Ponderings

New Models Don’t Always Mean Sales Increase

When an automaker introduces a brand new vehicle, they always hype it as much as possible, and say how it will increase sales. For example, Brand X sells 200,000 vehicles per year. They introduce the brand new Ultra Mega Crossover, with a sales goal of 40,000 units per year. With this in mind, they expect [...]

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What if Toyota Bought Chrysler

Agent009 at Autospies wrote an article yesterday called “What if Toyota Bought Chrysler?”  You can read it here.  The gist is pretty simple, and Agent009 points out Chrysler’s excess production capacity as a benefit for Toyota, and the fact that Chrysler’s brands are more recognized as “American” brands, which could help Toyota cultivate their American [...]

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Why does the Ford Freestlye exist?

The Freestlye is getting an update for 2008, and supposedly better than ever.  My question is why?  Why on earth does the Free style exist?  It’s not that it’s a bad vehicle.  Boring, yes.  Bad, no.  It’s just that there doesn’t seem to be any room in the Ford lineup for such a vehicle.  The Edge has [...]

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Worst Car Names

The Truth About Cars came up with a list of the worst car names – and it’s a must-read.  My favorite is from Volkswagen Volkswagen Touareg Impossible to pronounce or spell correctly without lessons, this name takes the cake for being the most gratuitously recondite car name of the past 30 years – not to [...]

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10 Steps to buying a car

Wisebread posted their 10 steps to buying a car from a dealership.  There is some good advice in here, but there is also some terrible advice.  Here’s his tips, and my take on each. Research, research, research. – This one’s a bit of a no-brainer, but spot on nonetheless.  Do your homework before you go shopping.  [...]

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Badge Engineering vs Platform Sharing

When does platform sharing cross the line and become badge engineering? We can all agree that platform sharing is a good thing – it allows manufacturer’s to keep costs down while offering a variety of vehicles. That means more choices at a better price. We can also all agree that badge engineering is a very [...]

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Why Hybrid buyers should get tax credits

Currently, the US government offers a tax credit on many hybrid models. As a general rule, the more fuel efficient the model is, the bigger the tax break. So you see tax credits as low as $650 for vehicles like the full-size GM pickup mild hybrids, all the way up to $2100 for a Honda [...]

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10 Auto Industry predictions for 2007

2006 has been an interesting year for the automotive industry. I have a feeling that we’ll see some truly remarkable things in 2007, and I want it on record that I called it. So here’s my list of predictions for 2007. Toyota will overtake Ford, then GM to become the largest automaker in the world [...]

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