge Journey.
Chrysler had planned for the Chrysler crossover in 2009 but will use the savings to help pay for designing a compact car to be made by Nissan, Chrysler's James Press said Monday.
The cancellation of the Chrysler Journey shows Press is advancing his plan to reduce the number of models Chrysler brands sell, and eliminate overlap between the divisions.
It is also an illustration of how Chrysler is cash-strapped.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:42 AM under Chrysler, Companies | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 13, 2008
Hewlett-Packard Buying EDS, Once GM Owned
Wall Street is abuzz with the news that Hewlett-Packard is buying Electronic Data Systems for $12.6 billion.
Old-timers in the auto industry may remember that General Motors, with the late and controversial Roger Smith at the helm, purchased EDS, founded by H. Ross Perot, in 1984 for $2.6 billion. GM's purchase of EDS along with Hughes Aircraft and a host of small high-tech companies was part of Smith's vision to create the high-tech 21st Century car company.
It didn't work out that way. Perot, who served on the GM board, complained all too publicly of how hidebound and slow to act GM was, prompting GM to buy out Perot, who went on to form another company and run for U.S. president, and spin off EDS. GM remains one of EDS's largest customers; EDS employees occupy two towers of downtown Detroit's Renaissance Center, purchased last week by GM and used as its corporate headquarters.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:40 AM under Companies, GM, Technology | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 12, 2008
Vehicles Most Affordable Since 2002, Economist Sees Eventual Rebound
By Bill Visnic
Proof that auto-industry incentives work, in a way the car companies probably prefer they wouldn't: Dallas-based Comerica Bank last week issued its quarterly Auto Affordability Index, which showed vehicles are more affordable than they have been in the past six years.
Comerica's Affordability Index says in the first quarter it took 23.9 weeks of a median family's income to purchase an average-priced new vehicle. The number of weeks required to work to purchase a vehicle is the lowest since 2002 -- and flirts with lows not seen since 1980. Comerica says the average new-vehicle price in the first quarter was $24,627, the lowest quarterly average in more than two years.
(Read more...)
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May 12, 2008
'Big Auto' Lobbying Fares No Better in CA Than in D.C.
By Bill Visnic
Senior representatives from several major automakers comprising the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers met in California yesterday with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, hoping to twist the strong-guy governor's arm about the state's ongoing and uncomfortable pressure on the federal government to allow California to set its own carbon-dioxide emissions standards.
California's proposed standards would require better fuel economy improvements, on a quicker time line, than the new Corporate Average Fuel Economy mandate approved by Congress earlier this year -- and which the auto industry largely resisted. Most automakers would rather not -- to put it mildly -- see California permitted to adopt an even more rigid regulation, so they loaded up the lobbying plane in hopes of doing better in California than they've done in Washington, D.C.
Schwarzenegger, however, appears to have resolutely rebuffed the Alliance and its representatives.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 5:50 AM under Companies, Technology | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 12, 2008
Chrysler's Gas-Price Incentive May End Up a Winner
By Dale Buss
Chrysler executives feared that their new gas-price rebate program would nick the company's already shaky green credentials. But they also hoped that the "Let's Refuel America" price-protection plan would create a buzz among consumers -- and maybe even an uptick in Chrysler's dismal sales.
Just days since the incentive's unveiling, it's become clear that their fears were well-founded: Environmentalists are inflamed by Chrysler's decision to offer to indemnify buyers of most of its vehicles against gas prices above $2.99 for the next three years. They're flaying Chrysler as a technologically backward cadre of ecologically callous opportunists.
But just as quickly, signs have emerged that Chrysler's hopes might have been well-founded, too.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:47 AM under Analysis, Chrysler, Featured | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 08, 2008
Hybrids "Paying Off" More Quickly, New Edmunds Data Shows
By Bill Visnic
As gasoline prices go higher, many hybrid-electric vehicles currently on sale are proving to be even wiser investments, says new data from Edmunds.com.
Considerable past discussion about hybrids has focused on "payback" time, or the period required for savings from a hybrid's enhanced fuel economy to recoup the initial higher purchase price a hybrid commands. Detractors often claimed that, from a strictly fiscal view of hybrids, most vehicle purchasers would never save enough in gasoline costs to recover their investment in expensive hybrid technology.
But with every increase in gas prices, the hybrid payback time becomes consequently shorter - to the point where some popularly priced hybrid models can pay back their owners' investment in as little as 18 months, according to the new Edmunds.com study.
(Read more...)
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 6:40 AM under Analysis, Featured, GM, Technology, Toyota | Comments (4) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 07, 2008
Audi, VW Considering Options for U.S. Plant
Audi Chief Executive Rupert Stadler confirmed that Audi is in talks with its parent Volkswagen AG to build an assembly plant in North America.
