Nissan now has a zero emissions van that you’ll be able to buy in a couple years -if that’s what you’re into. We won’t judge. Either way, the company seems to be creating a brand identity for its electric vehicles.

Notice how there are vague cues that harken to the Nissan Leaf in the e-NV200′s styling? That’s not a coincidence. Creating this sort of common look between the Leaf and e-NV200 is certainly intentional, and don’t be surprised to see it on future Nissan EVs. It worked for Toyota and the Prius, so of course Nissan is going to try it out here. No details about cost, powertrain or anything worthwhile were announced, just that Nissan will be building it at the same Barcelona plant as the standard NV, and 700 workers will be hired.

The Subaru Tribeca, aka “The Flying Vagina“, aka the car that really got things going for TTAC, is due to die after the 2013 model year.

With Subaru selling a little under 3000 Tribecas every year, the SUV’s death warrant has all but been signed. Subaru will keep selling the car through the 2013 model year, but after that, it may disappear from the lineup.

Between the Outback, Forester and the upcoming XV, the thirsty, 6-cylinder Tribeca is basically redundant. At least it’s no longer ugly. Of course, such an integral part of TTAC lore deserves a fitting send off. Perhaps once the official word rolls around, both the staff and readers can come up with some sort of fitting farewell.

Reports of a next-generation Cadillac Escalade, due in 2014 after a brush with the Grim Reaper, have us asking the all-important question; what was GM thinking in trying to kill the car off in the first place?

The Escalade is, without a shadow of a doubt, the Cadillac brand. Sorry, the CTS-V isn’t it, and the XTS is destined to become something that you ride in the back seat of when you get dropped off at the airport.

The SRX may just be a generic GM crossover with Cadillac styling, but the Escalade is even more cynical. It’s just a Yukon with a few plastic Cadillac bits. And yet, it is the core product of Cadillac, offering irresistible profit margins and peerless name recognition.

Why GM wanted to kill it off is an utter mysery. Even with gas prices at record highs, the Escalade could still have lived on as a status symbol for the vulgar and ostentatious. GM claims that the margins on the Escalade were too fat to walk away from, but let’s be real for a second. Killing off the Escalade would mean that Cadillac would flounder, Lincoln-style, with a bunch of product that can’t quite hold its own next to the foreign competition that Cadillac is so desperately trying to fight.

The fact is that Cadillac needs this truck in the same way that it needs to stop trying to sit at the same lunch table as the cool kids. The Escalade, awful as it may be, is American luxury. Big, bold, over-the-top, profligate and firmly in opposition to everything the cap-and-goggles throttle-steer crowd stands for. Beyond that, the Escalade is an important halo vehicle for a lot of buyers reared on hip-hop music, many of whom are the target customer for the ATS (hey, even MCA of the Beastie Boys was pushing 50). Kill it off and what’s left? The SRX? Well, I’ll let ODB tell you what I think of that one (NSFW language)

An interview in July’s Automobile magazine has Sergio Marchionne putting to rest a number of future product plans for Chrysler, among them, the definitive fate of the minivan.

Speculation has been brewing over which of the current minivan twins will live on, and which will be come a crossover. Sergio himself claims that “the owner of the minivan is Dodge”, and that the new Grand Caravan will be a more exciting vehicle, despite retaining the classic minivan features. The Town & Country will become a Mercedes R-Class type vehicle that will be more European luxury than updated Chrysler Pacifica. A range of 4-cylinder and V6 engines as well as front and all-wheel drive will be available for both vehicles when they launch around 2015.

The next Chrysler 200 will be based on the same architecture as the Dodge Dart (i.e. the Alfa Giulietta platform) and be sized roughly in line with the Audi A4. A sedan, coupe and convertible will all be available, with 4 and 6-cylinder options. Chrysler will continue to provide vehicles for Lancia, but the brand’s future seems dim, with Marchionne expressing little interest in investing resources into Lancia. The Chrysler 100 hatch will take a while to appear – Automobile cites a launch date of 2016, which seems like far too long.

Jeep is considered by Marchionne to be one of the two “global brands” (along with Alfa Romeo), and Marchionne says that all future products will have a Trail Rated version. The new Liberty, based on the Giulietta architecture, will launch in Detroit next year, with a host of other products to follow. Among them are a new “Jeepster” (a subcompact with an Alfa version), a new Compass and a full-size SUV dubbed the “Grand Wagoneer”.

