Feds Predict The Future Of The Auto Industry, Foresee Chrysler Freefall, GM...
Automaker 2008 model year 2025 model year % Change Aston Martin 1,370 1,182 -13% BMW 353,120 550,665 56% Chrysler-Fiat 1,659,950 768,241 -54% Daimler 287,330 441,786 54% Ferrari 1,450 7,658 428% Ford...
View ArticleMahindra Denies Alabama Production Plans
Another day, another disappointment for American fans of the Indian automaker Mahindra’s rugged, diesel-powered trucks. Earlier rumors that Mahindra might build its trucks with Navistar in Alabama...
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Review: 2012 Volkswagen Sharan TDI BlueMotion (Euro-Spec)
Editor’s Note: Be aware that photos are larger than the usual format. When I told friends that my European vacation would give me the opportunity to test a few European cars, their reactions fit a...
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Happy Holidays From TTAC
From our family to yours, TTAC wishes all its readers the best of holiday wishes. We’ll be enjoying the company of our loved ones for the next few chilly winter nights, but we’ll return to regular...
View ArticleTiny (12cc) Hand-Machined V12 Is A Holiday Miracle
Need an engineering project? Got 1,200 hours to kill with nothing to do? Take a tip from this heroically patient Spaniard, and hand-machine your own tiny (12 cc displacement) V12. This would be...
View ArticleAnother Plugin Problem: A123 Warns Of “Potential Safety Issue” With Fisker...
In the ramp-up to the launch of the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf, a great debate seized the engineering community: was Nissan opening itself to problems by not including a active thermal management...
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Lotus Investors: Sell! Sell! Sell!
Lotus is one of those brands that every auto enthusiast loved to lionize, despite (or possibly because of) the fact that it hasn’t made a profit for its owner, Proton, in 15 years. But now things are...
View ArticleDodge Brand Phase-Out Watch: There Will Be No Dodge Viper
Once upon a time, the Dodge brand was brimming with pride. In the mid-to-late 1990s, Dodge had it all: affordable compacts, big front-drive cruisers, the hottest trucks on the market, and of course,...
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NAIAS Preview: Ford Serves Up Some Global Fusion
Ever since the ill-fated Contour experiment, Ford has maintained a strict separation in its global midsized offerings: Fusion for the Americas and Mondeo for Europe (let’s ignore, for the moment,...
View ArticleWeekend Weird Crush: “The Small God For The Big Future”
Maruti Suzuki’s big news at the Delhi Auto Show was the debut of its production compact MPV, the Ertiga. But it wasn’t all staid family-carriers at the Suzuki stand, as the Japanese-Indian automaker...
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2011: The Year In Auto Sales
2011 was a fascinating year to follow auto sales. With the overall market up over 10%, and hot new products hitting showrooms, there was definitely room to grow… and yet everyone seems to have an...
View ArticleFeds Push NY Towards Full Ban On Electronic Devices In Cars
Citing New York’s leadership in banning hand-held cell phone use in cars, NTSB Vice Chairman Christopher Hart urged the Empire State to become the first to ban all use of personal electronic devices...
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Blind Spot: Electric Cars And “The Freedom Thing”
Editor’s note: While our erstwhile Editor-in-Chief, Edward Niedermeyer, is on sabbatical, he will continue to weigh in on automotive issues in a (hopefully) weekly column entitled Blind Spot. This is...
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Blind Spot: The Twilight Of The Volt
”Do you want to accompany? or go on ahead? or go off alone? … One must know what one wants and that one wants” Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight Of The Idols This week’s news that GM would stop...
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Blind Spot: Obama No Longer Dreams Of Electric Cars
“The electric things have their life too. Paltry as those lives are.” Phillip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? At the High School I attended, progress reports were never a good thing....
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Blind Spot: Catching Up With Chrysler
With the government still waiting to see how much it will get out of its equity in General Motors, The General seems to be attracting more of the media commentary than Chrysler these days. And not...
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Italy Seizes Gaddafi’s Stake In Fiat
A year ago nearly to the day, I was investigating the connection between Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and Fiat. With an American-led intervention in Libya underway, Reuters had reported that a...
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Blind Spot: It Ain’t Easy Being Green
When government, media and industry agree that a trend exists, it’s generally taken as fait accompli. After all, these three institutions wield immense cultural power, and together they are more than...
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Blind Spot: Digging Deeper Into GM’s Fuel Economy Record
Old habits die hard. Whether it’s GM’s desire to slice-and-dice its fuel economy achievements to make them look better than they are, or our instinct to correct the record, it’s all just a little bit...
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Coda Teams Up With Great Wall To Build “Affordable” EVs
Coda Automotive, a Southern California start-up that assembles EVs with Chinese components, announced at today’s Beijing Auto Show that it would partner with the Chinese OEM Great Wall to develop a...
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GM Reports $1b Q1 Profit, Still Seeking “Competitive Levels Of Profitability”
Once upon a time, GM’s North American operations spewed red ink across the firm’s balance sheet, with the whole mess kept afloat by relatively strong overseas operations. Now GM makes most of its...
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Blind Spot: America’s New Motor City
Throughout the history of the automobile in America, one city has been synonymous with the industry and culture of cars. Booming with America’s great period of industrialization, Detroit became the...
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Industry: Optimism Is Back, But Only A Little At A Time
Optimism sure ain’t what it used to be. Introducing its latest survey of auto industry executives [PDF], Booz & Co. proclaims that “optimism is skyrocketing,” and that “a new wave of optimism is...
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What’s Wrong With This Picture: Where’s The Tailpipe? Edition
I should go on vacation more often. No, really. Last time I took some time off, I accidentally caught a parade of BMW prototypes descending the Sellajoch in Italy’s Dolomite Alps. Then, just weeks ago...
View ArticleHousekeeping: Niedermeyer Parts Ways With TTAC
“And all the troubled world around us Seems an eternity away And all the debt collectors Rent collectors All will be behind us But they’ll never find us ‘Cos we’ll be dri-i-i-i-ivin’” -The Kinks...
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