#Industry

The Ford Fiesta looks to be picking up and moving from its current assembly locations in India and Mexico to a central location in Thailand when the next generation rolls around in 2016.

One of the bigger stories of 2013 has so far managed to escape the news cycle. I’m not exactly sure why Nissan’s announcement of significant reductions on the MSRP of new cars hasn’t gotten more coverage, but I’m also not 100 percent sure of Nissan’s motives either.

The latest round of bad news regarding the Australian domestic auto industry has shifted TTAC’s attention to Canada, another country burdened with some similar issues. If Australia’s own car industry is getting hammered, then how much longer does Canada have?

Jac Nasser, the former head of Ford, is warning that Australia’s car industry has passed the point of no return, and expects to see it die within the next few years.

Honda’s 2014 Odyssey doesn’t have any of the stuff that enthusiasts care about. Never mind the fact that it’s a minivan, but there’s no powertrain upgrades or shiny rims for its midcycle refresh. But you know what it does have? A vacuum cleaner. Honda partnered with ShopVac to create a vacuum cleaner for the Odyssey, one that can run indefinitely with the engine on, or for as long as 8 minutes with the engine off. If you have small children or pets, this is a god send. I won’t label it a game changer or say that Honda is about to dominate the minivan market, but it is going to sell a lot of buyers on the showroom floor when they see this.

Upon receipt of a multi-billion dollar loan from the Canadian government, General Motors signed a “Vitality Commitment”, essentially a covenant in the loan agreement between GM and Canada’s government, which guaranteed that a certain amount of GM’s North American production would remain in Canada. That number is widely reported as being 16 percent, while page F-69 of GM’s IPO filings outlines that the covenant is valid until GM repays its loan commitments or until December 31, 2016, whichever comes later.

While Oshawa has widely regarded as one of GM’s best plants in terms of producing high-quality vehicles, the future of GM’s Oshawa plant is looking increasingly bleak.

A weakening yen and a rebounding economy have occurred just in time for Honda. The auto maker is opening its first new Japanese plant in 49 years, bucking a trend by Japanese auto makers of opening new plants in every locale but Japan.

Less than a day after PSA announced their new EMP2 modular platform for C and D Segment cars, TTAC was already questioning the health of the seemingly moribund GM-PSA alliance for medium and large-size cars. Now, we have an answer – Opel will be adopting EMP2.

Our NAIAS preview post revealed a common theme of dissatisfaction with the slow-striptease style of product reveals, where manufacturers “leak” teaser shots ad nauseam in the run-up to a product launch. It seems the readers are tired of it, and frankly, I am too. So what’s to be done about it?

Continental Europe’s car sales may be in the toilet, but the UK’s new car market was up 5.3 percent in 2012, with the Ford Fiesta leading the sales charts.

Renault’s Algerian plant became a done deal Thursday, with production beginning in mid-2014, which will see the French auto maker become the sole passenger car builder in the North African state.

The big auto news on Twitter this morning – Lincoln is now known as “Lincoln Motor Company”, and they’ll be rolling out the name change with a brand new Superbowl ad. That’s great, but where’s the product?

A struggling domestic auto industry long past its glory days of big rear-drive sedans is at an existential cross-roads. An upcoming election may decide the fate of thousands of jobs and decades of motoring history. Sound familiar? The madness of America’s election is over, but the same scenario is playing out in Australia.

Wondering when the automatic gearbox arms race will end? 8 speeds? 9 speeds? Even 10 speed gearboxes have been thrown out as grist for the automotive rumor mill, but one exec apparently has the answer.