Dodge will lose the Durango, Avenger and Caliber as Marchionne seeks to trim the brand lineups to around 5 vehicles each, while Fiat will continue along with a 500-based lineup, including a 500 Zagato, 500L, 500XL (presumably the 7-seat version) and the 500X crossover, similar to the Mini Countryman. And finally, Marchionne says more is coming from SRT. The article doesn’t quote him on anything, but suggests SRT versions of the Dart, Journey and a possible SRT Barracuda that could also give way to a new Alfa sedan using the same platform. Marchionne did stress that the Dodge muscle cars need to evolve, rather than re-invent themselves. As far as accuracy goes, the article more or less confirmed the MX-5 based Alfa Spider, and was presumably written long before the announcement was made. Hopefully the rest is just as accurate.

When new car sales will be announced on June 1, sales could be up by 30 percent, thinks Kelley Blue Book. When sales approach 1.4 million units, or 14.2 million seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR) in May, Kelley expects GM and Ford to underperform the market, while Toyota could nearly double its sales and surpass Ford in market share.

These projections are based on real time sales data, but they remain projections until the real and hopefully true data come in. One of the reasons for the big jump are two additional selling days in May, and a strong Memorial day weekend.

Sales and market share projections, May 2012, Kelley Blue Book

Toyota and Honda are expected to be up strongly. In May last year, inventory shortages from the earthquake in Japan became a factor. In May 2011, Toyota was down 33 percent, Honda 23 percent. Both are back with a vengeance. Kelley sees Toyota nearly double its May 2011 sales, and expects Honda sales to rise by more than 50 percent.

While GM and Ford are expected to underperform the market with a sales gain around 10 percent, Chrysler is seen continuing its race to the top with a plus of nearly 40 percent.

General Motors, Ford and (surprise) Hyundai are expected to lose market share. Toyota is seen gaining 5 percent of share.

Optimism sure ain’t what it used to be. Introducing its latest survey of auto industry executives [PDF], Booz & Co. proclaims that “optimism is skyrocketing,” and that “a new wave of optimism is overtaking the U.S. auto industry.” They’re not wrong, but for those used to the pre-bailout days of unabashed optimism dressed up as analysis, the “new optimism” is remarkably guarded. And it’s all relative to the pessimism that was beginning to set in when the industry began to realize that the “old optimism” was wildly at odds with the slow-motion market recovery.

So, just how optimistic is the “new optimism”? Which companies have the most reason for optimism? What do industry executives worry about most? When do they expect a Chinese invasion? The answers to these questions and more after the jump.

The “somewhat better” scenario that industry execs tell Booz is defining their business planning looks something like this graph. Overall, 86% of suppliers and OEMs expect auto sales growth to be consistent with GDP growth. This steady market growth outlook puts a premium on market share growth, and the execs polled certainly seem to have strong opinions on that front:

This chart is amazing to me. Clearly the US industry is terrified of two automakers: VW/Audi and Hyundai/Kia. More executives think VW will gain share than think Nissan, Honda, GM or Chrysler will gain or maintain their market share, and the optimism around Hyundai/Kia is straight-up out of control. It’s almost as if auto execs are haunted in their sleep every night by hipster hamsters and the disembodied voice of Jeff Bridges repeating the words “forty miles per gallon” over and over in a congenially bemused voice.

And where do executives think success comes from? Product, product, product. After all, market growth may be slow, but companies expect their revenue to rise. Cost, inventory and pricing discipline can deliver improved profit in a low sales growth environment, but only if the product sells itself.

Meanwhile, 55% of the OEM executives polled say their companies are “capacity constrained” and 36% say they are comfortable with current capacity. As sales rise slowly, higher capacity utilization will  help drive the revenue improvements the industry sees. Once again, as long as the product is good and discipline can be maintained.

And though 69% identified current product portfolio as a top-three driver of growth in 2012, only 17% expect their current portfolio to turn in a “strong performance” vis-a-vis the competition, with 44% expecting a “good performance.” Cost position and financial position are two factors that could always be better from an executive’s position, but the fact that 26% of execs say customer experience and relationship performance could be “poor” or “very poor” is worrying.

