Category: Automobile Cool News

Owners of the 2012 Honda Pilot award the crossover SUV with AutoPacific's Ideal Vehicle Award for the 2012 Premium Mid-Size Crossover SUV category. The Pilot also won AutoPacific's 2012 Vehicle Satisfaction Award. Winning both awards in the same year is an impressive achievement.

Owners of the all-new 2012 Honda CR-V rate the vehicle as the Most Ideal Mid-Size Crossover SUV winning AutoPacific's 2012 Ideal Vehicle Award in that category. CR-V also won AutoPacific's 2012 Vehicle Satisfaction Award. Winning both awards is an impressive achievement.

MINI Countryman owners rate the vehicle Most Ideal Compact Crossover SUV in AutoPacific's 2012 Ideal Vehicle Award research.

Owners of the 2012 Honda Odyssey rate the vehicle Most Ideal Minivan in AutoPacific's 2012 Ideal Vehicle Award research. Odyssey also won AutoPacific's 2012 Vehicle Satisfaction Award. Winning both awards in the same year is an impressive achievement.

Psychographics are any attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles. Each year, AutoPacific includes a battery of questions in the New Vehicle Satisfaction Survey that allows us to determine what the psychographic profile of each brand and model. The results are often fascinating, or simply obvious, but confirming perceptions you might have had about a brand.

Sometimes things start out great and end up only OK, or perhaps worse. The smell of coffee in the morning. Most Superbowls. A full bottle of Patron. We recently had the opportunity to experience the Audi e-tron and came away excited by the vehicle, but wondering why we got to see so much of it.

About 40% of new vehicle owners are women, but we know from experience that females influence 80% of new car and light truck sales. What are the features that each gender demands that differentiates them?

Last summer during a discussion with senior Hyundai management in Seoul, I asked “When can we expect to see a third plant for Hyundai and or Kia in the United States?” The response was “A third plant will be necessary when Hyundai and Kia sell 900,000 per year in the USA.”

In 2010, Hyundai sold 538,228 cars and light trucks in the USA and Kia sold 356,496 cars and light trucks. That is a total of 874,496 cars and light trucks for these two fast-growing brands. That number is also close enough for us to hypothesize that an announcement for a third Hyundai or Kia plant in the USA should be forthcoming.

Two USA Plants Already at or Above Capacity: Clearly, Hyundai is pushing the capacity of their Montgomery, Alabama plant. With [...]

Earlier this week Jeep invited us to join them at the base of the snow covered Grand Tetons in Jackson Hole Wyoming. Our mission was to test drive the entire 2011 Jeep lineup in their element – on and off-road in the snow. Something you wouldn’t want to attempt in just any vehicle.

For 2011 there is big news! Sergio Marchionne has rattled the Jeep cage and it is definitely beginning to show in their products. All vehicles received attention; the Patriot, Compass, Liberty, Wrangler and of course the all-new Grand Cherokee.
It’s been said that Sergio loathes incentives and believes that they erode profitability and brand equity. So, instead of building vehicles to a particular price-point with the understanding that they would eventually be the least expensive, highest incentivized option for consumers – it was [...]

It may come as little surprise that many manufacturers are continuing to wave the green flag here at the 2010 LA Auto Show.