Renault has a wide array of products in its portfolio. In its home market it offers a baker’s dozen model lines, and when you get down to bodystyles the range ratchets up past 20.
While we don’t get any of them in North America, the United Kingdom remains a vital market for the French automaker. But British buyers haven’t been buying Renaults as much as they used to, prompting a drastic shift in strategy. As a result, Renault is cutting the Modus, Kangoo, Wind, Laguna, Espace and the entire Gordini line from its UK lineup, .
So what does that leave for UK shoppers? The Twingo, Clio, Megane, Grand Scenic and Traffic. Renaultsport models remain on offer, through the Twingo RS is now available in only one version. Those will soon be joined by the and Twizy, as well as the Dacia range. Regardless, this represents a drastic cut in a vital market for one of Europe’s largest automakers. Details in the press release after the jump.
is looking to meld the smartphones with the television in a new ad campaign. The automaker is giving fans a chance to win two in new promotion that uses the Shazam mobile app in conjunction with a TV spot. When the commercial airs, viewers simply fire up Shazam and enter the giveaway. (They can also enter the sweepstakes online.) Toyota says the program is the first and largest of its kind to use Shazam.
The “Connections” TV spot is designed to encourage further exploration of the so-called “Camry Effect,” a social media campaign focused on how the Camry impacts people’s lives for the better. Fans can enter the sweepstakes once daily for a chance to take home a Camry for themselves and one for a friend. for the full press release.
There are very few things that get the unanimous approval of everyone here at Autoblog. One of them is Icon 4×4, which makes impossibly expensive yet worth-every-penny reimaginings of history’s best off-roaders. For this year’s , Icon debuted something new that had nothing to do with off-roading, yet still had our whole team salivating.
Christened a “Derelict” by Icon founder and designer Jonathon Ward, this looks like an abused artifact from a time not worth remembering. Knowing Icon like we do, however, it’s anything but. The Derelict is fitted with a 6.2-liter V8 from producing 430 horsepower and an interior upholstered in gorgeous vintage briefcase leather, but the exterior is as original and rusty as it was when Icon found it. What we didn’t know at SEMA is that the ‘52 Chevy isn’t the first Derelict that Icon produced.
Our friends at have produced an excellent video about how the two Derelicts came to be, including how Jonathon Ward and his company made them. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t as easy as dropping a new engine into an old car and redoing the leather. The Derelicts were meant to be high-performance yet reliable daily drivers, which requires more thought and engineering than we ever imagined.
to be one of the first to watch this latest video from eGarage.
There’s something inexplicably mesmerizing about watching a factory in action. Seeing the innumerable complex mechanisms mesh in perfect harmony to create the products we know and love is part of what makes shows like National Geographic’s Ultimate Factories so interesting. Now the program is headed to Dearborn for a look at how the and come together on the line in crystal-clear HD video. The show will also spend time with both trucks out on the company’s proving grounds, which means there’s a good chance we’ll see the Raptor bashing over various obstacles.
Consider us excited. Last year, the Ford plant in Dearborn produced 344,446 vehicles, making it the third most productive plant in North America behind the facility in Aguascalientes, Mexico and the plant in Puebla, Mexico.
The show will air on Saturday, February 4 at 8 p.m. Eastern on the National Geographic Channel, but you can get a glimpse of what to expect in the video .
be built on Ultimate Factories this weekend [w/video]
Most days, California must seem like Kazakhstan for the Big Three. Domestic products aren’t so popular out West, where and have long stood atop the sales charts. But not in 2011.
According to a report in Automotive News, both General Motors and managed to bump Honda from its silver medal position in 2011, though Toyota still holds a commanding market share lead. In a storyline we’ve heard before, the twin natural disasters in Asia curbed Japanese production, causing a 4.5 point loss of market share. Toyota’s market share dropped from 22.8 to 19.2 percent, while GM and Ford tied at 12.6 percent – ahead of Honda at 12.1.