The dollar, which has traded at record lows against the euro throughout the past year, has made it costly for German automakers like Audi and Volkswagen to import cars to the U.S. Stadler told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting that he sees no let up in the currency situation.
Plus Audi plans to increase its global sales to more than 1 million vehicles this year, but is not growing as fast as it wants to in the U.S. “The growth that we have seen throughout the world has not translated into growth on the U.S. market to the extent that we would like,” Stadler told shareholders at Audi’s annual meeting. “We stand to benefit tremendously from having our own local production.''
(Read more...)
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May 07, 2008
ArvinMeritor: Former Ford Exec To Run Auto Parts Spin-off
Former Ford Executive Phil Martens will become CEO of a new company, Arvin Innovations, a spin-off of auto parts supplier ArvinMeritor, Inc., struggling to return to profitability by restructuring, expanding globally and becoming less dependent on Detroit’s Big Three.
Martens, who ran product development at Mazda and later Ford North America, was among a handful of executives who left Ford in a political battle that had Martens’ rival Mark Fields becoming Ford’s President of the Americas.
(Read more...)
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May 07, 2008
Daimler To Open Office in Iraq
Daimler AG, after a 20-year absence, plans to open an office in Baghdad by year-end, a display of confidence that Iraq is stabilizing.
A Daimler spokesperson told various media outlets Tuesday that the office is intended to establish the German auto and truck maker’s corporate presence in Iraq more than generate immediate sales.
(Read more...)
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May 07, 2008
Dodge Journey Ads a Hit, But Ford’s Drive One Has Mixed Impact
By Dale Buss
Chrysler’s advertising campaign for its new Dodge Journey crossover has greatly boosted initial online interest in the vehicle, according to an analysis by Edmunds.com. But the new omnibus marketing effort launched by Ford recently, Drive One, isn’t packing nearly the same punch.
Those are the conclusions of research by David Tompkins, executive director of business solutions for Edmunds.com, based in Santa Monica, Calif., using consumer visits to the New Vehicle Detail Pages (NVDPs) of the site in April, in the immediate wake of the launches of the two advertising campaigns.
(Read more...)
Posted by at 4:17 AM under Analysis, Chrysler, Featured, Ford | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 06, 2008
Chrysler Unveils New Gas-Price Guarantee Incentive: "Let’s Refuel America"
By Michelle Krebs
DETROIT -- Chrysler announced Monday evening that it will launch a new incentive program, called “Let’s Refuel America,” that guarantees buyers of most of its vehicles can lock into $2.99 a gallon gasoline for the next three years. The program starts Wednesday and runs through June 2.
It comes as no surprise that Chrysler is offering a gas-related incentive: Chrysler’s sales were the worst of any automaker in April date. And even the current hefty cash incentives seem to be doing little to move the metal. Edmunds.com had predicted gas prices would be the next front for automaker incentives, as it has become in the presidential campaign.
It’ll also be no surprise that, as all politicians are getting into the act, other automakers surely will jump on this bandwagon.
“Much like GM’s Employee Pricing program spared like wildfire in the summer of 2005, it’s likely other manufacturers will follow Chrysler’s lead,” said Jessica Caldwell, manager of Edmunds.com’s pricing and industry analysis.
(Read more...)
Posted by at 7:57 AM under Chrysler, Featured | Comments (7) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 06, 2008
Remember the Last "Quick Fix for Gas Addicts"?
Ah, how quickly some of us forget.
It was almost two years ago to the day that General Motors announced a fuel price protection program, much like the one Chrysler launches on Wednesday. GM offered buyers of certain vehicle models, mostly large SUVs, in Florida and California a guarantee of gasoline capped at $1.99 a gallon for a year.
The promotion didn’t move the needle on sales, and it opened the floodgate of criticism of GM, especially in a now-famous column by The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman.
We're betting GM won’t be following Chrysler’s lead -- and we're wondering if Friedman is dusting off his old column to blast Chrysler.
(Read more...)
Posted by at 7:54 AM under Chrysler, Commentary, GM | Comments (4) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 06, 2008
UAW Strikes GM Where It Hurts Most -- in the ‘Bu
By Michelle Krebs
The United Auto Workers union struck -- literally -- General Motors where it hurts most -- at the automaker’s Kansas City, Kansas, factory that builds the fast-selling Chevrolet Malibu, already in tight supply.
The 2,600 UAW workers in Kansas walked off the job Monday morning after a strike deadline passed with no local contract. The supposed hangup is over seniority issues and work rules. However, many experts believe the strike -– and ones threatened at other GM plants –- has less to do with local GM issues than it does to show support of its union brothers at American Axle, on strike against the GM supplier for more than 70 days.
Whatever the case, a strike cutting Malibu production is damaging to GM, especially if it lingers.
(Read more...)
