That the Nissan GT-R lapped the Nurburgring circuit in Germany a month or two ago in a blistering time of 7 minutes, 26.7 seconds is well known. What isn’t is the zero to 100km/h acceleration time of 3.5 seconds it set during the lap. For the record, the GT-R is officially “the fastest four-seater production car in the world in terms of acceleration”. The Guinness Book of World Records says so.

American automaker Chrysler Group has announced that they would launch the gas/electric hybrid versions of their Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen SUVs next year.

These models would be powered with their 5.7-liter Hemi V8 engine. The company said in a statement that these SUVs would use a “two-mode” hybrid system they developed in collaboration with General Motors and Germany’s BMW.

One of the first products in the market to use this technology would be the GM’s GMC Yukon Hybrid. GM would be launching this model sometime later this year.

Chrysler claims that this 5.7 liter Hemi is their most fuel-efficient V8 engine. They have developed this engine to shut off four of its eight cylinders during highway cruising when their extra power is not needed.

They are claiming that these new engines would provide a 40 percent improvement in fuel economy in city driving and a 25 percent improvement in overall economy compared to regular versions.

Mark Chernoby, Chrysler Group vice president for advanced vehicle engineering spoke on these new upcoming models: “We have to think hard about the consumer who buys vehicles like the Dodge Durango and the Chrysler Aspen. These are people who want to have hauling capability.”

According to company figures, Toyota sold 2.348 million vehicles in the first three months of 2007.

General Motors (GM) is estimated to have sold 2.26 million cars and small trucks during the same period.
Japanese carmakers have been boosting foreign sales and making gains in the US, the world’s largest car market.

Toyota Camry North Americas most popular car.

Toyota has enjoyed strong sales on the back of the success of its pioneering petrol/electricity hybrid, the Prius, and new models of popular car ranges like the Camry Sedan and Corolla.

Meanwhile, its Detroit rival GM has struggled to compete as high fuel prices have driven people away from its trucks and sports utility vehicles.

The American car giant has been forced to cut thousands of jobs and close factories to turn around its business.

The first-quarter results steps up the heat on GM – which sells vehicles under a range of brands, including Saab, Buick and Cadillac – to maintain its long-held status as the world’s number one carmaker by global sales.
One lucrative avenue GM is pursuing is the coveted Chinese market, where it is already the market leader with sales of 876,000 cars in 2006 through its joint ventures.

The firm is investing about $1bn (£500m) annually in order to reach its target of selling an additional 500,000 cars a year in China.

GM’s new Saturn Aura Green Line Hybrid vehicle
GM has been forced to go green as consumers start to snub SUVs

The battle between Toyota and GM for the top spot will be keenly monitored until annual production figures reveal any transformation in the pecking order.

But Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said overtaking GM was not Toyota’s first priority.

“Our goal has never been to sell the most cars in the world,” Nolasco said. “We simply want to be the best in quality. After that, sales will take care of themselves.”

One lingering concern for the Japanese carmaker loved by the America consumer comes from lawmakers in big manufacturing states in the US.

They assert US carmakers are being unfairly penalised by the Japanese government keeping the yen artificially low.
Source The BBC

Without full-size pickup trucks to sell until recently, both companies have felt shut out of farming communities and other rural territories where such vehicles are considered an essential tool of working and living.

With full-size pickups accounting for up to two-thirds of all vehicle sales in some areas of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, there was little sense for Toyota to set up shop offering only its 2006 Tundra to truck buyers, even if it was almost as large as a Detroit-designed truck, said Stephen Beatty, managing director.

In a logging or farming community or even in an oilsands boomtown flush with cash, Toyota’s popular small urban cars and luxury vehicles would probably not sell well enough to carry a dealership.

But the arrival of the full-size 2007 Tundra changes that calculus, Beatty said in an interview in Windsor. “That opens up opportunities in areas of the country that were formerly closed to us.

“Until now, if you didn’t have a fullsize pickup truck . . . in some areas of the country you wouldn’t bother trying to sell vehicles there,” Beatty said. Virtually all of those regions are west of the Ontario border.

Most North American critics agree the new V-8 powered Toyota Tundra is every bit the match of the trucks turned out by Detroit, and better in some respects.

It looks and sounds like an American truck, and handles better than some of them. It’s also built in a new Toyota factory in Texas, self-appointed home of the pickup.

Toyota has 260 dealers in Canada, a fraction of the size of the dealer networks built up by the Detroit companies.

Ford has 800 dealers, GM 758, Chrysler 457.

Ford and GM have been reducing their dealer body. Chrysler, which has been enjoying rising market share in Canada despite its sales woes in the U.S., has been increasing their dealer body, also in Western Canada.

Toyota has consciously kept the number of its dealers in check to drive more vehicle sales per store. Higher “throughput” raises profi tability and reduces a dealer’s reliance on after-sales service to make enough to cover operational costs.

