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Filed under: Car Buying , Economy , Hatchbacks , Toyota Click above for more high-res shots of the 2009 Yaris 5-door Last month, Toyota announced that its Yaris five-door hatchback would finally make its U.S. debut in 2009. Perfect timing, as escalating gas prices are making small cars like the Yaris increasingly popular; especially when they can be had for a song... which brings us to the real news here. The '09 Yaris five-door will begin at just $13,305 for the base model, with the upper-level S model coming in at $15,125. Also new for '09 are standard anti-lock brakes, Electronic Brake Force Distribution, driver and front passenger front side airbags, and front and rear side curtain airbags. Fuel mileage remains a strong point, with 29 mpg city and 35 mpg highway when equipped with an automatic transmission and 29 city, 36 highway with the manual transmission models. Now, if only Toyota could find a way to move the gauges in front of the driver where they should be, we'd...
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Filed under: Economy , Scion , Toyota Click above for a high-res gallery of the 2008 Scion xB. My older brother Brian drives a Scion xD. He's 39 years old, and probably considered anything but cool by 18-24 year-old standards. He bought his little xD because he was tired of filling up his AWD 2001 Chevy Astro conversion van, and he's gone from getting 12 mpg to about 30. While that's a big-time win for Scion sales, the brand's marketing arm has to cringe. Scion was built to be Toyota's youth-oriented brand, with cars that would finally bring younger buyers into the Toyota showroom. The early days of Scion were a boon, with 80% of Scion buyers having never shopped Toyota before. Young people were clamoring for the xB and tC, and 100-200k online shoppers flocked to the Scion site each month. Only a year after the redesign of the xB and xD, the Scion site is seeing less than half the traffic. Overall, year over year sales fell for 17 strait months until March, when gas...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Chrysler, LLC. , Dodge , Jeep A quick look at July sales figures shows that Chrysler saw a massive 34% drop in its Daily Sales Rate vs. July 2007, but the bottom line could have looked worse. Chrysler's recent announcement that its financing arm would exit the leasing business by July 31 had lead to a rush of customers visiting local Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep dealerships. Some dealers sold four times as many vehicles as usual for the last couple days of the month, giving the stores some relief from an otherwise bleak July. Now dealers are worried that the increased sales volume could lead to a still more bleak August, since many customers pulled forward their purchase decision. Some dealers are trying to find third-party banks willing to get in on the leasing game, but a tight credit market and massive losses at automaker credit arms have made leasing look very unattractive as lease price begin to rise. Chrysler is hoping a fresh round of incentives will help...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Marketing/Advertising , GM Used car sales as a profession has a rather sullied reputation. Some establishments deserve the distaste, while others work hard to take care of customers and stock their lots with good merchandise. Certified Pre-Owned vehicles are often a good bet, because they're automaker-sanctioned and undergo an extensive checklist before hitting the lot. GM is making a frontal assault on non-CPO used cars by launching UsedCarAmbush.com , expending lots of hidden camera effort and Mission: Impossible trappings to put home the point that GM's Certified Used vehicles come with a multitude of benefits. Unfortunately, it's an epic fail, mainly because private sellers were targeted instead of shady operators. Who ever heard of a private sale offering financing, roadside assistance, or warranty? Does GM (or its agency, Mullen) really think that the guy with 8 cars on his front lawn is their sales arm's competition? It's a case of a...