Posted by at 6:56 AM under Business, GM | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 06, 2008
Chery Partners With Arizona Chipmaker for Hybrids, Fuel Technologies
Chinese automaker Chery Automobile Co. Ltd. is partnering with a Phoenix, Arizona-based high-tech company, Freescale Semiconductor, to build a research facility in China to develop hybrids and other fuel-efficiency technologies.
"Through joint research and development, Freescale and Chery intend to drive breakthroughs in next-generation automotive system designs," Paul Grimme, Freescale senior vice president, told the Arizona Republic.
Chery also has an affiliation with Chrysler that is moving forward. Freescale supplies, among other things, advanced automotive chips for the 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon 2-Mode hybrids. Chrysler is about to launch the same 2-Mode technology, cooperatively developed by General Motors, Daimler and Chrysler with BMW, in its 2009 Chrysler Aspen and Dodge Durango.
(Read more...)
Posted by at 6:04 AM under Chrysler, Companies, Technology | Comments (0) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 06, 2008
Chrysler Opens Online Post for Listening to Customers
By Dale Buss
As the auto industry headed into this downturn, Chrysler faced severe competitive disadvantages in crucial areas ranging from product breadth to financial wherewithal to management depth.
But there is at least one strategic arena where the privately held new Chrysler has demonstrated a determination to take a back seat to no competitor: listening and adjusting to what its customers want. Chrysler has just demonstrated that edge, for instance, by launching its gas-price "protection" plan, the first of a potential wave of similar incentives that was predicted last week by Edmunds.com.
Chrysler’s new online Customer Advisory Board (CAB) is the latest manifestation of the automaker’s decision to develop a greater capacity for gauging and then quickly responding to the expressed desires of its customers and prospective customers – one of the few potential industry-leading advantages that is immediately available to the beleaguered automaker.
(Read more...)
Posted by at 4:20 AM under Chrysler, Featured | Comments (1) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 05, 2008
Nissan Reveals Light-Commercial Direction at Next Detroit Auto Show
By Bill Visnic
CASCAIS, Portugal – Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., eager to enter North America’s rapidly transforming light-commercial vehicle (LCV) market, will signal type of vehicles it intends to offer with an unveiling at the Detroit auto show in January, said William J. Krueger, Nissan North America Inc.’s senior vice president-manufacturing, purchasing and supply chain management for The Americas.
Nissan announced in early April it will produce and sell three LCVs for North America beginning in the first half of 2010. The plan accomplishes two Nissan goals: adds the U.S. to its markets for its commercial vehicles and fills up its Canton, Miss., plant.
(Read more...)
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May 05, 2008
MAZDA6 for America Arrives
By Peter Nunn
TOKYO -- When it didn’t turn up at the New York auto show back in March, some began to wonder when Mazda would finally get around to unveiling the long awaited, unique-to-the-U.S. 2009 Mazda6 sports sedan.
The answer came last week, in time for Mazda’s conference in Japan to announce its 2007-08 business year results.
As Mazda executives sat down to give details of another year’s turbocharged performance from the self-styled Zoom Zoom company (net profit up 25 percent to a record $916 million on a best-ever turnover of $3.5 billion, with global vehicle sales up nearly 5 percent to 1.36 million units), this new American Mazda6 sedan was the icing on the cake.
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May 02, 2008
April Car Sales: U.S. Consumers Flock to Cars, Gouging Detroit Three
By Dale Buss
Americans rushed to swap their thirsty trucks and SUVs for fuel-efficient cars in April, making the month a turning point for the industry’s biggest segment shift in memory.
The stampede to cars left in the dust a Detroit Three that simply weren’t ready for its magnitude because of their reliance on truck-based vehicles, while it lifted Japanese automakers whose traditional strength has remained in small cars.
As U.S. consumers definitively reacted to $3.50-a-gallon gasoline, passenger cars outsold truck-based vehicles for the first time in at least 20 years. The move comprised a shift of six percentage points for the industry compared with last April, to 54 percent car sales.
(Read more...)
Posted by at 6:33 AM under Analysis, Chrysler, Companies, Featured, Ford, GM, Toyota | Comments (13) | digg this | del.icio.us
May 02, 2008
Biofuels Stakes Rise for GM and the Nation
By Dale Buss
With its second major equity investment in a biofuels startup company in the space of five just months, General Motors is moving front and center in what may become a pivotal global economic development of our time: the rapid rise of the cellulosic-ethanol industry.
GM’s announcement on Thursday that it has made an equity investment in a Boston-based company, Mascoma Corp., is a bookend to its January deal to help fund Coskata Inc., based in Warrendale, Ill. The two companies, partially nurtured by academics, use two different processes to yield similar crucial results: the production of ethanol for fuel from non-grain, essentially waste sources.
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Posted by at 4:10 AM under GM, Technology | Comments (2) | digg this | del.icio.us
