First Official Honda Insight Image
By Justin BerkowitzDecember 3, 2008 -
This is the first official shot of Honda’s upcoming Prius-fighter. And if anyone can take on the Prius (which despite being down 50% in November compared to November 2007, still sold 8600 units), it’s Honda with this car. I say that because (1) Honda has genuine hybrid building experience with the Insight, and (2) unlike previous hybrid efforts from many manufacturers, it’s not merely a hybridized version of an existing car. It looks unique, and that carries the image that’s so critical in the hybrid market. Previously, we reported that the Insight was targeted to go on sale this Spring for less than $20,000. With continuing reports that Toyota may be taking a loss on every Prius, I’m not sure how Honda plans to pull this off. Still, if you’er into this sort of car (and I’m really not at all), you probably won’t care what Honda’s bottom line is.
Posted in Alternative Energy | Future Vehicles | Hybrid | News Blog | 41 comments 
Karma Birth Watch 3: Pre-Launch Production Preview
By Edward NiedermeyerDecember 2, 2008 -
Fisker seems to be getting a handle on the whole car-company routine, joining the now-proud tradition of leaking images to the web to build hype leading up to a launch. Of course that’s a little bit harder when your production model is nearly unchanged from the concept, but these considerations don’t bother anyone else in the industry. Anyway, the $88k Karma is said to get 50 miles of all-electric range before its GM Ecotec engine kicks in to generate more juice. Top speed is listed as 125mph, and 0-60 should take 5.8 seconds. Production at Valmet’s facilities in Finland will eventually reach 15k units per year, and the first deliveries will take place in fall 2009. We will bring you complete photos when the Karma debuts in Detroit this January.
Posted in Future Vehicles | Hybrid | News Blog | 15 comments
New Fusion/Milan Hybrid Beats Camry Hybrid’s MPGs. And?
By Robert FaragoNovember 19, 2008 -
A quick reminder: the Toyota Prius OWNS America’s hybrid market. Year-to-date, the Japanese automaker’s sold 142,365 Priora. Even during October’s carpocalypse, at a time when gas prices have fallen back to pre-Katrina levels, ToMoCo shifted 11,804 of the gas - electric hybrids (down “just” 13.6 percent). All other hybrids– including Toyota’s Camry gas - electric variant– must live off of crumbs from the Prius’ table. So when Ford announces it’s about to sell a hybrid Fusion with better mileage than the Camry hybrid– a six (according to the press release) or five (according to Automotive News) mpg improvement around town and an indeterminate number on the highway, the words “big whoop” spring to mind. Or even, perhaps, why bother? Certainly the Gods of Corporate Average Fuel Economy must be satiated. But doesn’t Ford have to sell the vehicles for them to count against F-150 mpgs? As for the badge-engineered Milan hybrid, well you gotta put Mercury’s babe on your website! In your garage? Not so much. (The car. Not Jill.) More interesting: SmartGauge™ with EcoGuide. The doo-hickey “coaches” hybrid drivers to maximize fuel efficiency. John Madden voice prompts optional, presumably. Oh, and props to The Blue Oval Boyz for improving the 2.5-liter I4 Fusion for better torque, and offering a six-speed manual.
Posted in Hybrid | New Cars | News Blog | 26 comments
Volt Center Stack: “Stylistically it looks mainly final”
By Robert FaragoNovember 18, 2008 -
Posted in Future Vehicles | Hybrid | News Blog | 15 comments
WSJ Jenkins: The Volt Sucks, CAFE Must Die and Obama’s a Fraud
By Robert FaragoNovember 16, 2008 -
Holman W. Jenkins Jr. is not a happy camper. The Wall Street Journal columnist begins his broadside by taking on the Hail Mary-shaped plug-in hybrid gas - electric Chevrolet Volt. Jenkins reckons it’s what the Brits call a “non-starter.” “Even as GM teeters toward bankruptcy and wheedles for billions in public aid, its forthcoming plug-in hybrid continues to absorb a big chunk of the company’s product development budget. This is a car that, by GM’s own admission, won’t make money. It’s a car that can’t possibly provide a buyer with value commensurate with the resources and labor needed to build it. It’s a car that will be unsalable without multiple handouts from government.” While Jenkins’ anti-Volt tirade isn’t especially accurate (you could even call it inaccurate), at least his rhetoric is a moving target, as he changes targets.
Posted in Hybrid | Industry | News Blog | Union News | 19 comments
New BMW X6 Hybrid Breaks Wind. I Mean, Cover
By Robert FaragoNovember 13, 2008 -
The BMWblog offers us this picture of the Propeller People’s new hybrid BMW X6. I know what you’re thinking. Huh? First, no bonus points for you, Boyo, for missing the key visual ingredient separating the gas - electric X6 from the normal (and I use that word in the post-modern Chris Bangle is my owtowmobeel God sense of the word) gas-powered X6. “The body style is almost identical to the petrol versions,” the Bimmer boys report. “Except the slightly larger M3-style bonnet. The obvious changes appear under the hood, where a two mode hybrid system developed by a consortium formed of BMW, GM, Daimler and Chrysler, will power the X6 ActiveHybrid.” Dudes; if the changes are under the hood, they’re not obvious. (Obviously.) Anyway, who knew the X6 variant got a German-style mashed-up nospacebarneeded moniker all its own? But I did know about the consortium, which, by the way, did not include Daimler and Chrysler at the time. (It was, appropriately enough, DaimlerChrysler.) This corporate cluster-you-know-what was a multi-billion dollar joint effort that should have been used for joints, rather than hybrids, as nothing even remotely salable came from the collaboration. And while we await mpg figures (doh!), here’s some proper German humor… “Once again that great photos were brought to us by Palbay who also shared a funny story with us. Apparently the X6’s driver could have been a BMW executive from outside the U.S since he made several wrong turns getting to the test track and he was wearing a business suit, not a common thing for the BMW regular test engineers.”