Booming sales in the Golden State helped the domestics to their 1.8 point gain. New vehicle registrations in California were up 9.9 percent, according to the report. The biggest sales gains last year were made by and , which were up 53 and 49 percent, respectively.
Forget about all the talk, about the contracts and the lawsuits. The real sign of the Formula One season gearing up to start is when each team unveils its new car. As you may already know, unlike most other series, each team in F1 is not really considered a team. They’re called “constructors”. Each is responsible for designing and crafting the cars they’ll be fielding in the championship.
That process got under way last week when Caterham beat all the others to the punch by unveiling its new Renault-powered . And that’s all well and fine, but we all know that the Caterham is far more likely to finish last than finish first. What you’re bound to see taking checkered flags is the car you see here: the new McLaren MP4-27.
McLaren, you see, is the winningest team on the grid this side of . And with Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton – both world champions – performing the driving duties, the British squad is hard at work on closing that gap. The more immediate challenge, however, is overcoming Red Bull, which returns as reigning champion once again and to which McLaren finished second last season.
The MP4-27 you see here is the car with which McLaren hopes to seize the lead. Although the design looks rather similar to the 2011-spec it replaces, McLaren insists it represents a comprehensive redesign. Fortunately that does not include the stepped platypus nose already shown on the Caterham and which is expected to proliferate across a good part of the grid. Power once again comes from , a relationship that McLaren it is not about to terminate in favor of another supplier or building its own engines in-house.
We’ll have to wait and see as the season gets underway to see if the MP4-27 will be a winner for McLaren, but for now you can check out the high-resolution images from the launch in the gallery above, and for the full press release and the sound file of the Mercedes-Benz V8 cranking over.
has released details on the upcoming before the vehicle gets an official unveil at the 2012 Chicago Auto Show. The vehicle will bow with the same turbocharged 2.0-liter diesel engine found in the and , and Volkswagen projects the engine should help the oil-burning 2013 Beetle net 39 miles per gallon highway and 29 mpg city.
Those numbers aren’t quite as lofty as we’d expect, especially given how well our has performed with the same engine under the hood. While we’re still waiting on Environmental Protection Agency numbers, our guess is real-world drivers will see significantly better out of the latest diesel Bug, which, for what it’s worth, is the first oil-burning Beetle since 2006.
With 140 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque, the vehicle shouldn’t be a slouch to drive, either. Buyers may choose either a six-speed manual or dual-clutch gearbox. Otherwise, the Beetle TDI remains aesthetically similar to its gasoline counterparts. Expect to see the vehicle hit the market in mid-2012 as a 2013 model. In the meantime, stay tuned for our Chicago Auto Show coverage and for the full press release.
The next will be chock-full of standard and optional technology features, but its all-new Modular Infotainment System has the potential to set a new benchmark for both high-end and entry-level navigation, entertainment and connectivity.
Three new systems will be available when the 2013 Golf goes on sale in Europe towards the end of this year, starting with a five-inch touchscreen and moving up to a 5.8-inch unit and finally a range-topping eight-inch system. Each unit will be equipped with a capacitive touchscreen, with the eight-inch version packing an 800×450 resolution screen, multitouch functionality and set to debut in future models, including the next . Making use of that high-powered chipset will be revamped 3D graphics for menus and mapping, with free nav updates available for three years and the ability to activate additional features after the initial vehicle purchase.
Handwriting recognition will also be included in the system, much like the system , which will allow users to skip the soft keyboard and write out destinations and point-of-interest searches. Additionally, VW is looking to include MirrorLink functionality (which essentially mirrors your phone’s screen on the navigation display), as expected, Internet-connectivity through smartphone tethering will be an option, along with the ability to create a WLAN hotspot.
Finally, tells Autoblog it plans to integrate proximity sensors into the head unit – similar to system – switching over from “display mode” to “operating mode” when it detects the driver or passenger’s hand moving towards the screen. The proximity sensors could also detect which side of the screen your hand is placed and then highlight specific features for easier selection.