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Filed under: Car Buying , SUVs , Chrysler, LLC. , Dodge , Jeep , Earnings/Financials The automotive sales sector is in a major state of flux as consumers continue to run from SUVs and pickup trucks into smaller, more fuel efficient cars. One manufacturer hit especially hard by this transition is Chrysler, a company that recently posted the worst fleet average fuel economy numbers of all major automakers in the U.S. due to its truck-heavy lineup. Still, the automaker has built up a large supply of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep utility vehicles that they have got to get off dealer lots somehow. To ease consumers into the fuel-thirsy utes, Chrysler has introduced new incentives of zero-percent financing for 72 months on the 2008 Dodge Durango, Chrysler Aspen and Jeep Grand Cherokee and Commander. While the lack of any financing charges will certainly impact the bottom line, it is nothing compared to the losses the automaker has been hit with over its past lease deals. In fact, truck and SUV residuals...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Chrysler, LLC. , Earnings/Financials Chrysler LLC's financial division will no longer be offering leases to U.S. consumers on Chrysler products as of August 1st. The automaker will be holding a conference call with dealers later today to go over the changes and the reasons behind the decisions, but Chrysler spokesperson, Bill Porter, told Reuters "We are shifting our strategy to focus on retail products." The move comes amidst Chrysler's attempt to get 20 banks to renew a $30 billion credit facility for the automaker's financial arm. The rise in borrowing costs next month will make it more difficult for Chrysler to offer low-interest loans and could spell further disasters on the sales front. Thanks to all who tipped in. [Source: Reuters , WSJ ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Car Buying , GM Faced with miserable sales and a brutal economy, General Motors has reverted back to employee pricing for non-GM employees and family members. You may remember the last employee pricing campaign in 2005 that led to record summer sales followed by a miserable fall due to the fact that everybody looking to buy a vehicle pulled their purchase decision forward. This time around, only customers that get a unique PIN from an employee will receive the special pricing, and every GM employee gets one PIN to give away. That translates to roughly 108,000 vehicles that are eligible for special pricing, and only active employees are eligible to participate. Left out of the discounted car sell-athon is the General's considerable pool of retirees, which is larger than the sum of active workers. GM is hoping the promotion will give sales a boost without resorting to wholesale incentives to everyone, and with July rumored to be just as bad as June , the General can use all...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Green , Japan , Tech , Honda , Nissan Honda and Nissan are looking for ways to make cars lighter, better, and more recyclable, both for their own benefits and their customers. We've heard about the increased use of aluminum to save weight; next on the heavy R&D frontier could be carbon fiber. Both companies have teamed up with Japanese carbon fiber company Toray, and Mitsubishi Rayon -- a Japanese version of DuPont -- to research new, less expensive carbon fiber for cars. Their efforts will be helped by the government, which is injecting two billion yen into the project over five years. The plan is that by the middle of the next decade, they'll be able to mass produce a cost effective carbon fiber and use it to reduce the weight of cars by 40-percent. And when they're finished with it, they will also be able to recycle it to reduce production costs. The current price of carbon fiber makes its use prohibitive except for ornamentation or for use on...
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Filed under: Car Buying , GM , Toyota The seesaw battle between GM and Toyota for the title of world's largest automaker is still being waged, and after tallying up global sales for the first half of the year, Toyota has opened up a pretty big lead. The Japanese automaker totaled 4.82m units told, with GM trailing with sales of 4.54m cars and trucks. While Toyota's sales are impressive, they're still off the pace of the 9.85m units the automaker expects to sell throughout 2008. The US and Japan have been the source of Toyota's pain this year, as both markets are in a downturn. In spite of record sales in Asia, Latin America, and Europe, GM had a 3% sales decline in the first half of the year. The entire problem rests solely with the General's performance at home, where sales are down a staggering 16% for the year. The news isn't expected to get much better in the States, as last month was the worst June in 17 years, and sales don't look any more promising in...