Toyota dealers sold an average of 779 vehicles per store in 2006, the highest in the Canadian industry, according to Des- Rosiers Automotive Consultants.

Honda had the second-highest throughput at 681 per store, followed by GM’s 552, BMW’s 513, Mazda’s 503, Ford’s 500 sales per store, and the Chrysler Group’s sales of 483 units per store.

Toyota’s cap on dealerships will be raised during the next few years, Beatty said, although he would not speculate on how many new stores would be added, or when. Honda Canada is looking at taking exactly the same step this year, for the same reason — its new pickup truck — and probably in some of the same communities.

“Now that we have the Ridgeline we’re looking at going into more of those markets,” said Jim Miller, executive vice-president of Honda Canada, who was also in Windsor speaking at the university.

Honda’s new Western Canadian dealers probably won’t be just automotive dealerships, however. As the world’s largest producer of engines, Honda is also a world leader in power landscaping equipment, generators, pumps and small off-road vehicles.

(Windsor Star)

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

The system will cost about $470, which includes the first year of service, when packaged with Chrysler’s rear seat entertainment system in new cars. Customers must subscribe to Sirius Satellite Radio.
The company, which invented the minivan, is teaming with Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. to bring three channels — Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Cartoon Network — to the next generation of minivans, as well as the 2008 Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger, Dodge Magnum, Jeep Commander and Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Kelowna car

Toyota markets the Scion brand differently from the regular Toyota brand or luxury Lexus line, said Lindland. Scion tries to keep its models fresh and focuses on “underground” marketing tactics like the Second Life launch. Scion rarely advertises on television, she noted. Want proof hip marketing can make average cars cool? Just look at Toyota’s Scion franchise. Launched in California in mid-2003, Scion has shifted almost half a million cars in the United States. Not bad for a business based on selling recycled Japanese-market Toyotas.

The Toyota Scion, with its unconventional advertising (favoring a heavy presence on the Web and at lifestyle events over conventional TV and print spots) and potential mass customization (the cars are bare-bones basic, but all the extra stuff you can get to put in them is pretty neat) has become a case study for industry insiders obsessed with capturing the youth market (although almost half Toyota Scion buyers are in fact over 35). more..

“They really are trying a totally different type of marketing that will appeal to Generation Y — a group of people that really hasn’t adopted a brand yet,” Lindland said. “Scion has a really good grasp of the power that the Internet provides — it really is this generation’s mode of communication. They really haven’t known life without it.”Toyota execs amped up the hype, hinting Scion would be so cool, so hip that when its current models came to the end of their lives, they might be replaced by something completely different. But as Toyota gets ready to launch the first of a new generation of Scion products it’s all starting to look, well… just like a conventional automotive franchise.

Exhibit A: Scion’s best selling model, the xB is being replaced this year by… a new xB (pictured above). It’s a box on wheels like before, and in time-honored Detroit tradition, the new one is longer, wider, lower. Tradition? That’s a word that never appeared in the original Scion marketing playbook.

Here’s the thing: If you’ve built up a brand on the basis it’s hip to be outside the automotive mainstream (Sample tagline from a Scion xB ad: “So wrong for so many”), what happens when you start behaving too much like any other automaker, launching carefully contrived updates of your hit products?

If Toyota had simply discontinued the Scion xB at the end of the original’s model life, all those who had bought one would own a cool pop-culture icon, like a limited edition Casio G-Shock watch, a one-off Paul Frank handbag, or vintage loom Evisu jeans. Now when the new one launches they’ll just own an old Scion xB.

Toyota Scion available in the US only

Source: Motor Trends
Kelowna Toyota
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Newspapers – 62.8

Magazines – 17.4

TV – 15.1

Outdoor- 14.0

Radion- 11.8

Internet + 19.4

Source: TNS Media Intelligence

J.D. Power & Associates says that 67.5 percent of new-vehicle shoppers are using the internet in some way to shop for their vehicle; in major markets this number is significantly higher.

As the domestic auto market reorganizes and reasserts its market share, there are bound to be further cuts in media spending. But with a proven ability to reach the right customer at the right time with the right message, online will emerge as the most efficient spend and will continue to see strong gains for years to come.

The hybrid car that Bush inspected had a high-power lithium-ion battery made by A123 Systems of Watertown, Mass. It can power the car for about 40 miles and recharge in five hours. The white truck, made by Phoenix Motorcars Inc. of Ontario, Calif., has a range of 130 miles and can be recharged in about 10 minutes with a rapid-charging unit or trickle-charged overnight with its onboard charger.

“It’s the same thing you plug your electric dryer into,” said Bryon Bliss, vice president of sales with Phoenix Motorcars.

“My wife, she gets out with our kids during the week and I swear she could drive all week on this vehicle on one charge. She goes to the grocery stores, go to the zoo with the kids and such, but she doesn’t go that far,” he said.

At Kelowna Car we believe that anything that gives us an alternative to ever increasing gas prices has to be a good thing and hopefully being a little kinder to Mother Nature!