Naturally, pricing for each system won’t be released until the Golf goes on sale in Europe this fall and hits the U.S. sometime in 2013, but VW representatives made it clear that these systems will be priced aggressively in order to compete with other feature-rich competitors.
So by “anywhere,” Cherry means to say “anywhere in San Francisco,” but beyond that little geographic limitation, this new service seems like a hassle-free way to get your car washed.
You sign up through the Cherry website, then schedule and geo-locate your car, either or through . Within about 15-20 minutes, someone shows up at your car, wherever it happens to be parked. They wash it and leave. Your payment is processed through the app, so you need not be present, or even meet the person cleaning your car.
Cherry says it vets its car washers and trains them to use its environmentally friendly cleaning products, which allow for washing as many as six cars with just three gallons of water. We haven’t seen the process ourselves, and frankly, it sounds too amazing to be true. But Cherry told us that it wouldn’t be a viable business were it not for the reduced-water cleaning method, which is apparently popular on the West Coast, where are becoming more common.
The other key to Cherry’s business model is that California’s terrible job market has created an eager pool of applicants looking to score a car washing gig. With unemployment rates topping nine percent in 13 states, Cherry’s plans to expand outside of the Bay Area may just succeed.
BMW M goes Diesel, Ford Focus fleet sales numbers, California 2025 green car mandate
Episode #267 of the is here with Chris, Dan, Zach and Chris Paukert this week. Topics include the addition of diesel-powered BMW M models overseas, the surprisingly high fleet sales figure for the FordFocus, and a new green car mandate coming out of California. Your questions and comments power the end of the ‘cast, and for those of you who hung with us live on our , thanks for taking the time. We’ve embedded our Q&A module for you to scroll through and follow along, too. Thanks for listening!
Autoblog Podcast #267:
In the Autoblog Garage
Hosts: , , ,
Runtime: 01:15:33
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In the wake of last week’s about the safety of the (which itself followed an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that concluded plug-in vehicles “) former General Motors Vice Chairman has written a column for Forbes that strikes back against the media (especially conservatives) who are attacking the car he thought would be one of his most important legacies.
Politicians and members of the media on the right, from to , have talked smack about the Volt, and Lutz says this “has attracted my attention and ire.” , he doesn’t mince words, writing:
The Oscar for totally irresponsible journalism has to go to The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, with, as its key guest, Lou Dobbs. Amid much jocular yukking, the Volt was depicted as a typical federal failure. … Boiled down to the subtext, Dobbs’ message was this: “All Volts catch fire, and therefore all Volts have been recalled.” That simply isn’t the case. …
To top it off, these two media pros lamented the fact that the same government that had forced GM to produce the Volt was now extending $7,500 tax credits towards its purchase, thus squandering even more of “our taxpayer” dollars on this failed Socialist-collectivist flop. Truth? The $7,500 tax credit was enacted under the Bush administration!
Don’t let Lutz’s words make you think he’s taking a left/liberal stance. He’s still a self-declared “conservative Republican” who hates that right-wing talking heads are spiraling downward into this sort of “deliberate misstatement of facts.” They “have managed to make me embarrassed to describe myself as a conservative,” he writes, adding, “Let’s leave the ‘invention of facts’ to the left-wing climate-change alarmists.” There – that should offend pretty much everyone who’s not in the dead political center.
This year’s selection for North American Truck of the Year was something of a sign of the times as the pool of nominees didn’t really fit the traditional definition of “truck” – beasts of burden with features like a low range, open bed and/or body-on-frame construction. Not only were all three finalists crossovers (including the winning ), but so were the other four on the short list of nominees.
The jury has been monitoring the market’s shift from body-on-frame SUVs to unibody-based crossovers for years now, and detailed discussions about whether to alter the name of its Truck of The Year award have been a staple conversation among members of the voting pool for perhaps half a decade. Those debates have finally bore fruit. Beginning with next year’s award, instead of North American Truck of the Year, the hardware will be awarded as the North American Truck/Utility of the Year.
