Industry

Just days after Audi announced that it had posted a record $1.7 billion profit for the first half of 2010, BMW has gone one better and revealed that its own profit has risen more than sixfold, ending the second quarter of the year at $1.1 billion. The results are on the back of significantly...

The Cadillac Escalade is undoubtedly popular with a wide range of people, but especially so with car thieves, who made the luxury SUV and pickup their number one choice for stealing this year. Meanwhile, the Volvo S80 sedan was the least popular with thieves and was 14 times less likely to be...

Without the deadweight that was Mercury dragging it down, Ford’s premium division, which now only consists of Lincoln, finally has the resources and freedom to transform into the upmarket luxury brand it should have always been. This means that we’ll likely be seeing Lincoln expand into new...

It’s official. Ford (NYSE: F) has announced today that it has completed the sale of Volvo and its related assets to the Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Company Limited (Geely). The total purchase price for Volvo and the assets set forth in an agreement signed back in March was $1.8 billion...

At a time when most automakers are struggling to make sales, and others are suffering from a spate of safety and quality recalls, Audi has managed to post a record profit and its best ever sales figures. Audi managed to increase its revenue by 21 percent in the first six months of the current...

The 2010 study measures automotive performance, execution, and layout.

It was only a year ago that Michael Macht replaced the ousted Wendelin Wiedeking as Porsche CEO but already there has been another switch of the top job at the famous sports car manufacturer. The role of Porsche CEO will now be played by Matthias Mueller, the former car-model chief strategist for...

It didn’t take long for the Bob Lutz name to make the automotive headlines again, following his very public retirement from General Motors just two months ago. The latest word is that Lutz, together with former BMW exec Tom Purves, will be hired by Lotus to help advise on the niche automaker’s...

For the first time in the 24 years that the J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Study has been conducted, the domestic brands have managed to surpass the imports. Led by new entries from Ford and General Motors, domestic brands, as a whole, have done better but four out of the five top...

There is a major difference between cars and plants, and it's the driving factor behind the "green" trends in the automotive industry today. By nature, plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atomsphere, and release oxygen. This is good. This is how the ecosystem is supposed to work. Plants like...

The long-winded story of Saab's sale finally came to a close this year, with the brand born from jets adding a propeller to the mix in the form of Dutch sports car company Spyker, which reached a deal to purchase the struggling Swedish automaker from GM. With Saab now in the relatively safe hands...

Chrysler’s decision last year to separate its Dodge car and truck models into the respective Dodge Car and new Dodge Ram brands meant that the two separate divisions henceforth could focus more directly on their best attributes. By splitting the Dodge Ram brand off, it allowed that division to...

Jaguar's XF and new 2010 XJ sedans have made waves in the sport-luxury seas, bringing a newer, fresher face to what was once a bit of a stodgy lineup. Now it looks like Jaguar may be planning even more boat-rocking, with several new models in the pipeline including a sports car, a BMW 3-Series...

Although some car thieves are seemingly unstoppable pros, the vast majority are bungling opportunists just looking for an easy target for the chop shop or, easier yet, the pawn shop.

Italdesign-Giugiaro, based in Turin, is one of the most legendary automotive design houses in Italy and the company behind such icons as the original Volkswagen Golf, Audi 80, Lancia Delta and even the Hyundai Pony. The design house has had close links with Volkswagen since its founding back in...

Don’t you hate it when one of the kids spills soft drink and stains--often permanently--your expensive leather seats, or worse still, when a moment of carelessness on your part leaves an ugly scrape on your bumper at the local shopping center car park. Mercedes-Benz customers need no longer worry...

Saab has had one of the most turbulent recent histories in the auto industry, being bought up by GM, then almost sold to a Chinese automaker and finally ending up in the hands of Spyker--all while losing hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Saab’s latest owner is Spyker, a niche sports car...

While it’s looking more and more likely that the first Alfa Romeos won’t go on sale in the U.S. until 2012, a new range of Chrysler models based on Fiat platforms could be on sale before then. Chrysler is planning to use Fiat’s compact car...

Porsche and Volkswagen currently share a platform for their respective SUV models, the Cayenne and Touareg, both of which have been redesigned for the 2011 model year. Given the relative success of the two models, plus Volkswagen’s new ownership of Porsche, both automakers are now considering...

Brand value can be a fickle thing. It’s impossible to measure accurately and it can be affected by numerous volatile factors, but at the end of the day if a consumer is willing to pay more for one brand over another then brand value becomes a vital indicator of a company’s overall...