General Motors has repaid the 1.5 billion euro bridge loan extended to it by the German government. The loan was intended to keep the German carmaker Opel alive long enough to be sold, most likely to Canadian auto parts company Magna International. GM angered German Chancellor Angela Merkel, along with many other German politicians, when it decided to keep Opel instead of selling.
“I would have preferred that the bridge ended differently, that’s no secret,” Chancellor Merk... Read Full Story
Mike Howard of Elk Horn, Iowa, has spent $30,000 installing four electric vehicle chargers in the small town. Elk Horn only has one plug-in electric vehicle though. Howard says the charging stations needed to be built in order for the people of Elk Horn to actually consider buying an electric vehicle, just like the pony express needed mail stations built in order to bring the mail to western settlers.
“They had to have stations to continue on to deliver the mail,” Howard told the... Read Full Story
Chrysler acknowledges that its current lineup of cars don’t do well in quality surveys like Consumer Reports or JD Power and Associates’ annual rankings. The company also understands that this reputation for building poor quality cars is hurting sales, so quality is a priority for Chrysler. Chrysler has recently added 200 engineers to the quality department in hopes that they can help eliminate design issues that cause quality problems.
The man driving Chrysler’s focus on b... Read Full Story
Toyota officially revealed the FT-86 concept at the 2009 Tokyo Auto Show, but Subaru has remained secretive about it’s version of the joint venture car. Edmunds claims that the Subaru car will have 250 horsepower, all wheel drive and a longer wheelbase than the Toyota FT-86. The FT-86 will get 200-hp and rear wheel drive. The Subaru is expected to cost around $30,000, compared to the Toyota FT-86 ’s expected price of about $25,000.
Toyota and Subaru teamed up to reduce the cos... Read Full Story
Hummer’s sale to Chinese company Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industries Machinery Co. will be completed soon. Autoblog reports that the sale could be done as soon as December first, barring any objections by GM or the Chinese Government. The new owners will give Hummer some much needed attention, including bringing the H4, which will be smaller than the H3, to market.
Hummer is in a bad place right now, sales are down 64% compared to last year. Just like Saab, GM’s other recently... Read Full Story
Even though Saab, unlike some other former GM brands, is still in business, dealers in the United States are running low on cars and can’t order more from the factory. Saab has slowed production at its Swedish manufacturing facility in order to prepare for production of the new 9-5, which will be available sometime in 2010. In the meantime though, dealers are left with dwindling inventory and no concrete date when they’ll be able to get new cars from the factory, according to B... Read Full Story
GM unveiled the 2011 Buick Regal last week to at the Palladium theater in Los Angeles. The Regal will be the first Buick to launch after GM’s bankruptcy and will be the company’s competition for the Toyota Camry in the midsized car segment. Buick is hoping that the all-new 2011 Regal will return the company to its former glory.
GM knows that most people now see a Buick as an old person’s car, and not something you’d want to drive unless what you look for in a car is ... Read Full Story
It turns out that Twitter is useful for something besides exposing idiotic celebrities and disseminating information about a potential revolution in progress. There’s a practical consumer use for the 140 character or less social blogging site too. Pontiac used twitter to let everyone know its nationwide inventory was almost gone on Wednesday, according to Jalopnik.
Pontiac only has about 3,600 cars left at dealerships across the nation, according to the Tweet. The good news is that si... Read Full Story
Buying a used car can be a scary decision, it’s hard to know what kind of life a car had before it went up for sale. Buying a car online is even scarier than usual, because it’s usually not possible to see every car in person, so an unscrupulous seller could sell a lemon and leave you with no recourse. That little old lady might have been jumped creeks on her way to church every Sunday, and a physical inspection alone doesn’t tell the whole story.
Ebayis trying to help tim... Read Full Story
Renault-Nissan’s CEO Carlos Ghosn announced that the company plans to build the world’s cheapest car. Renault-Nissan plans to build a car that will sell for less than the Tata Nano’s $2,500 MSRP. The car will be built for Nissan-Renault by Indian scooter and rickshaw maker Bajaj, according to Autoblog. Neither company has ever built a car in this price range before, so Ghosn said that he expects delays but hopes that the car will be on Indian roads by 2011.
Ghosn said Niss... Read Full Story
