Industry

The best-selling passenger car in America for the past 15 years isn’t selling like it once was, and it’s all your fault. With the car-buying populace increasingly wooed by do-everything crossovers and trucks, the Toyota Camry isn’t flying off dealer lots in the same volume as before, and, because of this, the automaker has made the decision to slow production of the mighty midsizer. What are people buying instead of the Camry? A lot of things, but loyal Toyota owners are increasingly heading over to the RAV4 for their grocery-getting duties. In terms of volume, the Camry closed out last year as the country’s seventh-best selling vehicle, helped along by a 2018 model-year restyle that lifted sales towards the end of the calendar. That buoyancy didn’t last, though it did help propel the sedan well ahead of its chief rival — the equally refreshed Honda Accord. As we documented over the long, hot summer, Camry sales began falling below last year’s … [Read more...] about Sad! Toyota Throttles Back on the Camry

Smart has never been a big success and Mercedes may not be willing to keep the brand alive anymore and replace it with a baby Benz. Automobile Magazine says that after the current generation Smart Forfour and Twingo, Renault will exit the partnership with Daimler for mini cars, so the current Smart platform would be compromised. One possible solution is simply to remove the Smart brand altogether from the line-up, but this is not supposed to occur until 2026 at the earliest. At the same time, Automobile Magazine says Mercedes could enter the mini segment with its own car, which could be launched after 2025. The question of missing technical bases is supposed to be solved with a new architecture by Mercedes: a variable platform, known as MX1. This could be the successor of the current MFA2 platform used by the compact family of models (A-Class, B-Class, CLA etc.) and would be a good base for smaller models. Regarding the future (potential) baby Benz itself, it is assumed it would … [Read more...] about Mercedes could kill Smart and launch its own baby Benz instead

Mercedes parent company Daimler has confidence in the future. The company more or less maintained its operational revenue in the third quarter. The decline of 1 percent compared to a year earlier was better than analysts had taken into account. As previously indicated by Daimler itself, the profit was expected to decline considerably and so was the revenue. The German car manufacturer achieved a quarterly turnover of 40.2 billion euros, compared to 40.8 billion euros a year earlier. Market experts had on average expected a gross revenue decrease to 39.2 billion euros, partly due to a previous warning from Daimler about a disappointing sale of vans. Daimler warned already for a significantly lower profit, due to additional costs related to the settlement of the diesel scandal in the automotive industry. Net profit decreased by 21 percent to 1.7 billion euros. For the whole year, the company maintains its objective of a slightly higher turnover. Topman Dieter Zetsche also said he would … [Read more...] about Daimler still strong, posts smaller quarterly revenue decrease than expected

Daimler has come up with a new profit warning. The parent company of Mercedes-Benz is counting on extra costs in connection with the settlement of the Diesel Gate scandal that affected not only the car industry but also the brand directly. Also the sales of vans are disappointing due to delays in the delivery of vehicles. The group now expects a gross profit (ebit) which is “significant” below the level of last year, although the prognosis was slightly lower than in 2017. The estimates for the passenger car division of Mercedes-Benz and the bus branch have also become more pessimistic. The reaction at the stock exchange in Frankfurt was rough. The price of Daimler shares went down by 7 percent in the interim. In June, Daimler had already given a profit alert. That had to do with the Chinese import tariffs on American cars. Daimler also came with preliminary figures for the third quarter. According to the Stuttgart company, the performance was significantly weaker than … [Read more...] about Daimler gets new profit warning in relation to the recent Diesel Gate scandal

Recently it was announced that from 2020 Smart will only offer electric models in Europe. The timetable seems to have shifted for some markets though, as Smart has announced it will sell only EVs from 1 January 2019 onwards. From 1 January next year you can only order the fully electric versions of the ForTwo and ForFour at the Dutch Smart dealers, for example, versions that have been classified under Daimler’s EQ flag for several months. Incidentally, Smart has only been selling electrical versions in the United States since last year. The electric Smarts, the EQ models, will soon be offered new versions. Currently Smart offers the ForTwo EQ, ForTwo Cabrio EQ and ForFour EQ in three regular versions: Passion, Perfect and Prime. The cards have been reshuffled and the Smarts will be available in the Comfort, Comfort Plus and Brabus Style versions. The basic version’s features list consists of such things as automatic air conditioning and an audio system with Bluetooth, USB … [Read more...] about Petrol engines are history: Smart goes electric only from next year