Category: The Car Biz

GM pulls the trigger on killing Chevrolet TrailBlazer and GMC Envoy, as well as that footnote in history, the Saab 9-7X.

This week, I sat down for the sales conference calls from Ford and Chrysler. How are things, you ask, or don’t, as the case may be? Well, they’re both down about 35 percent. On the bright side, no one cried on the phone.

“Run for your lives! The economy’s collapsing!”

Wall Street Journal opinion piece supports scrapping CAFE

Last week, GM loudly trumpeted the pending arrival of the Chevrolet Cruze compact car, to be officially unveiled at next month’s Mondial de l’Automobile (that’s Paris Motor Show to us ‘Murricans). First, they unveiled photos of the car and then revealed the real thing at the Lordstown, OH plant where the car will be built for American consumers.

This is a US-market Chevrolet compact? Yes, and you’ll see it in Paris next month. Sacre bleu!
As earlier spy photos had suggested, the Cruze, which in the US will effectively be the next generation Cobalt, is a very handsome compact sedan. It’s as appealing as the Cobalt is appliance-like. There’s some real design going on here with a sleek profile and great surface tension and great interaction between the exterior’s various design elements. GM also promises a very intriguing efficient powertrain choice in the form [...]

Nissan and Chrysler appear to be getting closer and closer to merging major parts of their product lineups.

No doubt many of you have heard the news about the Domestic manufacturers pulling back from leasing. Chrysler has pulled out of leasing altogether effective August 1 while Ford and GM are significantly raising their lease rates on many vehicles, particularly trucks whose residuals are now in the tank.

What’s the rationale here, and what does it mean for the consumer? Well, let’s start off real quick with a one-paragraph explanation of leasing for the benefit of those of you who are still a bit confused as to what leasing is (it’s ok to admit it – there are more than a few of us!). In a nutshell, when you lease a vehicle, you’re essentially paying monthly payments that add up to the difference between what the vehicle is worth new and what the car is pre-determined to be worth (residuals or resale value) when [...]

No doubt many of you have heard the news about the Domestic manufacturers pulling back from leasing. Chrysler has pulled out of leasing altogether effective August 1 while Ford and GM are significantly raising their lease rates on many vehicles, particularly trucks whose residuals are now in the tank.

What’s the rationale here, and what does it mean for the consumer? Well, let’s start off real quick with a one-paragraph explanation of leasing for the benefit of those of you who are still a bit confused as to what leasing is (it’s ok to admit it – there are more than a few of us!). In a nutshell, when you lease a vehicle, you’re essentially paying monthly payments that add up to the difference between what the vehicle is worth new and what the car is pre-determined to be worth (residuals or resale value) when [...]

What a disappointing day today turned out to be. I was supposed to represent VehicleVoice at Chevrolet’s unveiling of the long-awaited new Camaro up in North Hollywood this afternoon. Unfortunately, a three-car pileup on the I-5 North brought my northward progress to a halt, effectively making it impossible for me to get to the press conference. Beaten, I turned around and drove back to the office.

I tried to go to Hollywood to see this…
But instead all I got was this. Bummer.

BMW and Fiat promise to consider working together.

Toyota slows production of large SUV Sequoia and full-size pickup Tundra as 2008 market sales plummet, along with all the other trucks and large SUVs out there.