General Motors initially wanted to buy one-third of Isuzu Motors Ltd, which would give it the right to veto board decisions, but has scaled back how much of the Japanese company it might try to buy, according to a new .
At current stock prices, GM would have paid more than $3 billion for a controlling share of the truckmaker, which specializes in small trucks and diesel powertrains. GM is now considering buying a 10 percent share, anonymous sources tell Reuters, which would make it the largest single owner of stock in the company. and both have smaller shares of Isuzu.
GM once owned nearly half of Isuzu but its last 7.9 percent of the company in 2006.
The GM/Isuzu partnership helped bring vehicles to the U.S. like the , , and . But there’s to expect a new small pickup for America this time around.
The , which sources tell Reuters is “very much preliminary”, could open up the Southeast Asia market, where GM is currently a bit player. Additionally, GM could help Isuzu develop a hybrid or other environmentally friendly vehicles. It’s almost enough to make us wonder why they ever sold it in the first place.
We so wanted to lead this post with a Jim Belushi joke. Alas, the press release announcing the launch of its rear-drive flagship in Korea today specifically clarifies that the K9 will be renamed for other markets.
While Kia says the large sedan rides on “its own platform,” we know enough about the auto industry to posit that much of that platform is shared with the underpinnings of corporate cousin Hyundai’s and . Like the pair, Kia is clearly hoping the not-called-K9-here will help the brand move upmarket, positioning the car as a premium product designed, in the words of Kia’s head of design Peter Schreyer, “to compete head-to-head with the European luxury brands.”
The Kia sedan will split the difference between the Genesis and the Equus, matching the 120-inch wheelbase of the latter, but with an overall length of 200 inches that’s three inches shorter than Equus and almost four inches longer than the Genesis. The Kia sedan will have the same 0.27 coefficient of drag as both the Hyundai models.
Kia says its luxury sedan will be powered by two distinct versions of the corporate 3.8-liter , one making 286 horsepower and the direct-injection version rated at 329. The more powerful engine is said to be “joining the global engine line-up next year,” which we’d expect would coincide with the flagship sedan’s U.S. launch. Both engines will be mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission. Kia says the car will be available with a number of safety features including a lane-departure warning system and blind sport detection. A reclining rear seat with leg rest will also be available, just like in the Equus.
Today’s announcement raises an interesting possibility. While we wouldn’t expect Kia to send its flagship stateside with the less-powerful V6 – indeed, a V8 engine option is surely bound to accompany an official statement of the car’s U.S. sales plan – doing so would certainly allow Kia to bring the car to market at a more attractive entry-level price. Kia has a scant resume when it comes launching anything other than budget models here in the U.S., and the brand certainly has considerable work to do if it aims to catch up to Hyundai in pricier segments.
It will certainly be interesting to see where Kia tries to position its unnamed sedan – and whether its (*ahem*) dogged pursuit of the luxury dollar will succeed. Scroll down to read the full press release and check out our .
sales are up 10 percent already this year, after ending 2011 on a 20-percent uptick. With its Alabama assembly plant , something had to change. In response, the Korean automaker will be adding 877 jobs at its Montgomery assembly plant to begin a third shift, starting in September 2012.
Hyundai said the plant is now responsible for creating over 3,000 total jobs, with the latest expansion adding some 20,000 units of annual capacity. Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama builds both the and sedans.
While this move will work as a short-term solution to Hyundai’s capacity restraints, if the company continues to grow sales as it has in the past few years, it will soon be faced with the necessity of building another new production facility, for months.
Not long ago, embarked on an epic trans-continental road trip that sought to retrace the route taken by a similar expedition in 1956 and raise £1m for the Red Cross. And after 8,000 miles traveled through thirteen countries – starting in Birmigham, England and ending in Beijing, China – they finally made it.
The was celebrated with the production of the millionth , the arrival timed to coincide with the . Along the way the rugged motorcade swung through Switzerland for the , hit some of Europe’s oldest cities, traversed a wide variety of terrains and climates, rolled through Chernobyl as the first private vehicles to tour the disaster site since the nuclear meltdown there 25 years ago, visited an array of museums and toured a former Soviet submarine base.