Meanwhile, all the talk of price and capacity discipline and improving profit rather than buying market share will only last as long as there’s no major effort to break into the US market. But by 2020, 32% of auto execs expect Chinese manufacturers to have broken into between four and eight percent of the market. By attacking the low end of the market and aggressively trying to buy a foothold in the US market, Chinese firms hold the potential to wreck the disciplined, realistic “new optimism” by putting severe pressure on pricing discipline.

For now, though, the automakers in the US market seems to be settling into a quiet phase of profit-taking rather than adventurous market share grabs. Clearly there’s a sense of having learned tough lessons from the auto bailout, and from the ongoing capacity issues in Europe. But rather than focusing on bailout-era lessons as they did last year, Booz’s 2012-specific questions now center on dealing with “black swan” events like last year’s tsunami and Thai floods. All of which adds to the overall perception that automakers are playing defense, concentrating on profits and hedging against uncertainty.

According to Booz & Co.: Two hundred and eight automotive executives from more than 75 automotive vehicle manufacturers and suppliers participated in the online survey. Thirty-two percent of the respondents were employees of OEMs, and 68 percent work for auto parts suppliers. Three-quarters of the executives were from U.S.-based firms. More than 50 percent of respondents were VP level or above.

Nobody said it would be easy to sell a rebadged American large car in America, but with the recent economic hammering that Italy and other countries have endured, the market for the Lancia Thema, a rebadged Chrysler 300, is suffering in Italy and the rest of Europe.

Italy enacted a luxury tax on January 1st that will be slapped on vehicles making 252 horsepower or more. Buyers of the Thema would have to pay 500 euro per year due to its 285 horsepower rating. Even though a tax-exempt diesel version is offered, the Thema is faring poorly, along with the rest of the large car market, which is down 75 percent compared to 2011. The Thema is selling 25 percent of what was expected

Two other Lancia vehicles that began life as Chryslers are seeing mixed results. The Lancia Voyager, a rebadged Chrysler Town & Country, is suffering because its traditional client base, like hotel operators, are holding off due to economic uncertainty. The Fiat Fremont, a rebadged Dodge Journey, is doing fairly well, due to a bigger marketing presence, a sticker price 20 percent cheaper than its predecessor and available all-wheel drive. The Fremont should hit its sales targets this year if sales can be sustained at current pace.

Automotive News posted a picture of a Kia K9 luxury sedan wearing manufacturer plates on the road near Orange County, California. Does that mean we’re due to get the K9 any time soon?

Once upon a time, my father worked for Kia Canada, and the company’s head office had a frequent rotation of Korean market cars sent over for evaluation. Some, like the Carens, made it over under a different name, while others, like the Enterprise, were merely showpieces for what Kia could do with a re-skinned, decade old Mazda platform. Nevertheless, I wanted an Enterprise, complete with back massagers and headrest mounted TV screens.

The K9 could very well make it here, depending on Kia’s push to bring themselves upmarket. It would need a new name, lest it evoke visions of Iams pet food and invasive, racially motivated vehicle searches. Unfortunately, a piece of forbidden fruit wearing Manufacturer plates is not always a reliable indicator of future product plans.

With a new Volvo XC90 finally getting a re-design in 2014 (after 12 years on the market!), the old platform, like so many old European cars, will move on to become a Chinese market car – though Geely has grand aspirations for the venerable Swedish SUV.

Volvo signed the XC90 platform over to Geely, their Chinese owners, back in March. Geely already has a “premium” brand called Emgrand, but the XC90 will be used to launch yet another premium line. Despite its advanced age, the XC90 outsold competitors like the Land Rover LR4, Volkswagen Touraeg and Audi Q7 last year. Perhaps the old dog has a fair amount of life left in it.

Well, it was bound to happen. The ugly step-child of the Lexus lineup, the HS250h, is dead. And the too-tall corpse has been decomposing for quite some time.

Toyota told Inside Line

“Production of the HS 250h ceased in January, 2012. Lexus continues to monitor sales for each product and we make adjustments to make sure that we meet market demand, and the discontinuation of HS was part of that adjustment. The ES 300h is not replacing HS in our lineup. It’s merely part of the hybridization of many of our existing vehicles in the Toyota and Lexus lineups.”

Sales of the HS dropped 74 percent in 2011, and with the ES300h and the CT200h, Lexus has all their bases covered in the hybrid car market covered. The fact that the HS250h has been dead for nearly 6 months without anyone noticing is a bit pathetic. If it had “Prius” in its name, it might have done a bit better. Perhaps this is proof that even a bulletproof nameplate like Lexus can’t just slap a hybrid system into any old crap and expect it to sell.

