Production
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As a side effect of the current industry downturn and the subsequent realignment of capacity at America's major domestic car manufacturers, the once-Big Three could be outstripped in North American production by a combination of foreign companies by 2012, including BMW and Porsche-owned Volkswagen, according to a study released today by Grant Thornton LLP. Readers with acute memories will recall a series of articles we've run over the past several months documenting the rise of many carmakers to production levels that exceed Chrysler and General Motors individually. Ford, though it too will...
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Saab 9-4X crossover on track for early 2010 launch
Saab’s split from General Motors and pending sale to supercar company Koenigsegg will apparently have no major affect on the Swedish automaker’s future model launches, such as that of the upcoming 9-4X crossover. The new crossover will share much in common with the recently-revealed...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Lexus hoping to hit 25,000 in first-year HS 250h hybrid sales
High sales hopes aren't exactly in fashion right now, especially in the car industry, and Lexus is following suit, eying a fairly humble first-year target of 25,000 units for its new HS 250h dedicated hybrid sedan. Total sales for the Lexus brand in 2008 rode above 20,000 per month, and even with...
Ralph Hanson -
Chevrolet builds the 1,500,000th Corvette, prices 2010 Grand Sport
Building 1,500,000 of just about any complex machine is a serious milestone, but it's much more than that to the motoring spirit of America when it's the Chevrolet Corvette. Today General Motors announced the production of the 1,500,000th Corvette at its Bowling Green Assembly plant. Along with the...
Nelson Ireson -
GM opens advanced battery lab in Michigan
Despite a bankruptcy filing that's barely a week old, General Motors is fighting to preserve its image as a relevant and potent member of the automotive industry. To that end, GM today announced the opening of its Global Battery Systems Lab in Warren, Michigan. The new lab is where GM will do the...
Nelson Ireson -
Audi will need an extra year to hit 1.5 million sales target
Volkswagen and its subsidiaries, including Audi, have been in hot pursuit of an industry-topping sales rank for the past several years, but the widespread economic downturn is shaping up to put those plans on hold. It may take Audi a full year longer than expected to reach its sales goal of 1.5...
Alex Kaufmann -
Labor has taken a lot of the blame for the current state of the U.S. auto industry, and to a degree, rightfully so. But without the labor, no cars can be built, so General Motors has been hard at work on a new contract with the UAW, which has finally been approved by 74% of union locals. Today GM announced that the new deal would close the competitive gap the company faces against non-labor car manufacturers in the United States - essentially all of the foreign car companies. The core elements of the plan that will help to reduce the per-unit labor cost are re-worked benefits and retirement...
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Mercedes holding off on E-Class cabrio, wagon
Announcements of the delays of new car models are almost more numerous than the new cars themselves, and it seems no one is immune to the practice. Mercedes-Benz today revealed it won't be releasing the new E-Class Cabrio (spied here) at Frankfurt this fall, and the E-Class Wagon will be delayed a...
Alex Kaufmann -
Study: Toyota, Ford set to pass GM in market share, production
As General Motors peers over the brink of the abyss into a future that very likely holds a bankruptcy, the hits just keep coming. Today industry forecasters revealed that Toyota will pass GM in U.S. market share by 2010 at current rates, while Ford will push past the General in North American...
Nelson Ireson -
Last Mercury Sable to roll off line Thursday
As General Motors sacrifices and sells off about half of its brand portfolio and Chrysler downsizes through bankruptcy, Ford has stayed above the fray. But with the end of production of the Mercury Sable coming this Thursday, talk of the brand's potential demise has come back to life. Early in...
Ralph Hanson -
Chinese-built Chevrolet Spark, Aveo and Lova could hit U.S. showrooms by 2011
Just a few days ago we brought you a story about General Motors considering bringing small cars from China to the U.S. in order to bolster its sales in the segment. Currently, the carmaker is looking to sell around 17,300 Chinese-made vehicles in the U.S. by 2011 and over 50,000 units by 2014...
James Martinez -
Honda could leapfrog Chrysler in North American production, sales
With almost all of its plants shuttered through the bankruptcy period and faith in the company at an all-time low, Chrysler is soon to be passed in both North American production and sales by Honda. The Japanese #2 carmaker has already cut the gap to Chrysler's production figures to 17,011 vehicles...