But before it could complete the final 72-hour leg into China, the crew had to detonate a controlled avalanche to clear an alpine pass. In other words, it was not your average road trip. Read more about it in the press release and scope out the high-resolution images in the gallery for a closer look at what the convoy encountered along the way.
Inc. wants self driving cars on the road sooner rather than later.
It knows its autonomous vehicles work – engineers have already put its fleet of self-driving vehicles through 250,000 miles of testing. And they’re planning to put another 750,000 testing miles on their .
Now, executives are approaching car makers about building the self-driving vehicles, according to The Detroit News.
“From giving the technology away to licensing it to working with Tier 1s, Tier 2s, working with the OEMs, building a car with them, everything is open and we’re trying to figure out which paths make the most sense,” said Google project manager Anthony Levandowski last week at the . “We’re talking to basically every car company to see what their level of excitement is and how do we work with them.”
A Google spokesperson later added, “We’re talking with lots of auto companies about a variety of topics, but we haven’t decided how we may make our technology available to consumers. As Anthony said at the SAE conference in Detroit, ‘all options are open.’”
Levandowski says Google is racing forward to get self-driving vehicles on the road as soon as possible. It has begun talking to insurance companies to figure out how much it might cost to insure a self-driving car, according to . One of the sticky issues: If a self-driving vehicle causes an accident, is the driver responsible or the company that made the vehicle?
Google officials say they expect to mathematically prove that computer-driven vehicles are safer than those operated by humans, thus insurance prices should be lower. No word yet if that logic will fly, but insurance companies do love math, algorithms and actuary tables…
If you’ve gotten used to being centered around two model lines – and – based on the same platform, get ready to broaden your horizons as the Modenese automaker does the same. Maserati has a vast array of new products in the pipeline, including a pair of new sedans and a new SUV set to be built in Detroit, plus production of the 4C sportscar for sister-company Alfa Romeo. And now reports are emerging that its long-rumored plans to take on the with a new sportscar are coming to fruition.
According to the reports from Italy fueled by comments attributed to Maserati CEO Harald J. Wester, the model could revive the GranSport – a name last used on the ultimate iteration of the 4200 GT coupe that preceded the current GranTurismo. Only this time, it would be a mid-engined V8 supercar similar in approach to the .
If that sounds suspiciously close to the , the rumors suggest that it would undercut its big brother’s price at under $200k. After all, the sister brands didn’t seem to have any trouble bringing the Maserati GranCabrio and into the same arena, or to turning the Enzo into the MC12 – pictured above – the last mid-engined supercar the Trident marque produced. Which gives us hope that this particular product of the rumormill could amount to something. And when we’re talking about mid-engined supercars from Italy, that could be a very good thing indeed.
There are plenty of reasons to steer clear of a cruise. We typically shy away from the idea of cramming ourselves onto a vessel filled to capacity with overweight American tourists, all waiting to descend on some unsuspecting port of call like a scourge of consumerist locusts. Now, we have another reason to pass on the big boats.
WFTV discovered a parking lot owner in Cocoa, Florida was taking customer vehicles out for little joy rides. The news crew promptly set up a little sting by renting a red ChevroletCorvette Convertible and installing a GPS tracker. The car wasn’t on the lot for six hours before Jay Nieves, the owner of Premier Parking Spot hopped in.
The news crew filmed Nieves thrashing the car on a dirt road, parking it at his home overnight, doing sizeable burnouts on the street, transporting lumber and leaving the car with the top down and driver’s door wide open for extended periods of time. All told, Nieves clocked 60 miles on what he thought was a customer’s car before the news crew confronted him about the situation. Nieves promptly denied everything. for the full newscast.
General Motors has confirmed it will cut 100 research and development positions at its and will close another R&D lab in Bangalore, India.
The cuts are about a 25-percent reduction in the Warren facility and are part of a “global restructuring.”