The name change should not only be a bit cleaner when it comes to including the market’s ever-diversifying pool of crossovers, it will also afford room on the other end of the spectrum for the inclusion of heavy-duty full-size trucks, a segment of vehicles that previously weren’t eligible. The change reflects another shift in the market, where vehicles like the and are no longer being considered solely for purchase as work trucks – more and more everyday consumers are looking to them as capable daily drivers. The jury had previously considered only light-duty trucks like the and for the award.
With the crossover segment mushrooming in popularity and diversifying rapidly, it’s become difficult to readily classify what constitutes a crossover vehicle as opposed to a car. Branches of the U.S. government classify the exact same vehicle as a car and a truck, automakers invent new terminology to trumpet, journalists call them one thing and consumers end up labeling them another. The NACTOY jury will thus look to indicators like overall height and capability to help funnel eligible vehicles into the Car of the Year or Truck/Utility of the Year category.
The world would be considerably less entertaining if we could all predict the future. Even so, the classic car gurus at Hagerty Insurance have cast a few chicken bones in an attempt to figure out which vehicles produced today might eventually turn collectible.
The company restricted entrants to hardware with a price tag of less than $100,000, so the list isn’t populated with too many wild exotics. While vehicles like the , , and are low-hanging fruit, the list also featured a few surprises.
For starters, it begins with none other than the mighty . Hagerty says the vehicle is a win because it’s the first Buick with a manual transmission since the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. The also makes an appearance alongside an even hotter hatch, the . Of course, we’re simply thrilled to see the sinister make a showing. for the full list or view each vehicle in our gallery above.
How good will the upcoming return of the Acura NSX be? So good, apparently, that despite still being three years out, the supercar has converted well-known fan Jerry Seinfeld to worship at the altar of the NSX Concept.
Though we wouldn’t think the creator and namesake of the hit TV show Seinfeld would need any more money (syndication ftw!), here he is shilling for , obsessed with being first in line for a product that the Japanese automaker isn’t expected to begin selling until 2015. Turns out, however, he’s not the only comedian with more money than sense who wants an NSX.
, and help us posit why Acura would spend millions of dollars producing a Super Bowl commercial that doesn’t promote any of its currently available products. Couple this commercial with parent company , and we think Honda and company have earned this year’s award for spending the most on celebrity talent.
Today’s vehicles are more powerful, more efficient and safer than ever before. In fact, today’s car buyer would be hard pressed to spend his or her money on a genuinely bad vehicle. But those overall improvements may have also led consumers to believe there are no real differences between the various products offered by the world’s major automakers. According to the Consumer Reports 2012 Car-Brand Perception Survey, , , and have all seen their scores drop by double digits compared to last year.
The survey asks consumers to rate brands across seven categories. Consumer Reports says that by combining those categories, the organization can get a handle on how each brand is perceived in the marketplace.
This year, Toyota continued to lead in the survey, though its persistent recalls saw the brand’s perception fall by 17 points this year. Ford, Honda and all saw their perception scores plummet more than 20 points. The results may indicate consumers are seeing fewer differences between automakers as products continue to improve. While that’s good news for smaller automakers like , and , larger names in the industry should be worried. Head over to for the full report.
Car dealers have a strange and oftentimes contentious relationship with the carmakers. Stories of automakers shoveling unsaleable models down the pipeline with unreasonable expectations are legion in the car sales world. With the number of family-owned, single-brand dealerships dwindling, dealers often field competing franchises. The concept of loyalty is as quaint as a . So it’s worth noting the automotive brands that are actually liked by the guys selling them.
The National Automobile Dealers Association conducts its Dealer Attitude Survey twice each year, and results from the summer survey are in. stayed on top for the third time in a row, followed by , , , and . The survey measures three factors: “franchise value, automaker policy decisions that affect the dealership and the automaker’s field staff who visit dealerships.”
Sixth place went to , while , , and followed. and tied for tenth. NADA received responses from over 14,700 dealerships, representing almost 54 percent of all dealers nationwide.
