Nancap

* Honda says car production suspended until end of week * Toyota having trouble securing parts * Japan car industry should get full idea of parts-supply network by mid-Apr – WSJ * CEO Ghosn says wants full production at Iwaki engine factory by early June (Updates with Toyota plan) By Chang-Ran Kim and Kentaro Sugiyama [...]

HIROSHIMA, Japan — Mazda is suspending U.S. dealer orders for seven vehicles made in Japan in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake. They are the Mazda 2, Mazda 3, Mazda 5, Mazda MX-5, Mazda RX-8, Mazda CX-7 and Mazda CX-9, Mazda confirmed for Inside Line on Monday. The Mazda 6 and the Mazda Tribute [...]

Ford Canada recently invited journalists to the Quebec City area for their 2011 Ford Explorer Canadian Winter Experience. We had a day and a half of driving the allnew Explorer while sampling traditionalQuébécoiscuisine and taking in the gorgeous landscape of the Charlevoix mountains and St. Lawrence River. Dry roads and lots of snow in the [...]

Sony Corp. (6758) and Nissan Motor Co. prepared to resume production at some factories in Japan, as manufacturers sought to recover after the nation’s strongest earthquake on record forced them to shut plants. Sony plans to restart a factory that makes rechargeable batteries in Tochigi prefecture, northern Japan, from March 22, Hiroshi Okubo, a Tokyo-based [...]

Sitting in a movie theater a few weeks ago sleepily waiting for the previews to begin, a sleek add jolted me to my senses. It was an advertisement for the latest cars built by Saab, supposedly the automobile brand that had vanished due to bankruptcy. The last this writer heard about Saab was that General [...]

Automakers Honda will suspend orders his Japanese-made cars to dealers in the United States in May. This is following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that occurred on Friday last week. As reported by the Associated Press, recently, car manufacturers told Honda and Acura dealerships in the U.S. in an electronic mail or e-mail that [...]

Whatever happened to Volvo? That is a question that many fans of the Swedish car brand, virtually synonymous with safe driving, are asking these days as the company grapples with a comeback under new ownership by a Chinese car company. The brand’s changing image and decline has happened almost imperceptibly over the last decade. Consider [...]

TORONTO — A thief posing as a cop pulled over a Porsche in Campbellville, Ont., and then roared off in the high-end sports car. The driver of the Porsche was flagged down by a man in a medium-size sedan with a blue flashing light, in the community about 63 km southwest of Toronto. The driver [...]

Should Steven Hantler ever decide to pursue a career in politics, he will make a formidable speaker out on the stump. The veteran litigator, an assistant general counsel for DaimlerChrysler, displays a natural gift for bombast. Especially when discussing his favorite issue—class-action lawsuits and the plaintiffs’ attorneys who bring them—he can hurl stinging sound bites [...]

Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally touted the automaker’s investment of about $900 million in its two Louisville factories Tuesday night, calling the city the “center of excellence” for a new lineup of vehicles. Speaking to the Greater Louisville Inc. annual dinner at the KFC Yum! Center downtown, Mulally said the current $600 million makeover [...]

For years, the Honda Civic has stood as the gold standard for small, fun-to-drive cars. Recently, however, C-segment competition has started to heat up, and Honda is facing some serious competition from the likes of Hyundai. Yes, Hyundai; don’t laugh. We were recently given an opportunity to spend time behind the wheel of Hyundai’s all-new [...]

Honda has told its dealers to be on the lookout in 2008-2009 Accords for the same spiders that caused Mazda last week to recall 65,000 Mazda6 sedans. Turns out Honda’s known about the itsy bitsy spiders for a couple years. It told Drive On today that it issued a service bulletin on July 7, 2009, [...]

Sales of Toyota’s (TM) gas-electric hybrid vehicles have passed 3 million units worldwide, according to Nikkei Business and several other media accounts. The company’s Prius, the first mass-produced hybrid car, was introduced in Japan in 1997 and launched in the U.S. in 2001. Most major car companies have introduced hybrids of their own, but there [...]

When it comes to U.S. automakers, the Big Two are a pair of Ford execs collecting a stunning payout of nearly $100 million in company stock. The staggering compensation for CEO Alan Mulally and Executive Chairman Bill Ford is a thank-you for rescuing the company from the brink of bankruptcy. But with the Michigan unemployment [...]

Toyota’s president says the automotive group hopes to achieve annual sales of 10 million vehicles by 2015. Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda said Wednesday that Toyota itself is aiming for worldwide sales of 9 million vehicles a year. With other ventures owned by Toyota included, that figure rises to 10 million. Toyoda is giving [...]

Many comments are appearing on the internet taking enthusiastic positions for either the new 2011 Chevy Volt or the 2011 Nissan Leaf.It seems most readers are in one “camp” or the other.

In our household, after studying the technical strengths and features of both cars as they moved from concept to production, I ended up ordering…one [...]

The retailer in Reepham Road is holding a VIP Casino Night for invited guests on Thursday, the evening before the CT 200h’s official on-sale date. It will be the first opportunity for the many people who have advance orders on the car to see it in the metal. The event will be a fun night [...]

MONTVALE, N.J., March 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) was recognized at the J.D. Power and Associates Customer Service Roundtable in Las Vegas as a J.D. Power 2011 Customer Service Champion—one of only 40 companies to have earned this distinction this year. To qualify for inclusion on this elite list, companies must not only [...]

MISSISSAUGA, ON, March 1 /CNW/ – Kia Canada Inc. marks the second consecutive record month in 2011 achieving 3870 sales and a 29 per cent growth versus previous year. This is the second straight month that Kia Canada has surpassed 3000 vehicle sales this year. Additionally, it is the second straight month where all four [...]

Chrysler Canada continues its positive growth trend, reporting February sales up 8 per cent over the same period, one year ago. This represents the company’s fifteenth consecutive month of year-over-year sales increases. Total sales were 15,238 for the month, compared to 14,045 in February, 2010. “With Canada’s newest showroom, we also have one of Canada’s [...]

GENEVA, March 1 /CNW/ – Kia’s fourth-generation Rio, revealed at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, boasts a bold and distinctive personality, bringing the latest model into line with the rest of Kia’s striking design-led product range. Tasked with the difficult job of improving upon the remarkable international sales success of the previous generation model, Kia’s [...]

MISSISSAUGA, ON, March 1 /CNW/ – Nissan Canada Inc. (NCI) today released its February sales results with 5,408 units sold – an increase of 21.6 per cent over February 2010, making this February its best ever. Infiniti sales increased 2.3 per cent over the same month last year, while sales of the Nissan brand are [...]

TORONTO, March 1 /CNW/ – Toyota Canada Inc. (TCI) today reported sales of 9,480 Toyota, Lexus and Scion cars, trucks and SUVs in February 2011, down 25.3% from a year earlier. Toyota Canada continued to see model line sales increases, including the second best February ever for Lexus. Large vehicles and SUVs continued to perform [...]

The Toyota brand has won Vincentric’s “Best Passenger Car Value in America for 2011″ award, and Volvo is rated at the top among luxury brands. This is the seventh year that Vincentric, which supplies cost-of-ownership data to a number of companies—including Toyota—has picked out top values that have the lowest projected ownership costs. Vincentric measures [...]