by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jul 29, 2012
Joel Ewanick, the agent of change brought in by General Motors just over two years ago to shake up its moribund marketing operations, has unexpectedly resigned. In a terse statement issued Sunday evening the maker said only that the 52-year-old executive “has elected...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jul 27, 2012
Pickup truck buyers are a stubborn lot, or so goes the conventional wisdom. What matters is payload and towing capacity, all else be damned. But recent trends suggest that’s not necessarily the case. The latest generation of full-size trucks now offer the sort of...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jul 27, 2012
This story has been updated to reflect the latest development involving the Lotus advisory board. For long-time Lotus fans it seemed too good to be true: the British maker promising to turn out a whopping five new cars in a five-year burst of activity unlike any...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jul 27, 2012
Nearly a third of American 19-year-olds haven’t bothered to get a driver’s license, according to a new study, continuing a downward trend that finds fewer and fewer Millennials plugging into the American car culture. Instead, suggest researchers at the University of...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jul 27, 2012
Facing an investigation by NHTSA into work done under a previous callback Ford Motor Co. is now recalling nearly 500,000 of its older Escape SUVs because of a problem that could cause cruise-control cables to snag and lead the vehicle to begin racing out of control....
by Joseph Szczesny | Jul 27, 2012
Despite fears of an economic slowdown, sales of new vehicles continue to chug along. July’s new-vehicle retail sales are expected to post the second strongest year-over-year growth rate of the past 12 months, according to a monthly sales forecast developed by J.D....
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jul 26, 2012
You’d have a hard time telling there are any problems in Europe if you’re only looking at Hyundai’s sales numbers. Despite the Continent’s economic crisis and the sharp downturn in overall sales, demand for the Korean makers products jumped during the second quarter...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jul 26, 2012
You begin to make a turn around a downtown corner only to slam on your brakes as a runner jogs into the intersection. If you’re lucky, everyone is okay – but pedestrian-car collisions account for thousands of fatalities and countless injuries each year. New...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jul 26, 2012
When it comes to paint colors, motorists are a predictable lot, those staple, if boring, shades of silver, black and white routinely accounting for as much as 80% of the current automotive market. But a new forecast by one of the industry’s leading paint suppliers...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jul 26, 2012
A day after Ford Motor Co. saw earnings plunge 57%, largely due to problems in recession-wracked Europe, Germany’s Volkswagen AG posted an 18% jump in second-quarter profits. The maker more than offset the problems back home with strong demand in other key markets...
by Bryan Laviolette | Jul 26, 2012
A thought came to mind while coming back from a meeting in downtown Detroit: At least this Scion iQ is better than a Smart ForTwo. Admittedly, it’s a low bar. In a way, it’s unfair to review these little midget cars on our wide-open American roads. But if the...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jul 25, 2012
Crushed by last year’s devastating Japanese earthquake and tsunami, Toyota Motor Co. lost the global automotive sales crown to not only General Motors but was also passed by German rival Volkswagen AG. But if the Japanese maker’s pace during the first half of 2012 is...
