Car Sales

There was a point, when Toyota Prius and Honda Insights were rolling off dealer lots in their mere hundreds nationwide, that hybrids were easy to dismiss. Now, as sales leap 32 percent in the first two months of this year and market share sits around 4 percent, the humble hybrid has become a real...

Carlos Ghosn is a busy man. In charge of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, his remit includes the diverse product lines of each company and most recently, each carmaker's electric vehicle range, too. Speaking to Leaf owners at a jamboree at Kansai University, Japan, Ghosn is still positive about each...

Like a lot of news from Tesla, this came in the form of a tweet by CEO Elon Musk on Friday morning. It read, in its entirety, "Minnesota auto dealers tried to pass legislation to block Tesla stores. Bill was just defeated in Senate. Thanks MN!" And indeed, a Minnesota Senate committee voted down...

Years ago, tourism officials in the Lone Star State adopted the saying, "Texas: It's Like A Whole Other Country". There's some truth to that, but the slogan might be most appropriate for California. Like Texas, California, is home to a diverse array of cultures and a wide range of environments...

If you've ever bought a car, you might have experienced the frustration that comes with a sales person who doesn't really know about the car they're selling. That's not an experience you'll have had in an Apple retail store though, where the Genius Bar program provides product experts to hand out...

If you're trying to get your hands on a plug-in Ford, it should soon get a little easier. Ford will more than quadrouple the number of dealers able to sell its plug-in models, the Ford Focus Electric, C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid and Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid this year. According to The Detroit...

If you were a car dealer, would you decide not to sell a plug-in electric car because you had to buy a $5,000 tool to service it? We didn't think so. Late last year, trade journal Automotive News wrote a story saying that a few Chevrolet dealers have stopped selling the Chevy Volt range-extended...

We've clearly not seen the back of tempting electric car leasing deals. One Mitsubishi dealer is offering the "i" electric car for as little as $69 per month for example, and Ford is now offering hefty discounts on its Focus Electric. Lease buyers can get up to $10,750 off the cost of a three-year...

Coda Automotive, the startup maker that builds the 2012 Coda Sedan electric car, is going through some very tough times. But it looks like one of its three dealers is trying to figure out the right price point for the all-electric compact sedan--which was originally priced at $38,145, including a...

Electric cars may be growing in popularity, but they still make up just a tiny percentage of the U.S. auto market. When will things take off? If sales in Norway are any indication, that will happen when electric vehicles become inexpensive, easy to own, and confer certain privileges. According to...

Luxury automaker Lexus has hit a major milestone in hybrid sales: Half a million units. Since the company's first hybrid, the Lexus RX 400h hit the roads in 2005, over 506,000 have followed. And it's the RX hybrid which is still the best-selling line, making up over half of Lexus's total hybrid...

Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] has announced European pricing for the Model S, set to go on sale there next year. Speaking on the Tesla Blog, Tesla vice president George Blankenship revealed that the company is using a transparent approach to European pricing, making no more profit per car than it does...

Eco-minded shoppers have seen environmental issues take up more space in the news, and they've known that it was simply a matter of time before those concerns began affecting the sorts of vehicles we drive. Now, mainstream consumers are beginning to see the light. The change hasn't come overnight...

So who buys a Nissan Leaf? Not, as you may be unsurprised to learn, the sort of person who doesn't really care what they buy, says one Nissan dealer. As Nashville Business Journal reports, Leaf customers are already pretty sure they want a Leaf when they walk onto the lot. "It's typically a very...

2013 sees two significant Honda models subtly improved, the Civic sedan, and the CR-Z hybrid coupe. Both have come under criticism for different reasons, and a host of small updates and specification improvements should go some way to silencing the critics. 2013 Honda CR-Z Honda's small coupe has...

Score one for startup carmakers trying to do things differently. Last Friday, a judge denied a request by the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association for an injunction that would have shut down the Tesla Store in Natick, which opened on September 28. If the dealers' request had been...

There's nothing like a bargain price on a brand-new car. And since Suzuki has announced that it'll stop selling cars in the U.S., there are bargains galore on new Suzuki models. But is buying a brand-new car from a departing manufacturer a good deal? That depends on how the carmaker exits; unlike...

Tesla Motors is facing a formidable opponent it may not have sufficiently appreciated: the auto dealers of America, and their state associations. Tesla, you may remember, is selling its electric cars online, not through franchised, independently owned dealers, and delivering them directly to buyers...

The 2013 Toyota Prius Liftback and 2013 Prius V wagon will cost buyers between $100 and $200 more than comparable 2012 models, Toyota announced yesterday. The pricing increase, which comes into effect immediately, means that those buying the 2013 Prius Liftback will find themselves paying $200 more...

There was a time, not so long ago, when most Americans would laugh at the idea of buying a car just a bit longer than 12 feet. But now one minicar--the 2013 Chevrolet Spark--has sold so well in its first two months on the U.S. market that Chevrolet has had to increase imports. Currently made at a...