Ralph Hanson -
Just a few days ago we told you General Motors would be looking to build more and more cars overseas as part of its restructuring plans, and that China was one of the first places they'd look. Today news that GM will in fact be bringing Chinese cars to the U.S. has begun to trickle out into the open. Finding ways to get cars to market with less expense and more profitability is the name of the game, and with the U.S. federal government driving a hard bargain behind the scenes, GM's decision to go to China for its low-cost, high-volume vehicles makes sense. Initially, however, the number of...
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As GM rebuilds itself, it will build more cars overseas
It's an old story, one that's been told with increasing regularity since the end of World War II. Jobs are moving overseas. Today, it's General Motors that will be shifting more of its production elsewhere as part of its restructuring plan. Lower wages, lower production costs, cheaper plant...
Ralph Hanson -
Video: see the construction and delivery of the first 2010 Camaro
Generally positive reviews are already filtering in from the various outlets and the waiting list of buyers is already 14,000 long - both indicators that the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro is staged for success. Since even those on the pre-order list will be waiting up to three months to see their beloved...
Ralph Hanson -
Tesla reveals pricing for Model S, announces sale of 250th Roadster
Tesla's first all-original car, the upcoming Model S plug-in hybrid sedan, is due to be unveiled to the public in just a week’s time but the company has already released a couple of teaser shots - one showing the undercarriage and another showing the new glasshouse. In the lead up to the...
Ralph Hanson -
Nissan announces new EV program in Tucson, Arizona
ECOtality has partnered with Nissan and the Pima Association of Governments to bring a new zero-emissions initiative to the Tucson, Arizona region. By pairing prototype EVs and a new charging network, Nissan hopes to further expand its development of practical research into widespread use of...
Ralph Hanson -
Pininfarina updates B0 Concept as Bluecar EV, more production details
Pininfarina gave up contract manufacturing last year to focus solely on building electric vehicles (EVs). At the Geneva Motor Show this week, the company has reworked their B0 Concept into a more palatably-named BLUECAR EV, with more details on its expected production plans. The B0/Bluecar EV was...
Kenneth Hall -
At last month’s Detroit Auto Show, General Motors confirmed that its all-new Chevrolet Spark minicar would go on sale in the United States by 2011 but apart from the release of a single teaser image no other details were revealed. GM has today released a set of new images of the upcoming Spark ahead of its debut this week at the Geneva Motor Show. The five-door minicar will be sold as a global model and will replace the current Matiz. It will first go on sale in South Korea and Europe early next year, and will slowly be rolled out across other markets. At launch, there will be the...
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Audi: we will beat Mercedes and BMW in Europe by 2010
The bosses at Audi are gunning for their German rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz, announcing this weekend a goal to sell more cars than either in Europe by 2010. Audi's continental domination will be followed soon after by the Volkswagen Group's rise to the number one spot in the world, if the company...
Nelson Ireson -
Saab forced to halt production
Earlier this week Saab announced its independence from General Motors with optimism, but today the carmaker has been forced by Sweden's Customs Office to cease production and delivery of cars because it hasn't paid the required fees. The Trollhattan plant has stopped production temporarily, though...
Nelson Ireson -
Spy shots: 2010 Saab 9-4X up close
Saab is close to completing development work on a new midsized crossover based around GM’s Theta platform and expected to be revealed for the first time in production late this year for sale in early 2010. To spread development costs, most of the 9-4X’s design has been shared with the...
Kenneth Hall -
McLaren Looking To Increase Production To 4,000 Cars Per Year
Having recently parted company from Mercedes Benz, hired a new design director and started work on a successor to the vaunted F1, the team at McLaren is busy as ever. But that hasn't deterred Ron Dennis, the man who guided Lewis Hamilton to an F1 World Championship win last year, from building up...
Kenneth Hall -
Chrysler co-president: You can either help us or burn us all down
Chrysler has come out with its second sales plea in as little two weeks, urging dealers to order more than 15,000 cars by Monday to keep the company viable. Not one to mince his words, Chrysler co-president Jim Press told dealers over a conference call that they basically have two choices: "You can...
Ralph Hanson