A design and engineering icon, the Toyota 2000GT is the forefather of all Japanese supercars, the ancestor to which the Acura NSX, and must pay homage. It’s rare enough to find a 2000GT for sale, but the example being offered by Maine Line Exotics is particularly special.
MF10-100001 is the first Toyota 2000GT produced, and one of the three that Toyota delivered to Shelby American Racing in 1967 to be prepped for the 1968 SCCA season. Two of those cars raced under the Shelby-Toyota banner in 1968. MF10-100001 wore the #23 and was driven by Davey Jordan.
How much does Maine Line Exotics want for this important piece of automotive history? How does $1.7 million grab you? Head over to for more information.
Hyundai’s has been on fire, with sales up 41 percent last year. The compact sedan won in January, and the icing on the cake will be a that will soon be landing at dealers. But all is not completely well, according to a report from Bloomberg.
expects Elantra sales to run into a brick wall of limited production capacity, as the company’s Montgomery, Alabama plant is already operating at 110 percent. The plant, which builds the Elantra and its big brother, the midsize , churned out 338,000 units in 2011. Hyundai sold over 186,000 Elantra models in the U.S. last year.
With Hyundai posting 20 percent overall sales growth in the U.S. in 2011, it clearly needs to address its capacity bottleneck. Speculation is building that the company another North American assembly plant.
has announced the company’s single largest profit since 1998, thanks in part to a one-time tax gain. The company drew in a net income of $13.6 billion last quarter and the news marked the automaker’s 11th consecutive profitable quarter. For perspective, Ford made $190 million in 2010. The company’s net income was bolstered by the fact that Ford eliminated a valuation allowance against deferred tax benefits. The company created the valuation allowance in 2006 when it began reporting operating losses. Analysts reportedly see the elimination as a sign that the manufacturer expects to be profitable in coming years.
The company made $8.8 billion in profit in 2011, or $1.51 a share. That’s an increase of $463 million over 2010. Even so, the company’s net income missed analysts’ estimates thanks in part to higher commodity costs, currency fluctuations and flooding in Thailand. The automaker spent $100 million more in commodities like steel than it projected. Those facts, combined with a deteriorating European market, helped Ford miss analyst estimates by 5 cents per share.
There once was a time when Indy was considered not just a stepping stone to F1, but a viable alternative. Those were the days when proven grand prix drivers looking for a new challenge – drivers like like Nigel Mansell, Emerson Fittipaldi, Graham Hill and Mario Andretti – could take to America’s fastest ovals and obtain glory on par with Europe’s finest circuits. Those days may seem long behind us, but they could be coming back around.
The road to Indy’s revival as a premier racing series is being paved with a number of developments. The reunion of the IRL and ChampCar series was one major stepping stone. The arrival of multiple engine suppliers this year is another. But what Indy really needs is big name talents instead of losing its stars to NASCAR. And it just might be getting what it needs, thanks in no small part to .
After bringing former F1 driver Takuma Sato to Indy, Lotus announced it had signed notable former grand prix pilots and to IndyCar contracts as well. So who’s next? Rubens Barrichello.
The elder statesman of the F1 grid, Barrichello was left without a ride when Williams showed him the door in favor of fellow Brazilian Bruno Senna. Now reports indicate that he is gearing up for a test drive with KV Racing, the team with which Lotus returned to American open-wheels a couple of years ago.
While Rubens has no oval-track experience and reportedly promised his wife he wouldn’t try it, the 2012 schedule – having come a long way from the oval-dominated days of yore – includes only four speedways (those at Indianapolis, Texas, Iowa and Fontana, California), leaving Rubens with a real opportunity to contest the remaining dozen road courses and street circuits on the calendar.
Car dealers have a strange and oftentimes contentious relationship with the carmakers. Stories of automakers shoveling unsaleable models down the pipeline with unreasonable expectations are legion in the car sales world. With the number of family-owned, single-brand dealerships dwindling, dealers often field competing franchises. The 
