Lotus confirmed today that its Chief Operating Officer Frank Tuch has left the company to join Volkswagen Group. “Frank was approached by the Volkswagen Group shortly after agreeing to join Lotus and it was not a consideration for us to stand in his way in pursuing this one-off opportunity,” said Chief Executive Officer, Dany Bahar. [...]
Sources inside Toyota said that the company plans to introduce three “new-to-market” green vehicles in 2012. Joining the upcoming plug-in version of the Toyota Prius will be a battery electric vehicle (BEV) and a yet-to-be-unveiled variant of the Prius We’re guessing the Prius variant vehicle will the much talked about MPV version of the hybrid, [...]
We learned earlier this year that the next-generation Honda Civic has been delayed until 2011. According to Honda’s PR guy Kurt Antonius, there is no hurry to introduce a redesigned model. Apparently, Honda feels that the current Civic is selling so well that they can take a little more time developing the next version of [...]
Nissan announced today that domestic orders for the new Nissan Juke crossover have greatly exceeded the company’s expectations. The Juke was introduced to the Japanese market exactly a month ago from today and has book 10,943 orders to date. That’s more than eight times greater than the company’s monthly sales target of 1,300. “With JUKE, [...]
In a startling and bone-chilling admission for anyone who has ever rented a car, executives from Enterprise, the world”s largest car rental company, and parent to National and Alamo, admitted in court to having rented out recalled vehicles, before they were serviced. “When demand called, we rented out recalled vehicles, it happened, I won’t lie,” [...]
The recalls keep on coming; FoMoCo is recalling 33,700 of its Transit Connect small commercial vans because of an interior liner issue, and Chrysler said it is recalling certain 2010 SUVs and trucks over a possible brake fluid leak. Ford is recalling Transit Connects sold in the U.S. and built between December 2008 and May [...]
In May, Toyota and Tesla announced their new partnership in which the Japanese automaker would invest $50 million in the American electric-car company following it’s initial public offering, which took place on June 29. According to reports coming out of Japan, Toyota is now working on a new electric-car that will feature Tesla Motors technology. [...]
As reported before, Chrysler said that the last PT Cruiser will be rolling off the assembly line on July 9th – well, it’s July 9th and the last unit of Chrysler’s most successful and iconic vehicle rolled off the assembly line in Mexico today. The Chrysler PT Cruiser, which debuted over a decade ago, sold [...]
Italian automaker Fiat S.p.A. denied a report saying that Ferrari Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo would soon be replaced. Rumors have been brewing ever since Montezemolo stepped down from a similar post at Fiat, and has been reportedly interested in a move into politics, having started his own think-tank, Italia Futura. Italian newspaper, the Librero, [...]
According to the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, used-vehicle prices have declined in June when compared to the previous month, but are still up year over year. The index for June 2010 stood at 120.2; compared to 121.0 in May and 114.1 in June 2009. Tom Webb, Manheim”s chief economist, attributes the decline to a [...]
