After years of adding new nameplates to its portfolio, Mercedes-Benz is ready to prune some vehicles from its lineup. The German luxury brand will reportedly cull some models, variants, and options from its U.S. portfolio, Automotive News (subscription required) reported on Sunday. The brand...Read More»
Future Honda vehicles will come in fewer color and trim level combinations as the automaker seeks to reduce the complexity of building cars for all markets globally. Automotive News (subscription required) reported Wednesday that the the automaker will seek to streamline versions of the cars its...Read More»
Google's self-driving car subsidiary Waymo said Tuesday that it will build its self-driving cars in the Motor City. The autonomous car firm said in a new blog post it chose Detroit for its "strong talent base," called the area the "heart of the American automotive industry," and said that it would...Read More»
The final Chevrolet Cruze will roll off the assembly line in Ohio on Wednesday, pulling General Motors and the entire Detroit new-car industry out of the compact car market in the process. Reuters reported that production is scheduled to end two days ahead of schedule. That means that on Thursday...Read More»
The United Auto Workers union served General Motors a fresh lawsuit on Tuesday over its decision to idle four assembly plants in the U.S. The UAW claimed in its lawsuit that GM breached its 2015 contract with the union by announcing that two car plants in Michigan and Ohio and a pair of...Read More»
Subaru has stopped production at two of its factories near Tokyo after discovering a power-steering defect in the cars assembled there. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Subaru expects the two plants to remain offline until Monday. The company found the power-steering issue in the...Read More»
School districts near an assembly plant General Motor said in November it plans to close have teamed up with the United Auto Workers union to carry out a letter-writing campaign to the automaker's CEO. The students were tasked with penning their "Christmas wish" of keeping the facility open...Read More»
A new grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation will directly benefit logistics at BMW's South Carolina production plant. Automotive News (subscription required) reported on Wednesday that $25 million will be funneled into an intermodal project in Greer, South Carolina, to expand the Port...Read More»
General Motors announced Monday significant changes in North American car production including the discontinuation of several models and the closure of three assembly plants in the U.S. and Canada. The company said that it will discontinue the Chevrolet Cruze, Impala, and Volt and Buick LaCrosse...Read More»
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will spend $1 billion to upgrade its Warren Truck Assembly Plant in Michigan to build heavy duty Ram pickups and a full-size Jeep SUV, the automaker announced Thursday. The investment is a continuation of a plan already announced by the automaker, which shuffled SUV and...Read More»
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Mercedes-Benz parent-company Daimler AG will spend $1 billion on a battery and electric SUV plant near the company's facilities in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. A company spokeswoman said the automaker would make an official announcement later in the day. The...Read More»
Today, Australia's auto industry was dealt a death blow. In a press release, Toyota Australia revealed "that it will stop building cars in Australia by the end of 2017 and become a national sales and distribution company." Toyota Australia's president and CEO, Max Yasuda, and Toyota Motor...Read More»
Before 2008, before the international economic meltdown, auto companies weren't known for being efficient. Sibling brands overlapped, cannibalizing sales. Production was fragmented, with little thought given to manufacturing vehicles for multiple markets with the greatest of ease. Cars and trucks...Read More»
1925 was a pretty big year. It saw the birth of John DeLorean, Paul Newman, Johnny Carson, and Dick Van Dyke. F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby in 1925, and Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf. And in Australia, Ford Motor Company began building Model Ts for eager drivers. Today, Ford...Read More»
Yesterday, our colleagues at Motor Authority predicted that today's press event with Toyota president Akio Toyoda would include an announcement that the company is moving production of some Lexus vehicles to the U.S. Move over, Walter Mercado, because it appears that our team was right. At a press...Read More»
Update: See below Last week, Bloomberg News ran a story with this headline: "Fiat Says Jeep Output May Return to China as Demand Rises". There are three ways you could look at that. 1. You could cock your head to the side like Nipper the RCA dog and wonder what the heck it means. 2. You could...Read More»
The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March, 2011 wreaked havoc on Japan, killing thousands of citizens and bringing much of the country to a standstill. Automakers like Toyota were beginning to get back up to speed later that year, when flooding in Thailand put more crimps in the production line...Read More»
Many eager auto shoppers in Japan have been stymied by inventory shortages, but according to the Wall Street Journal, the wait for new wheels may be coming to an end. The Journal reports that most Japanese companies are ramping up output, with significantly more cars rolling off the lines over the...Read More»
The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that struck northern Japan on March 11 has affected millions of Japanese citizens, their families, and businesses. The country's auto industry was hard-hit -- both directly and indirectly -- and most Japanese automakers halted operations to grieve for lost workers...Read More»
