2010 Detroit Autoshow VW Coupe Concept

As predicted earlier by this blog, VW has unveiled a coupe concept for this year's North American International Autoshow. The New Compact Coupe is a Jetta sized two door powered by a 150 horsepower 1.4 TSI gas engine in combination with a 27 horsepower electric motor. This combination results in 45 mpg on the EPA test. While VW has not confirmed that the Compact Coupe Concept will go into production, the concept previews the interior and exterior styling elements of the upcoming Jetta. The concept features a bespoke interior unlike the current Jetta which shares the Golf's interior. In fact, the coupe's interior is reminiscent of the interiors on the current generation Audi A4 and A5. The side profile also features a few elements that give it the appearance of the A5. The folks at VWvortex have created a great looking "pshop" of how they think the upcoming Jetta sedan will look like based of the concept's design elements. Take a look here.

2009 Sales in Review

The fact that 2009 was a terrible year for the auto industry is not secret, now with the year officially over we can tally up the total sales figures and see how bad it really was. In the end all but three automakers suffered sales decreases. Subaru, Kia and Hyundai all improved their sales significantly while Volkswagen, Audi and Ford were able to keep their sales declines below 15%. Even generally popular and healthy brands had lost as much as one third of their 2008 sales. The remaining brands for the most part have already been discontinued, or are hanging on in the US market by a thread.However, there is hope for the entire industry with most brands showing increases in December sales and total 2010 sales are expected to surpass those of 2009 easily. Unfortunately this might not happen quickly enough for some brands.



Lots of red for the automotive industry in 2009, click to enlarge.

Why Buy Quattro?

One snowy driveway, One Audi and one BMW. A perfect example of the cliche, "a picture is worth a thousand words." Audi PR couldn't have set this one up any better.


BMW on the left, Audi on the right.

Honda Hybrid Struggles

Honda released the second generation Insight hybrid with expectations that its under 20,000 dollar starting price would result in good sales. However, things haven't gone according to Honda's plan with the Insight having only moderate sales success. Even worse, the Insight sales have come at an expense of plummeting Civic Hybrid sales, as low as 152 sales in the past few month. In fact the Civic Hybrid has the second highest sales decline for the year behind the S200. The Insight itself has also lost some of its sales momentum from its introduction. Overall the situation doesn't look promising for a brand that has deserted performance aspirations for hybrid sales.

VW to Build a Jetta Coupe

According to Car and Driver Volkswagen might build a coupe that will be around 180 inches long. This would make it about the size of the Jetta so it's not unreasonable to believe that if such a car would come to market it would rely heavily on the Jetta architecture. A concept version of the coupe might come as yearly as the upcoming Detroit autoshow, a good public reaction would certainly raise production possibilities. Speaking of the Jetta, an all new Jetta sedan will go on sale in June of 2010. The article also confirmed that the Passat, Eos, and Tiguan models will receive facelifts to align their styling with the new Golf. It is also unlikely that VW will sell the Phaeton in the states before a completely new model comes in 2014.

2011 Audi A8

Audi had a webcast reveal of the 2011 A8, but here are some press photos with more to follow later. It will be powered by a 372 horsepower 4.2 FSI V8, a 3.0 V6 TDI and 4.2 V8 TDI are available with 250 and 350 horsepower. More impressive are the torque and fuel economy numbers for the diesels, 406 lb-ft and 36 mpg average for the V6 and 590 lb-ft and 31 mpg average for the V8.

Toyota Urban Cruiser Fails Euro NCAP Test, Toyota PR Responds

The Toyota Urban Cruiser, the European version of the Scion xD, received a poor overall rating of 3 stars from the European New Car Assessment Programme. The reason for the three star rating was the poor score of 58% for adult occupant protection. Of the dozen cars tested in the last release, the Chevrolet Cruze had the highest adult protection score of 96%, the second lowest score was 81% for the Chevrolet Spark. The Spark was the only other car not to get a perfect five star overall rating, it got four stars.

Full details of the dozen cars tested.
In response to this poor showing, Toyota PR replied saying that they are surprised that the Urban Cruiser got a three star rating and thought that it's side air bag system should be good enough to get a five star rating. Instead, the Urban Cruiser received zero points in the Euro NCAP pole test, "In the side pole test, the head curtain airbag failed to prevent a hard contact of the head." Toyota spokesman concluded by saying, "Once again, we remain fully convinced that Urban Cruiser is a safe car."

While that is probably true, the fact is that other cars are safer and consumers are free to pick a Toyota competitor that did better in the Euro NCAP test.

The full PR response in an Autocar article is here. Of note is this Autocar blog arguing that the ubiquity of five star ratings (aside from Urban Cruiser) creates the need for a sixth star to distinguish cars with excellent safety from those with very good safety.