In the wake of major flooding in Thailand that has disrupted the supply of microprocessors that are used in Honda vehicles manufactured in the United States and Canada, Honda has cut production in half until at least November 10th. This decision comes in the wake of major flooding in Thailand that has rendered them unable to retrieve a steady supply of microprocessors, and until new sources are found, production will have to be lessened for the time being. Honda has announced profits are down 50% since March due to the disaster in Japan last march, which comes as no surprise to the auto transport industry, which has seen rapid slides in the number of Honda vehicles being moved.
According to Detroit Bureau, General Electric and Nissan are teaming up to take on the issues of bringing electric vehicles to the market. Nissan has been somewhat disappointed in the lackluster sales of its all-electric Leaf, but are bound and determined to make it better. Auto transporters have noticed that few Leafs are shipping, especially off of showroom floors, but Nissan is excited about this partnership, and GE is looking forward to bringing more and more electric vehicles to the market in the years ahead.
Toyota has announced the price for their new plug-in Prius, and it’s higher than originally suspected – Toyota has stated that the new base-model Prius will cost $32,760, while fully-loaded the price would be $40,285. While this is still almost $7,000 less than the Chevrolet Volt, it qualifies for only a $2,500 tax credit, which is $5,000 less than the Chevy Volt’s $7,500 credit. Auto transport companies have commented on the boom in Prius sales over the past few years, but with newcomers Chevy and Nissan launching their Volt and Leaf electric vehicles, respectively, Toyota could be in some hot water if people don’t like the new price of the Prius.
TRW Automotive is unveiling a new short-range radar system in Frankfurt that will enable full 360-degree sensing for vehicles on the road. Using radar in vehicles is not a novel idea, but one that has been hard to get going in recent years. But TRW is hoping that their new radar system will be a big boost in sales – radar can help drivers with such things as changing lanes, cross-traffic alerts, blind-spot detection, collision warning, and more. Auto transporters have seen how things like parking assist and automatic parking have helped boost numbers on luxury cars – maybe it’s only a matter of time before regular cars see this too.
Camry, in recent years, has seen some major sales slips, and Toyota’s picked up on it as well – in an effort to revamp it’s flagship line of cars, Toyota has taken to not just revamping the entire lineup, but they’re slashing prices as well. On all but the most basic models, Toyota will be dropping prices as compared to prices of the 2011 models of the same name – the LE and SC models will be dropped by $200 and $965, respectively. Auto transport companies haven’t seen much difference in numbers of Camrys shipped, but if sales go up they could be seeing more coming in the near future.
The Chevy Cruze was a big hit in the U.S., and now the major car company is looking at releasing a diesel version of the car in 2013. Diesel fuel is used not just by car transport trucks and large semis and obnoxiously large pickup trucks, but by smaller sedans as well. Diesel engines manage more mileage than regular gasoline, which is great for car transport companies because it lowers their overhead. Switching the Cruze to diesel would raise its mileage even more, bolstering it to compete with the Toyota Prius and other mainstream hybrids. It’s expected to manage 50 miles per gallon, and car transport companies are anticipating lots of them moving in the next few years.