“These moves will enable the organization to better focus on commercializing customer-focused innovation in a more efficient and cost effective manner,” GM spokesman Dan Flores tells The Detroit News.
If they aren’t offered new positions, affected workers will have 30 days to apply for other posts within GM before the layoffs commence in early June.
The sales figures you see below aren’t quite what they seem. If you look at just the left column where the battle between green and red cells is almost at a draw, you might think that April 2012 was a step backwards in terms of sales momentum for the auto industry. That column, however, is practically irrelevant this month.
Shift your head a little to the right and read the DSR (Daily Sales Rate) column. That’s the important column this month. People usually ignore this column because they don’t understand its purpose or because its data looks so similar to the left column, but this month it means everything.
Why? Because there were 24 selling days for the auto industry last month, versus 27 selling days in April 2011. Usually there’s only a single-day variance between months or no variance at all, but three selling days is a chasm to overcome and means that if you’re only comparing raw numbers like the left column does, the entire industry was at a three-day disadvantage last month compared to the same month one year ago.
The DSR column, on the other hand, shows the change in average number of vehicles sold per day during April of this year and last. This is the more accurate representation of how each automaker performed in April, and as you can see, nearly all continued their momentum of increased sales with the usual suspects occupying those bottom red cells.
Check out how the entire auto industry did in the monthly sales chart below, and visit our By the Numbers section to see all past months.
*Brands and companies are displayed in descending order according to their percentage change in volume sales. There were 24 selling days in April 2012 versus 27 selling days in April 2011, so there will be a difference between monthly sales volume and the average daily sales rate (DSR) for each brand/company. Also, brands are combined and reported as companies only if their sales figures are released jointly.
sales are up 37 percent through April, and has already sold nearly 50,000 units in 2012, placing the flagship model ahead of all other Pentastar vehicles, save for the .
That demand will be keeping the Jefferson North assembly plant in Detroit open through the July 4 holiday period, according to The Detroit News. Big Three plants have traditionally shut down for two weeks in July to facilitate model-year changeover, though that process will be accomplished with the lines running this year, according to the report.
Jefferson North is already running overtime including some Saturdays to keep up with demand for both the Grand Cherokee and the . Sales of the model are up seven percent this year.
Few automakers do camper vans quite so well as . From factory additions to aftermarket conversions, models like the Transporter seem perfect for on-the-go living. Now a company in the UK has taken the camper conversion one step further with the Doubleback. In addition to a large pop-up roof tent, the creation boasts an expandable aft section than can increase the vehicle’s length by an additional 6.5 feet. The conversion is said to add just 286 pounds to the Transporter, and the mechanism expands in under 45 seconds to nearly double living space. Unfortunately, you’ll be splitting all that extra room between you and only one other friend. The swap nixes all but the front two seats.
If this all sounds familiar, it certainly should. We of the Doubleback a month ago, but the company has released a few videos showing exactly how the conversion works here in the real world. With a load rating of 1,323 pounds with the legs extended, the structure is engineered to sleep even the biggest boned campers out there. Unfortunately, snagging one will cost you. Look to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $87,975 for the Doubleback if you like what you see. to check out the videos for yourself.
General Motors CEO Dan Akerson has been quoted as saying Mary Barra is on the list of his potential successors. Akerson has been adamant about the fact that the next head honcho for General Motors should come from . Reuters reports the executive believes it is crucial for GM to increase the number of female top executives in the company, and he believes that women handle change better than men.
Barra, 50, currently serves as GM’s global product development chief, commanding a $15 billion operation. She first joined GM in 1980 and has served in a variety of capacities since then, including vice president in charge of global human resources. Even with his comments on Barra, Akerson stressed that at the end of the day, it’s the GM board’s job to pick his successor.
And what of the U.S. Treasury? Technically, the government owns a little more than a quarter of GM stock, but Akerson said the decision remains entirely in the hands of the company’s decision makers. Other candidates for the position are said to include Mark Reuss, GM’s North American operations boss and Steve Girsky, vice chairman.
Newsflash: Americans are fat. And no, we’re not just big boned. Obesity has reached epidemic proportions over the past couple decades, and as a result diabetes, heart disease and just about every other health issue are on the rise.