Ford has priced their C-Max MPV with a base sticker of $25,995, or $555 less than its main rival, the Toyota Prius V.

Ford claims that the C-Max has a few more cubic feet of cargo room, as well as a taller roofline than the Prius V for more headroom. Features like MyFordTouch will be offered as standard.

Ford expects the C-Max to best the Prius V in fuel economy as well, but figures weren’t announced. Also conspicuously absent was pricing for the C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid – which Ford claims can beat the fuel economy of the Prius Plug-In. The base C-Max uses the 2.0L Atkinson cycle engine and hybrid powertrain similar to the Ford Fusion Hybrid.

Yesterday, we brought you the bad news about European auto sales in April. You are a gearhead, you don’t care about market share and percentiles, you care about cars! Here is how cars fared in Europe in April. Are you safely buckled-up?

It’s a carnage in Europe’s Top Ten, brought to you by JATO Dynamics. Forget about the EU market tanking by 6.9 percent. If your name is Martin Winterkorn and your bread and butter models were euro-trashed by the double digits, then your white hair will turn a little whiter.

The performance of Opel’s supposed volume models also is no reason for joy. Ford’s offerings hang in there with the overall market.

As we get into the summer months, this is likely to get worse. Keep those belts on.

Our own Michael Karesh will be testing out Nissan’s new Altima this week. This is the car that Nissan is hoping will take the Altima from its current second place slot in the mid-size segment and up to the top of the pile. In lieu of Michael’s take, there are a few factors that are worth looking at.

The Altima’s reign as the beta wolf among mid-size sedans was helped along by the tsunami, which saw companies like Honda and Toyota have their production schedules become severely disrupted. The Altima’s combination of strong incentives, adequate supply and a lower MSRP than non-Japanese competitors like the Hyundai Sonata (Hyundai is known to try to keep the transaction prices of their cars higher than other OEMs, while reducing incentives and dealer discounts) helped it vault ahead in the sales ranking and shed its also-ran status.

But the Altima will need to keep improving and growing sales at an inopportune time – a new Camry is on sale, and new versions of the Chevrolet Malibu, Ford Fusion and Honda Accord just around the corner, the 2013 Altima will face an incredibly tough field. So far, the Camry is outselling the Altima in 2012 by about 30,000 units, while the Altima has a nearly 16,000 unit lead on the third place Honda Accord. In fourth place is the aging Ford Fusion.

Nissan execs are stating that “We didn’t put all of the investment into this product and put in all the features with an expectation to be No. 2,” but as we all know, putting your best foot forward in this industry is not a reliable indicator of sales success.

Even as GM abandons Facebook advertising because of a poor ROI, Ford is going full steam ahead with Facebook spending and including more “sponsored stories” – i.e. cheesy advertorial content – as part of their “accelerated” spending. The problem is that it doesn’t work.

Ford’s social media head Scott Monty told Automotive News

“We’ve found that Facebook ads are very effective, and they’re most effective when we strategically combine them with great content and innovative forms of storytelling rather than a straight media buy,”

As we’ve seen with Ford before, lots of clicks, likes and other vague metrics under the vague “impressions” umbrella end up doing dick all to actually sell your product. The only Fiesta Movement occurring is a downward trend in sales, while the Focus lags behind Corolla, Cruze and Civic in its own segment.

In 2009, Jalopnik nailed it when it asked if all of Ford’s resources spent on social media and their SM guru Scott Monty really helped sell any cars.

I’d wager that based on the piss-poor numbers for Facebook ad click rates, the ability for internet-savvy users to block out advertising and the overall cynicism of consumers for even the most elaborate, narrative-driven advertising, that Ford is mis-allocating their ad dollars on Facebook, and with canned-advertorial reality shows like what were they thinking Escape Routes, a new reality show designed to promote the 2013 Escape.  Who in their right mind is going to spend half an hour watching this show? Take that money and find a way to go to every supermarket in areas where a small crossover is in demand (hint, they have Obama-Biden stickers on their CR-Vs) and let them know what you can open the tailgate by sweeping your foot under the bumper. More likely, it seems that these initiatives, undertaken by a number of OEMs beyond Ford, are what Ray Wert described as

“…another example of the dark side of “social media” — the masturbatory echo chamber re-twitting the same tweets …of the same piece of garbage over and over again to the same social media “gurus.”

