Category Archives: Automobile Industry

America’s Cars are Older Than They Have Ever Been

Automobile Industry, ,
America's Ageing Autos

Americans are more hesitant than ever before when it comes to deciding to throw away their old autos and upgrade to a new one.

A new study shows that the average age of cars being driven on America’s highways has climbed to 10.8 years, a record. Last year the age of the average vehicle was slightly less, 10.6 years old. Back in 2008, 10 years was the average age for cars in the US.

The research firm of Polk, which specializes in automotive research, affirmed these figures.

Since 2008 the average age of America’s cars has been on the rise, but last year’s rebound in car sales will most likely slow the auto’s aging rate, according to Polk. Last year auto manufacturers sold 12.8 million cars in the US, a rise from 11.6 million in 2010. The expectation of experts on auto sales is that the buying trend will continue to rise in 2012.

Chevy Volt Electrifies Consumers

Automobile Industry, Tech News, , ,

A Consumer Reports customer satisfaction survey puts the Chevrolet Volt at the top of its list, showing a whopping 93% of those polled saying they would “definitely” buy this car again if given the chance.

CR however released the results of their survey with this caveat: at the time when the survey was taken the Volt was only available in a few states, and had only been purchased by a few thousand customers. The car has only been in car dealer showrooms for one year, since December, 2010.

The Volt is a plug-in car, requiring electricity from an outside source to recharge its battery. Chevy says customers can expect to be able to drive about 40 miles on one charge, and for trips requiring longer drives there is a gasoline engine as a back-up.

Toyota Adds Sports Car to Lineup to Make Driving Fun Again

Automobile Industry, Japan

Hoping to put the fun back into Toyota cars, CEO Akio Toyoda popped out of a bright orange sports car which will be called the “86,” at the Fuji Speedway on Sunday.

Unusual Launch

In an unusual departure from the usual methodology of launching new car models, the 2-liter engine car, called the “86” (Hachi-roku) in Japan, or the GT86 in Europe, was sprung on the public at the foot of Mount Fuji instead of at the Tokyo Motor Show, which is due to open later in the week.

Toyota GT86

Toyota Motor Corporation unleashed its highly anticipated latest sports car model with the hope that its release will lead to a renaissance in Toyota’s development of a reputation as a producer of “fun” cars for the general market, which it hasn’t had in many years.

“We’ve made you wait a long time for this,” said Toyoda, dressed in a racing suit, addressing the crowd as he emerged from an orange 86. “At long last, here is a car for car lovers.”

Fun to Drive

Toyoda has seen his mission since he took the reins of the company in 2009 to lose Toyota’s boring image as a reliable, but not-too-exciting, car. Advertisements for Toyota have used slogans like “Fun to drive again,” and “Reborn,” asserting that the 86 is the vehicle to reach those goals.

Americans Moving To Compact Cars

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Americans are beginning to wake up to the new financial reality and starting to adjust their lifestyles. We can see this in the new American automotive trend towards compact cars. In results from consumer surveys, more people are planning to buy compacts within the next 6 months. General Motors, Hyundai, Toyota, and Ford are all adding overtime shifts to their compact car productions lines.

Scott Fink, the president of the New Port Richey Hyundai dealership near Tampa Florida said, “As the Elantras come in, 9 out of 10 of them are pre-sold.” According to Fink, customers who are buying compact cars are trying to lower their debts and to improve their cash flow.

The price of a new compact starts at $16,500 and they can get between 30-40 miles per gallon. The best selling cars are the Chevrolet Cruze, the Toyota Corolla and the Hyundai Elantra.

Genral Motors Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Joel Ewanick said that “the buyers are completely different than the ones we have seen before.” They are more interested in economy. GM has sold 147,620 compacts from January to the end of July. Toyota has sold 154,324 Corolla’s in the same 7 months.

In May, Chevrolet four cylinder cars including Malibu, Equinox and Cruze comprised over half (fifty one percent) of all Chevrolet retail sales.  This is a raise of thirty six percent over last year’s May compact car retail sales.

The recession is here to stay for at least a few years and money-wise people are starting to be more conservative with their budgets, in order to keep solvent in these financially tough times.

Indian Increases: Car Sales Skyrocket

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There has been an increase in the amount of cars sold in India’s domestic market. Looking at figures for June 2011 as compared to June 2010, there was an addition of 2284 cars sold.  However, according to a report earlier this week by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), perhaps in part due to somewhat tough economic circumstances, the domestic car industry in the country only went up by a mere 1.6 percent last month.  Probably the additional raises in fuel prices didn’t help the matters as well as automobile price increases.

Motorcycle Madness

Motorcycle sales also did really well.  SIAM figures note that there was an increase of 107464 units from last June to this June.  Indeed, looking at the sales of all two-wheeler vehicles, there was an increase of 14.59 percent in the same time period.

India’s Commercial Vehicles

As reported in an article in Indiainfoline, there was also an escalation of domestic sales of busses and trucks.  For example, figures for June 2010, were 52,627 units, whereas for June 2011, they were 62,009.

So taking a look at the whole group of vehicles, sales increased 12.84 percent from June 2010, to June 2011.  Figures for last year stood at 12,07,934 and for this year 13,62,984.