The Atlantic reports that the amount of fuel we’re using is on the rise as well, as heavy occupants need more fuel to get from Point A to *insert drive-thru joke here*. A 2006 study shows that Americans weigh so much more than they did in 1960 that we’re using up an additional billion gallons of petrol every year.
That’s about $4 billion a year at today’s gas prices, and nearly one percent of overall fuel usage. And that was back in 2006 – as we continue to plump up, the dollars continue to pile up. Inside Line reports that each pound we gain as a population adds up to another $39 million. It’s too bad we can’t get stop/start tech for our appetites.
As of this month, South Koreans will be able to get themselves into a bought at their local dealer. wants to get more people in more lands behind the wheel of its icon to offset declining sales numbers here at home, and South Korea is an easier target for the moment because of the free trade agreement recently ratified between that country and the U.S.
The 430-horsepower Coupe model goes on sale May 4 for 86.4 million South Korean won ($76,528 U.S.). Obviously, the anti-tarriff provisions of the free-trade agreement haven’t come into force yet. The Corvette will join eight otherChevy models on sale on the Asian peninsula.
These days it seems like the dream of a new Esprit is getting nothing but further away, while the troubled company responsible for it applies the classic black and gold livery to everything it produces – and many things produced by others. But there was a time when the original Esprit was a mechanical wonder to behold, and the JPS livery was championed by arguably the greatest driver who ever lived.
That driver, of course, was Ayrton Senna. And to mark the 18th anniversary of his death at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, a German outfit called has created this special edition in his honor. Instead of starting with the original four-cylinder Esprit, though, Cam Shaft went with the later turbo V8 and laid over its black paint a series of gold decals evocative of the iconic livery which Senna sported on his 1985 Lotus 97T, including a reproduction of his signature on the panel in front of the door.
The German firm didn’t stop there, however. They gave the Esprit new turbos, an intercooler and cats to drive output up from 354 horsepower (stock) to 492 hp, drop the 4.9-second 0-62 time down to 4.3 seconds and increase the top speed from 282 km/h to 305. They also fitted it with a new six-speed gearbox to replace the old five-gear unit, upgraded the brakes with AP Racing four-pot calipers on 330mm cross-drilled discs and fitted it with a chassis control switch similar to a manettino.
A fitting tribute to the legendary pilot? We’d say so, and you can see for yourself in the high-res image gallery above and the press release .
Sponsoring most events is pretty straightforward for any company: fork over the right sum of cash and you’re the new official automaker/timekeeper/jelly donut of whatever the event is. But for , its status as Official Automotive Partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is a bit more complicated.
Even to fork over a massive fleet with 4,000 vehicles to the organizing committee wasn’t enough for the German automaker to secure its status. BMW also had to meet the committee’s stringent emissions requirements: while the average emissions of vehicles in the UK comes in at 138 grams of CO2 per kilometer, the automaker supplying these Olympic games had to come in below 120 g/km – which BMW did at 116 g/km.
To get there, a portion of the cars BMW is supplying are electric vehicles: 160 units of the and 40 of the Mini E, with another 40 of the . The rest of the fleet is comprised of the (1,550 vehicles), (700), (17), (10) and (200 vehicles), plus another 25 R1200 RT motorcycles and 400 BMW Streetcruiser bicycles.
Wondering what they’ll be doing with all those cars? They’ll be used for everything from shuttling around the athletes, officials, medics and journalists to hauling boats out of the water. for the full details.
With the longest coastline in the world, Canada is bound to get all sorts of weird things washing up on its shores from every which direction. But a Harley-Davidsonmotorcycle? That’s what one Peter Mark found while riding his ATV on a secluded island off the Pacific coast of British Columbia. It’s origin? Japan.
The bike – enclosed along with other random items in what appears to be the compartment off a moving truck – appears to have traveled some 3,000 miles across the North Pacific from Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture to the Canadian province of British Columbia. That’s where Mark found it, rusted but recognizable inside the white cube that was apparently washed out to sea by the tsunami that struck the island nation one year ago.