Let’s go back to the Fiesta. Sales are in the toilet. Yet Ford seems enthralled with their apparently cutting edge marketing scheme that got 3.4 million Twitter “impressions” and 6.5 million collective Youtube views between the 700 videos produced by their team of 100 agents. To put that in perspective, a friend of mine directed a video for a B-List rapper who was a one-hit viral video wonder and it currently has 34 million views with basically zero promotional budget. By comparison, the number of views for the Fiesta Movement videos is laughable.

Any success that comes from Ford’s latest products will be in spite of whatever social media campaigns they end up running. Nothing short of shrewd product placement or simply having your vehicle out on the street will be truly effective in promoting the new Escape, or Fusion or any car really. A 110 x 100 pixel ad featuring a thumbnail image of a car and 90 characters of text isn’t going to snare anyone in, no matter how gripping the “story” about the car may be. Leaving a 2013 Fusion parked in a prime spot somewhere downtown and letting pedestrians do a double take to stop and look at “that four-door Aston…no, wait, it’s a Ford” costs $15 in parking fees and is sure to get them talking. Even if they don’t like cars, they know someone who does, and they will ask about “that new car I saw on the street”. I can tell you anecdotally that it happens all the time. It’s not worth much, but it’s worth more than a few million “impressions”.

Happy 28th birthday, Mark Zuckerberg. Your baby is about to go public, but GM still had to rain on your parade by pulling their advertising from Facebook because GM ad men didn’t think it was effective.

The Wall Street Journal explains the move

“GM, started to re-evaluate its Facebook strategy earlier this year after its marketing team began to question the effectiveness of the ads. GM marketing executives, including Mr. Ewanick, met with Facebook managers to address concerns about the site’s effectiveness and left unconvinced advertising on the website made sense, according to people familiar with GM’s thinking.“

GM is said to spend (or, have spent) about $40 million per year on maintaining a Facebook presence, but only a quarter of that went to advertising. The remainder goes to creating content like fan pages and other social media initiatives, which will still continue. GM’s digital marketing guru Joel Ewanick told the WSJ that he still sees value in these programs, and a statement from GM obtained by Reuters re-affirmed their commitment to this side of the marketing equation.

As much as GM gets singled out in this column, GM may be doing something right in terms of both budgeting and strategy. One report claims that 57 percent of respondents have never clicked on a Facebook ad. For young people who have grown up next to online content and advertising, this number is undoubtedly much higher. This demographic sees these kinds of ads more as background noise than anything of value – or, as marketers would say, “a way to forge an authentic connection with the brand and enter into a conversation with the consumer.”

The bigger leap of faith for GM, and a number of OEMs, is to refine how they interact with consumers via social media. What do Facebook “likes” or Twitter followers really mean in concrete terms? The field of social media has impacted many of us in positive ways, but it’s also create a disproportionate number of charlatan “social gurus” who pitch their dubious knowledge to companies that are afraid of getting left in the dust if the let their Twitter or Facebook pages lie dormant. Ford likes to cite how many millions of “impressions” the Fiesta Movement program got, but sales of the Fiesta have given Ford little reason to throw a party. In fact, GM’s apparently ineffective Facebook campaigns have helped the Cruze outsell the Focus in 2011 (though the Focus is ahead through April, 2012), while the Sonic (which only went on sale last fall) is outselling the Fiesta through April, 2012.

Tout them all you want, but “likes”, “retweets” and “impressions” (perhaps the most ill-defined of them all) are empty metrics that sound great when trying to justify one’s absurd consulting fees, but don’t translate into good products or good profits, the two things that make the automotive world go ’round. Then again, cognitive dissonance is a powerful force.

This story really has bigger implications for Facebook than GM. GM is the third biggest spender on ad dollars in the USA. Their exit may not harm Facebook in the short term, but if big institutional clients keep dropping out, then Zuckerberg’s baby may see some compromised revenue streams. I’m going to take this as a sign of positive changes for GM. Maybe they’re starting to take a closer look at the social media mania that’ stricken other OEMs and realize that it has to be done right, or you will lose them forever. And by them, I mean the people you are trying to bring in, and targeting with marketing initiatives that really need to be axed right this second.