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Coupes , Hatchbacks , MINI Click above for a gallery of the 2008 MINI Cooper S. If you were planning on hitting one of the 82 U.S. MINI dealers to get your hands on a fuel-efficient Cooper or Clubman , it looks like you'll need to look at plan B. Skyrocketing fuel prices has lifted demand of the little British icons to the point that, with the except of pre-orders, all 2008 models are pretty much sold out. The MINI's cute looks and thrifty petrol-sipping discipline have made the retro hatch more attractive than ever. Year over year sales increases of 39%, 52%, and 24% from April-June have all but wiped clean the MINI's already tight inventory. Although sales really picked up in April, the MINI has been on fire all year, as the 26,400 MINIs sold in the first half of 2008 represents a 33.6% increase over the same sales period in 2007. And thanks to the MINI's already tight world-wide demand, the BMW-owned automaker can only up US shipments by 2-3k...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Sedans/Saloons , Sports/GTs , Porsche When the Panamera arrives next year, it will come bearing two weighty things: a 4.8-liter 520-hp twin turbo V8, and a $197,000 price tag. Beneath that model -- and price -- will be the normally aspirated V8. And to even get into the Panamera party, you'll need $127,000, which will get you a measly 3.6-liter V6, but that doesn't arrive until 2010. That turbo motor, run through a seven-speed PDK gearbox, will get up to 186 MPH. However, if you want your power a little more electric, then you'll have to hold off for the 300-hp hybrid model coming in 2011. It will pair the V6 with a 100-hp electric motor. And if all of that isn't enough, Porsche is waiting to see how many folks might request the V10 from the Carrera GT, or Audi's monstrous V12 TDI. Of course, you can expect that kind of power to be a load more Geld . Gallery: Porsche Panamera - spy shots [Source: Inside Line ] Read | Permalink | Email this ...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Hybrids/Alternative , Green , Toyota To feed the insatiable demand for fuel-efficient vehicles, and follow the striking success of the Toyota Prius , the Japanese automaker will introduce a second hybrid-only vehicle in 2009. The all-new model will have a 2- to 2.5-liter engine, suggesting it will be larger than their current popular four-door hybrid (the Prius uses a 1.5-liter gasoline powerplant). The new model will be sold side-by-side with the Prius, Camry Hybrid and Highlander Hybrid . Toyota will also sell a rebadged version under the upscale Lexus brand, where it will join the LS Hybrid , GS Hybrid , and RX Hybrid . Toyota's master plan is to sell 1 million hybrid vehicles annually throughout the world, and considering the market, there's little doubt that the automaker can pull it off. Toyota's next hybrid debut is scheduled for Detroit in January, and we'll be there to cover it. [Source: Daily Times ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Car Buying , Economy , Green , Tech If anyone were to come along and do an updated version of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing," the could change the background vocal from "I want my MTV" to "I want my MPG" or "I want my low Cd." Coefficient of drag, that is. Carmakers are taking every step they can, starting with aerodynamics, to give cars better gas mileage right now while they wait for more substantial technologies to come online in the near future. But the tweaks don't stop with aero finessing. The 2009 Dodge Ram spent 200 hours in the wind tunnel, and it also received tweaks to its ECU, which means it spends more time in its cylinder cutoff mode. That, plus eighty pounds of weight savings, adds up to one more MPG on the EPA sheet. Said Ford's Derek Kuzak, "We need to treat every joule of energy in a vehicle like a precious commodity." In fact, that song hook could also be "I want my XFE." The Cobalt...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Crossovers/CUVs , Ford Click the image above for more high res photos of the 2009 Ford Flex When the Ford Fairlane concept bowed in Detroit in 2005, it proved that Ford could design a stylish crossover recognizable from a mile away. Unfortunately, Ford didn't exactly have a stellar record of bringing hot concepts to market, so expectations were low that we would ever see the Fairlane reach production. Fast forward to 2008, and the Ford Flex is born. It's bigger than the Fairlane, yet it looks very much like the outlandish wagon that we saw in Motor City a few years earlier. Does the Ford Flex have the style, capability and appointments to be a player in the suddenly crowded large CUV market? Or is this modern day Woody just another oversized people hauler that misses the mark? Hit the jump to see how the all-new Flex fared during its stay in the Autoblog Garage. Gallery: Ford Flex Autoblog Garage All photos Copyright (C)2007 Chris Shunk / Weblogs, Inc....
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Filed under: Car Buying , Podcasts , Chrysler, LLC. , Dodge , Ford , GM , Mazda , Toyota , Earnings/Financials We busted our humps getting to Podcast #100, and then promptly slacked off. Chris Shunk and Dan Roth make the effort this week to get Autoblog Podcast #101 out the door while the rest of the team remains difficult to corral. The usual banter about what's been in the Autoblog Garage starts us off before we dive headlong into the pithy GM news from earlier this week. Love it? Hate it? Send your comments, suggestions, or anything else to podcast at autoblog daht kahm. Thanks for listening! SUBSCRIBE to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes ADD the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator DOWNLOAD the show now Permalink | Email this | Comments
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