Car News Articles

Read more

TTAC is a content machine. Our [barely paid] team of writers is as prolific as it is talented. Our [unpaid] commentators are the autoblogosphere’s Best and Brightest, and they’re not shy about coming forward. And whatever you think about my literary skills, my OCD makes me one keyboard tapping fool. Of one thing I am especially proud: although TTAC was late to the blogging game and don’t have a tenth of the resources of the big sites, we kick ass. We blog the big ones, and blog them according to our branding remit. It occasionally annoys me that my competition doesn’t. Just the other day, Justin took a shot at Autoblog for being a “press release funnel.” I thought it was a bit OTT. And then I read AB’s blog about Subaru’s new ad campaign, which (not-so-coincidentally) we covered here. AB republished the entire Subaru press release. No biggie, I thought. Fills the space. And then I rethinked. Why would AB hand deliver its audience to Subaru like that, without any filtration? Its antithetical to my idea of what blogging is all about: added perspective. Exercising editorial judgment. Less poetically, or perhaps more, it’s about NOT kissing ass. I remain committed to this vision. So, how are we doing?

Read more

First, we’re talking Chrysler Financial Canada. Second, the story in The Windsor Star omits a crucial piece of data (ironically enough): how many Chrysler customers were affected by the missing tape containing customer names, addresses and social insurance numbers. We know there’s one, for sure, and he’s more than a bit miffed at the delay between the Chrysler’s data loss and the heads-up. “Chris Jovanovic, who leases a car from Chrysler, said the company was notified by United Parcel Service about the lost tape on Mar. 12 but a letter from Chrysler Financial dated Mar. 27 didn’t arrive in his mailbox until Monday.” Said letter assured Jovanovic “The data tape cannot be easily accessed and requires specialized software and equipment to read.” So that’s alright then. Not according to Jovanovich. “Someone who knows what they’re doing could probably access the information. Nothing’s that secure these days and it annoys me to think that if the tape never shows up, will we be looking over our shoulders for years waiting for the information to be used.” While Jovanovich is seeing red (and a lawyer), Chrysler’s no longer using brown. A spokeswoman said “after the tape went missing, internal processes were changed and the information is now sent by secure electronic transmissions. UPS is no longer used.” So, bad publicity all ’round, eh?

Read more

Suzuki and Toyota are radically increasing production in China, in an attempt to compensate for faltgering sales in more established markets. Thomson Financial News (via Forbes) reports that Suzuki plans to double production “as early as next year” at its Chonqing-based ChangAn factory. The plant currently churns out 100k Chinese-market Altos. But a recent $144m investment in a new 1.5-liter engine for the ubiquitous (in China) hatchback, and a forthcoming additional $100m + investment in assembly lines, will see production rise to 200k annual units. Toyota is likewise betting long on China; a new factory is under works now in Jilin. Set to open production “some time next decade,” the factory will lift ToMoCo’s China production to over 1m per year. This will make China the number two manufacturing location for Toyota after the United States, where it builds some 1.5m vehicles annually. This will knock Hyundai out its position of top car manufacturer in China, after the Koreans recently spent nearly $800m to increase output to 600k per year.

Read more

As billions pour into projects aimed at making the Canadian prairies the world’s largest exporter of crude oil, supposedly insulating Canada from an American economic downturn, two major Canadian news sources foreshadow a gloomy future for The Great White North. Canwest News (via Canada.com) quotes a study conducted by CIBC World Markets (the investment arm of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) that suggests oil prices could surge to $225 per barrel by 2012. That would push Canadian gasoline prices to about $2.25/L (or about $8 gallon at current exchange rates). According to Jeff Rubin, World Market’s chief economist, oil supplies are static; demand isn’t. “[For] every extra driver that gets a car and goes on the road in those (developing) countries in the next five to six years, somebody’s having to get off the road in the OECD countries.” Meanwhile, Montréal’s La Presse ran the results of a study conducted by energy analyst and longtime doom-and-gloomer Patrick Déry. He predicted Peak Oil’s (long-awaited?) arrival in 2018; Québec and other net importers of energy will run out of oil supply by 2030. 

Read more

I know what you’re thinking: he grabbed the New York Times’ columnist’s most ridiculous assertion and repeated it out of context. If so, you need to read “Bring on the Right Biofuels,” ’cause this Roger Cohen guy is the MR. Context Manipulation. After listing the charges against bio-fuels, Cohen says “hogwash and bilge”– and then admits he was somewhat wrong about ethanol’s critics being somewhat wrong. “I’ll grant that the fashion for bio-fuels led to excess, and that some farm-to-fuel-plant conversion, particularly in subsidized U.S. and European markets, makes no economic or environmental sense. But bio-fuels remain very much part of the solution. It just depends which bio-fuels.” So, on to [theoretical] production of ethanol from switchgrass, wood chips and garbage, right? Wrong. Cohen is too busy pinning the blame for rising food prices on oil prices and rising standards of living in third world developing nations. “They’re eating twice a day, instead of once, and propelling rapid urbanization. Their demand for food staples and once unthinkable luxuries like meat is pushing up prices.” Perhaps. Anyway, what’s to be done about ethanol? Remove the tariff against Brazilian ethanol! And? And that’s it.

Read more

I read in the papers at the weekend that Jeremy had unleashed a full Sweary Mary moment at a kid who’d taken a picture of him asleep on holiday, without asking.

Read more

I have heard Rob Golding make caustic remarks about the big German company AGMs before and I don’t think Volkswagen is by any means unique in its quaint procedures, though Ferdinand Piech is perhaps a master in manipulating them for his own ends.

Sounds like Rob’s patience threshold was finally breached yesterday and he could not help but indulge in a little venting. Poor lad had a lot on with financial results yesterday and didn’t much care for the bit players being given too much time by VW to meander aimlessly while the big questions were barely addressed, the untouchable Piech apparently revelling in it all.

Must say, I enjoyed Rob’s footballing analogy at the start of his piece. Clearly things haven’t been going smoothly down at ‘The Valley’ (home to his beloved Charlton Athletic) lately - off or on the pitch. Just what is the world coming to when getting a beer at a major (I’m being kind) sports event is that difficult? Note to self: don’t wind him up even further about the Addicks being condemned to another season out of the top flight - he might explode. 

Read more

Read more

Read more