Chery has asked the Chinese government for its blessing regarding a joint venture with Jaguar Land Rover worth $1.9 billion.

The proposal calls for a new plant in the Jiangsu province that would produce as many as 130,000 cars per year. Chinese government officials will have to perform an environmental assessment before the plant goes ahead. Approval from the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s main governmental economic body, will also be required

Chery recently saw plans for a tie-up with Subaru go belly-up, but an agreement with JLR combined with China’s appetite for luxury vehicles and SUVs should help take the sting out. Jaguar will need to help make some of its product more attractive for China – a V6 engine has been cited as a must-have for the XJ due to taxation reasons.

With Opel’s fortunes in the toilet and Chevrolet vehilces gaining ground in Europe, Opel brass are looking at an obvious solution – stop building Chevrolet products in South Korea and start building them in Europe.

Opel CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke told the New York Times that

“We are in talks with our colleagues in Detroit and Shanghai to find out whether we can build Chevrolet vehicles in Europe, to improve utilization of capacity,” 

The article touches on the many familiar Opel problems – the need to close factories, excessive capacity, staggering losses (Q1 2012 saw Opel lose $300 million), but the Chevrolet solution won’t be an umbrella cure of Opel’s ills. Building Cruzes and Sonics (or Aveos, as they’re known) in Europe brings to light whether the cost advantage of building in South Korea can be maintained.

Opel is also looking to export markets, like Latin America, Australia and the Middle East for growth, but given the popularity of brands like Chevrolet and Holden in those markets, is there room for yet another sort-of premium brand when established GM nameplates and more prestigious European marques are already fighting it out in their respective spheres?

If anything, the way out of this mess may be the PSA alliance. GM puts Russelsheim to use by twinning the Citroen C5 and Opel Insignia, while PSA uses their excess capacity at the Rennes plant (just like Opel, PSA’s unions fear the closure of the factory) to build the Zafira/Picasso/Peugeot MPV. Meanwhile, mum’s the word over at PSA headquarters. That would allow Astra production to be sent to a lower-cost facility in Poland, and England, where the Astra is a key product for Vauxhall.

The surprising malaise is elsewhere, further east, much further east.

In China, Porsche sold a mere 0.9 percent more than in April last year. In Europe, bankers and brokers turned their dwindling bonus payments into 13.1 percent more Porsches. In Germany, Porsche sales climbed a baffling 21.5 percent.

January through April, Chinese sales are still up 26.7 percent, but Porsche is quickly losing its Middle Kingdom moxie. Last month in China, Porsches seem to have gone out of style. Porsche had a huge recall of Cayennes in March, delayed reaction perhaps?

However, Porsche receives huge kudos for delivering its numbers in a spin-free, easy to read table, an example all automakers should follow. Any temporary weaknesses in China are quickly forgiven by this reporter as long as the numbers are delivered in an easy to use manner.

Toyota’s sales forecast of 220,000 Prius models forecast looks like a lowball number now that Toyota has moved 86,000 examples of the hybrid from January to the end of April. Sales of the Prius V and Prius c have helped the nameplate see a 56 percent rise year over year, and now Toyota is clamoring for more units – but it may not get them.

Rising gas prices and new government incentives in Japan may create a situation where Toyota’s US arm may not be able to get enough Prius models. Bob Carter, Toyota’s US sales head, told Just Auto

“We’re tracking well ahead of [220,000]. I’ve ordered additional production. I’m confident we’ll get additional production but globally we’re seeing high demand, particularly in Japan.”

Aside from the Prius V and Prius c, the new plug-in Prius has been enjoying fairly brisk sales despite its reduced EV-only range compared to some other plug-in vehicles. But American appetites for the Prius, whatever you may think of it, apparently aren’t being satiated. Stateside Prius production can’t come soon enough for Toyota.

With a new Citroen C5 due in 2016, production of the mid-size Citroen will shift from PSA’s Rennes plant to an undisclosed Opel facility. A French car, built by Germans – eat your heart out, Clemens.

The move comes as part of the General Motors-PSA alliance, which sees cars like the C5 and Opel Insignia sharing a GM derived platform, while PSA contributes small car knowledge for the next Citroen C3 and Opel Corsa.

Union officials in France have long maintained that Rennes will be closed, and point to a dwindling workforce – cut in half from just three years ago – as evidence that PSA plans to shutter the plant. But the head of the factory recently told a local newspaper that a 40 million euro investment was planned for the site, which also builds the Citroen C5 and Peugeot 508.