Posted in Hybrid | New Cars | News Blog | 9 comments
More Info on the 2010 Ford Fusion
By Justin BerkowitzOctober 30, 2008 -
To get answers to some of your questions regarding the refreshed Ford Fusion, I got in touch with one of the Ford PR folks, but rather than hide my findings in comments, we’ll post them here.
- The 2.5 liter 4-cylinder model will be available with a manual transmission, contrary to my previous expectations. For the other 98 percent of buyers, it’s a six-speed auto.
- AWD will still be available on the 3.0 and 3.5-liter V6 cars (proving Berkowitz’s guesses wrong again).
- The Fusion’s manumatic will be controlled with a +/- system on the gear lever base, not steering wheel buttons.
- On sale date is the nebulous “First Quarter 2009.” Considering that nobody is going to be buying cars this November, December, January, I don’t think it matters much that the refreshed Fusion isn’t going on sale for a few months.
- Ford is hoping/anticipating/guessing that the hybrid version will deliver best in class fuel economy. For reference, the Camry Hybrid is rated at 33/34.
- The Fusion Hybrid version will have slick/gimmicky SmartGauge system– two LCD screens surrounding the analog speedo gauge– to show instant fuel economy, etc. It’s good marketing to make hybrid drivers feel like they have a special car (i.e. the Prius’ space cadet interior).
- The Fusion’s cabin will be improved. I’ve tossed in one of KGP/Jalopnik’s spy photos of the Fusion’s refreshed interior into the gallery. SYNC will be available with or without the nav system.
Posted in Future Vehicles | Hybrid | News Blog | 19 comments
2010 Lexus RX Images Leaked
By Justin BerkowitzOctober 29, 2008 -
Or not actually leaked. But since these are crappy photos of a brochure, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was an actual mistake, rather than covert PR work. Nevertheless, thanks to our friend Mr. Neff at Autoblog, we can see ‘em. And on the basis of the blurry photos of photos, I think the next generation RX looks merely ok on the outside, and just awful on the inside. The pursuit of spaceship interiors continues, which will make Barrett-Jackon’s 2050 joint auction of the 2010 Lexus RX450h alongside a 1961 Impala SS.
Posted in Future Vehicles | Hybrid | News Blog | 7 comments
Ford’s F-150 Guy Calls GM Hybrid Pickups, SUVs “A Publicity Stunt”
By Robert FaragoOctober 27, 2008 -
Ford truck marketing manager Doug Scott had a little chin wag with Automotive News [sub]. No surprise there, given that the Blue Oval Boyz have just unveiled the new F-150 (recently reviewed on TTAC by our own JB). Nor are Scott’s opening comments about Ford’s full-size pickup startling in any way, shape or manner. Improved access to the bedside (via steps), rear-hinged doors gone because nobody gave a flip about the old version’s flip-out doors, yada yada yada. And then Dougie launches a salvo at The General’s plans to introduce a gas - electric full-size pickup, after the dismal failure of its hybrid full-size SUVs. “It is a publicity stunt,” Doug says, firing the first barrel. “It is no different than what you are seeing with their large SUVs,” he clarifies, loosing the second chamber. Reload. “They are not selling any Tahoe and Yukon hybrids.” Bang. “It’s about something to advertise.” Bang. And now, the knife… “In our case, we chose to have a democratization of technology like EcoBoost. Get more fuel efficiencies out there in mass and volume to as many people as you can, rather than focus all this energy on a very limited application that isn’t going to be really appealing to many people.” So much for that, then.
Posted in Hybrid | News Blog | Sales | 15 comments
Toyota: Sales Stumble, Stock Tumbles, Prius Gets Ready to Rumble
By Robert FaragoOctober 25, 2008 -
The Financial Times reports that Toyota’s suffered its first quarterly sales decline “since the months after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, underscoring that even Japan’s biggest carmaker will not escape the worldwide motor industry slump.” Uh, shouldn’t that be the world’s largest automaker? Anyway, ToMoCo global sales were yanked downwards by America’s carmageddon, falling by 4.3 per cent to 2.236m vehicles. As you might expect, the aforementioned worldwide collapse has hit Toyota’s share price hard. The AP reports that Japanese stockholders holding shares in export-heavy domestics are running for the exits, propelled by a soaring yen. “The U.S. dollar… plunged below 93 yen, a 13-year low, as traders reacted to dismal U.S. jobs data that spurred speculation the Federal Reserve might cut interest rates. The combination of the two — the yen’s surge and Sony’s revision — unnerved investors in Tokyo, who dumped shares of exporters like Toyota, Sony and Panasonic.” On the positive side, Toyota’s U.S. Prius production is sending jobs stateside. The Clarion Ledger reports that Mississippi is getting ready to welcome its sixth Prius-related supplier. “Toyota Tsusho America will open a joint venture steel processing facility on the Toyota site.”
Posted in High Finance | Hybrid | News Blog | Sales | 8 comments
POWERED