The finder of the piece of iron driftwood left it where he found it and contacted the Japanese consulate in Vancouver which is trying to track down the original owner whose fate remains unknown. to watch the fascinating video report.
-Davidson lost in Japan’s tsunami washes up in Canada
is trying to make a name for itself on the safety and technology front, recently and outfitting new models with a suite of safety equipment that arguably puts it among the leaders in the industry. We got a chance to sample some of this last month, but we were also allowed to “drive” a semi-autonomous test mule equipped with what Cadillac is calling “Super Cruise.”
Nominally an improvement on adaptive cruise control, Super Cruise is actually a more sophisticated system that uses a camera communicating with the car’s GPS to “see” the road ahead. It goes one step further than currently available systems, however, automatically centering the vehicle in the lane using its electric power steering system. Unlike other active lane-departure systems that use a car’s brakes to help prevent it from veering off the road, the system General Motors is developing allows for precisely setting the vehicle’s position within the lane. The test mule we sampled had steering-wheel-mounted buttons that would allow you to “nudge” the car from side to side by a foot at a time without upsetting its course. Super Cruise also communicates with the vehicle’s other active safety systems to help prevent and mitigate crashes.
Super Cruise is designed only for use on the highway, to “ease the driver’s workload.”
Super Cruise is designed only for use on the highway, to “ease the driver’s workload,” with drivers still required to steer in city traffic and for more complicated maneuvers like passing. GM officials acknowledged the difficulty in deploying a system like this, a technology that if used improperly may encourage inattentive driving. Supposedly the system will only be functional under the specific circumstances for which it is designed, much like today’s in-car entertainment systems will not play video on the front screen unless a vehicle is in Park. Currently the system is somewhat limited by external factors, like weather and the need for distinct lane markings. If visibility is low or the road doesn’t have at least one clear lane demarcation, Super Cruise won’t function. However, GM says it will improve the vision abilities of the system as it readies the technology for the marketplace.
GM says that Super Cruise could be introduced into production vehicles in just a few years, “by mid-decade.” While on the one hand, its ability to help improve the safety of our roads is laudable, we can’t help but express our frustration at the march of technology headed inevitably towards removing the physical act of driving from the motoring equation.
to watch some video of us aboard the Super Cruise-equipped test mule and read the full press release.
Edmunds has taken the time to sort through the March 2012 sales data to find which were the quickest selling models of the month. According to the site’s research, the took the top nod by sitting on dealer lots just eight days before whirring off to a new home. Manufacturers routinely use “days to turn” to evaluate consumer demand, though pesky variables like production capacity can easily tweak the number north or south. That’s likely why the took just 11 days to turn and its smaller sibling, the , took just 13. is having a hard time keeping production in pace with consumer demand.
Other stars of last month’s show include the . With an average of 14 days on dealer lots, the model finds itself tied with hardware like the and for being quick to turn. You can check out the full list of quickest-sellers by heading over to .
The Environmental Protection Agency hasn’t released its evaluation data for the just yet, but says the compact should be capable of returning some impressive fuel economy figures, particularly with an available Aero package. When equipped with the turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine and a manual transmission, the standard Dart is good for an estimated 27 mpg city and 39 mpg highway, thanks in part to active aero shutters nestled in the grille of every model. Should buyers require a few extra miles per gallon, an optional Aero package will see the highway figure jump to 41 mpg. So far, there’s no word on city or combined fuel economy for the package, but there’s time before the trim becomes available, as it won’t be in dealerships until the third quarter of this year.
Chrysler isn’t mentioning how much the Aero package will add to the bottom line or what other tweaks consumers will get for their coin. We do know that with 160 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque, the Dart Aero should be considerably more engaging to drive than the . While that model is good for 42 mpg highway when equipped with a six-speed manual, it does the deed with 22 fewer horsepower and 36 fewer pound-feet of torque. for the complete Dart press release.
The sales figures you see below aren’t quite what they seem. If you look at just the left column where the battle between 