With a planned Chinese joint-venture between Chery and Subaru now really, honestly dead in the water, Subaru will look to the United States for sales growth, while importing cars to China for the next few years.

As part of its America-focused future, Subaru will expand its sales goal to 380,000 units per year in the United States by the end of the 2016 fiscal year. Subaru sold 264,198 cars in American in 2011. Production facilities in both Japan and the United States may also be expanded as part of the plan.

With the collapse of the Chery deal, Subaru will be forced to import vehicles to China, and have their cars subject to a 25 percent import duty. Subaru said that Chinese manufacturing would be difficult to establish until the end of their 5-year plan in 2016, but that stipulation likely means that the door hasn’t been completely shut on Chinese Subaru production at a future date.

Vehicle sales in China were up a tepid 5.19 percent in April, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) reports. From January to April, overall auto sales, including passenger cars and commercial vehicles, fell 1.33 percent year-on-year to 6.42 million units. Want better news? No problem!

Many news outlets, such as the Wall Street Journal or Fox News report an April increase of 12.5 percent. Technically correct, but misleading. The 12.5 percent are for passenger vehicles only. Sales of commercial vehicles on the other hand dropped a steep 15 percent in April, resulting in a bottom-line growth of 5.19 percent.

The numbers show that just counting passenger vehicles would be a big mistake in China, just like it would be foolish to ignore “trucks” in the U.S. One in five motorvehicles sold in China is classified as a “commercial” vehicle. Many of the “commercial” vehicles are multipurpose vehicles, used to haul vegetables during the day and the family after work. If you want to get a feel for the market, you need to look at all vehicles.

The continuous drop in commercial sales in China is disconcerting. In any market, this would point to a worsening business climate. In China, it does that also, and it reflects that the lower brackets of the market are increasingly reluctant to buy. The newly rich still have money, Audi April sales in China for instance were up 44 percent at 34,221 units.

China-branded cars continue to lose market share. January to April, their combined market share dropped to 42.3 percent, down 3.2 points.

In light of the general market, the performance of GM is confusing. Until recently, GM was a good proxy for the Chinese market. Not anymore. Sales of passenger cars in China are up, even more so amongst the joint ventures. In the same month, Shanghai GM’s sales drop 2.2 percent. On the other hand, sales of Wulings explode, while the market for commercial vehicles collapses. Strange.

A leaked spec sheet (from Temple of VTEC)  for the 2013 Honda Accord shows that manuals aren’t dead yet, but CVTs are also in – at least for 4 cylinder models.

The CVT will replace Honda’s automatic transmission for 4-cylinder Accords, while V6 cars will retain the option of a 6-speed automatic gearbox. The 6-speed manual will be offered on all 4-cylinder sedans save for the EX-L. V6 sedans will be available only with the automatic, while 4-cylinder and V6 coupes can be had with the stick shift. Those who want a two pedal coupe can choose from a 4-cylinder and a CVT or a V6 with the automatic.

Also available for 2013 is a “Sport” trim level on the sedan, which will ostensibly compete with the Toyota Camry SE. The Sport will be available with either a manual or CVT gearbox. V6 models have a cryptically named “TRG” package – perhaps it stands for “Touring”?

The Kia Sedona is practically a fossil from a previous geological era compared to its American and Japanese competition – and for 2013, the aging Sedona will finally die off. But that doesn’t mean Kia is abandoning the minivan market.

According to Kia, the Sedona will die in 2013, but the 2014 model year will bring about a new minivan from Kia, which wants to keep a dog in a fight that was abandoned by parent company Hyundai, which sold their Entourage minivan for a brief period in the 2000′s. Hopefully the new car rides on a much newer platform and shares styling and components with the new Kia Optima. The current Sedona is a holdout from the days when you bought a Kia because of poor credit, rather than out of your own free will.

For the 11^th straight month in a row, Toyota’s Prius topped the list of Japan’s best-selling cars in April. Toyota’s new compact hybrid, the Aqua, known in the U.S. as the Prius c, was a close second.

Honda’s N-Box mini vehicle came third, followed by Honda’s Fit and a cast of mini vehicles.

The table was compiled from data provided by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association and the Japan Mini Vehicles Association. Separately reported imports are not included in this list.