Auto Industry Archive

The Hyundai Nuvis concept car unveiled at the New York auto show is another step in the ongoing campaign at Hyundai to take its brand image upscale and leave behind its reputation for cheap and cheaply built small cars. The Nuvis concept, which debuted April 9, embraces a couple of the latest trends. It’s a crossover model, in this case tending more towards an SUV in appearance, but...

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There are telling differences between two proposed bills that would reward consumers for turning in their clunker cars. One is clearly designed to stimulate sales for the domestic automakers; the other is aimed at putting fuel-efficient cars on the road. Guess which one the environmentalists like? The legislation proposed by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) has green...

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Sure, the German company is best known for relieving headaches—its chemist Max Hoffman synthesized aspirin in 1897—but the $12 billion (2008) Bayer AG is also in the material science business, and makes high-performance plastics that have long been used to make lightweight car bodies. In 1967, Bayer joined with BMW to build what it says was the world’s first all-plastic concept...

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In a U.S. auto market where just about every brand is hurting, the Mitsubishi brand is hurting more than most. In fact, Mitsubishi Motors North America, which started U.S. sales in 1982, defies expectations just by sticking around. Its U.S. sales in 2008 of 97,257 cars and trucks were less than one-third a record 322,393 in 2001, according to the Automotive News Data Center. Nevertheless, Shin...

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Despite the current U.S. recession, Volkswagen is sticking to a hugely ambitious goal of selling 800,000 Volkswagens and Audis in the United States by 2018. “We will not waver from this goal one inch,” said Stefan Jacoby, president and CEO of Volkswagen of America, at a press conference April 8 at the New York auto show. That’s a big increase, versus 2008 sales of 314,318, for...

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NEW YORK—By thinking small (not to mention thinking ahead), Ford has a big advantage as it tries to recover from the worst recession to hit Detroit in recent memory. As the U.S. auto market settles into the grim reality of less than 10 million cars a year for the foreseeable future, only Ford among the Big Three seems able to ride the storm without government assistance. It is thus spared the...

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NEW YORK–Chrysler’s Vice Chairman Jim Press rolled onto the stage at the New York International Auto Show in a retro Fiat 500, symbol of his company’s merge-or-die countdown. “President Obama endorsed our merger with Fiat,” he said, “and we’re working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to make that happen.” The deal has to be concluded by May 1, or Chrysler—which the Obama...

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Phil Popham, managing director worldwide for Land Rover, indicated strongly at the New York auto show today that Land Rover intends to build a production version of the LRX Concept, a small, diesel-powered SUV. In an interview, he said the LRX could get as much as 40 mpg. Land Rover first unveiled the LRX at the Detroit auto show in January 2008. The concept car can also run on bio-diesel...

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The world’s automakers are using more high-strength steel than ever before. The redesigned Mazda3, for instance, contains twice as much high-strength steel as the model it replaces, according to Ruben Archilla, group manager, research and development for Mazda North American Operations. As the name implies, high-strength steel is made of alloys that are stronger and more crush-resistant than...

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The auto industry is still strongly opposed to granting California a waiver to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks (which essentially means regulating fuel economy), but now it is approaching the matter from a distinctly green point of view. The issue has deadline urgency, because, after President Obama ordered that the waiver issue be reopened, Congress gave the EPA until...

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