By Charles Krome

There weren’t too many automakers celebrating the U.S. sales results for August, with Chrysler being the only high-volume automaker to see a year-over-year sales increase for the month. Even Hyundai and Kia fell on hard times, with the former seeing a sales drop for the first time since May of 2009 and the latter earning its first decline since June of last year.

But even when the South Korean brands appear to be losing, they’re still winning. Keeping in mind that Hyundai owns a controlling stake in Kia, the two combined to move 86,068 units in August, while Nissan (plus Infiniti) sold 76,827. Add those results to the South Korean’s very strong sales numbers from the first seven months of the year and, at this stage in the game, the Hyundai-Kia group has displaced Nissan North America from sixth place on the list of top-selling automakers here in the U.S.

The current score: 601,445 sales for Hyundai-Kia and 599,496 for Nissan-Infiniti.

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By Chris Haak

We’ve previously seen line drawings from the patent application for the upcoming Dodge Durango’s design, and we’ve seen a few spy photos of Dodge’s resurrected SUV people hauler.  But today, Chrysler released the first official photos of the all-new 2011 Dodge Durango.

Sharing nothing but its name with the previous Durango, this third-generation model actually shares its platform with the brand new 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, a vehicle with serious off-roading chops that has been receiving some of the most favorable press reviews on new Chrysler vehicles in several years.  Like the Grand Cherokee, the Durango features unibody construction and the buyer’s choice of either the new 3.6 liter Pentastar V6 or the more powerful (and thirsty) 5.7 liter HEMI overhead valve V8.  However, the Durango adds third-row seating absent in the Grand Cherokee, but subtracts the Grand Cherokee’s sophisticated (and expensive) off-road hardware in its transition to family hauler.

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By Chris Haak

How was your drive into work today?  If you’re a typical American commuter, you may have spent a little time in traffic, and you might spend a little more time in traffic on your way home this evening.  I know that I certainly do most days, and it seems to be getting worse as more cars hit the roads and available road infrastructure fails to keep pace with the growth in number of vehicles.

Well, after reading in the Wall Street Journal about a 61-mile traffic jam in China, I promise to never complain about being stuck in traffic again.  (OK, not really.  I’ll still complain.)

According to the article, the traffic jam begins on the outskirts of Beijing and winds its way some 60 miles to Inner Mongolia.  It began when road construction on the Beijing-Tibet Highway commenced on August 13.  Following that, a major road encircling Beijing was also closed, which compounded the problems.

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By Charles Krome

Life sure is funny sometimes. Today, for example, I was driving on home and caught a glimpse of a beautiful first-generation Chevrolet Camaro SS on a trailer, right there on my street. My first thought was that it must be a Woodward Dream Cruiser extending his/her stay in beautiful suburban Detroit. But when I knocked on the door to ask about taking pictures, I found out differently: It turns out one of my neighbors happens to be a car restorer specializing in muscle cars. And it also turned out that this wasn’t just a first-gen SS—I’d hit the jackpot: It was a 1969 rocking the big-time 396 V8.

Dean had originally restored this classic for a customer about 10 years ago, and had bought it back from the guy just two hours before I stopped by—that’s what you call good timing.

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By Chris Haak

Today in 2010, the environmentally-conscious crowd has split into two distinct sets of car-buying preferences.  In one camp, the hybrid guys point to their extremely low emissions and fantastic city fuel economy numbers.  Plus, the typical hybrid packs a ton of technology into a reasonably-affordable vehicle.  Then in the other camp, we find the diesel guys, who claim that better highway mileage and less weight is the way to go, eschewing the complexity of two parallel drivetrains and the environmental cost of batteries that have a finite life.  For years, the two camps were like oil and water – they just didn’t mix.  There was no production car that combined an efficient clean diesel with a hybrid.

There’s a reason for this too – clean diesels and hybrids individually cost a few thousand dollars, saying nothing for combining the two (and presumably coming up with a powertrain that costs a few more thousand dollars.  But now Peugeot’s gone and bucked convention.  In about six weeks at the Paris Motor Show, Peugeot is planning to display the diesel-electric hybrid 3008 Hybrid4.  This car, destined for series production, will be the first diesel-electric hybrid car on the market.  We’re not counting locomotives in that statistic, of course.

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By Charles Krome

Well, it appears that the Ford F-150, the best-selling truck in the U.S. since Jimmy Carter was in the Whitehouse, will be getting some interesting competition in the near-term future: Indian OEM Mahindra & Mahindra has finally received EPA certification to sell its pickups here in America.  As we’ve reported several times, most recently here and here, this process has been a long time in coming, to the point that Mahindra’s exclusive US importer sued the parent company.

Mahindra & Mahindra Limited is the automotive arm of a massive Indian business conglomerate, but its roots are about as red, white and blue as you get. The company began life building Jeeps for the Indian market after World War II, leveraging a deal with the folks at Willys, and eventually became sort of a modern-day International Harvester, only more successful. A lot more successful.

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By Chris Haak

Several weeks prior to its formal introduction at the 2011 Paris Motor Show, Mercedes-Benz has released a flotilla of images of the second-generation of its trendsetting CLS four-door coupe.  Much to segment-inventing BMW’s chagrin, Mercedes invented the four-door coupe segment back in 2004, and has done pretty well in that pole position ever since.  Numerous imitators have sprung forth, including the Hyundai Sonata, Volkswagen CC, Audi A7, Aston Martin Rapide, and even the forthcoming BMW Gran Sport four-door coupe.

The original CLS was based on the contemporary (W211) E-Class platform, but tilted the form/function continuum far toward the “form” end of the scale, to the detriment of some passenger space, particularly in the rear seat area.  It was a 2+2 with a console between the rear seats, and the teardrop roofline cut into rear seat headroom compared with its more practical E-Class cousin.  And yet, in testament to the design of the original W219 CLS, any competitors in the space either don’t look as good, or look like obvious imitations.  The now seven year old design still looks fresh on the eve of its replacement.

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By Chris Haak

Even though Suzuki only sells a few thousand cars in the US each month and can’t seem to get the right product mix in the US, the Japanese purveyor of motorcycles and small cars has found incredible success in one of the world’s fastest-growing auto markets:  India.  The Suzuki Maruti joint venture is the largest automaker in the world’s second-most populous nation, with about 50 percent of India’s market share.

The Tata Nano, however, is the new kid on the block in India, and it’s been selling well, thanks to the car’s staggeringly low price point.  A new Nano base model sells for 123,361 rupees ($2,645 USD), and is the cheapest new car in the world.  Maruti’s cheapest car, meanwhile, the M800, sells for 192,936 rupees ($4,138 USD), or 56 percent more than the Nano.  Just as bad, the M800 can no longer be sold in 13 of India’s major cities because the car does not meet new emission standards.  Maruti’s volume model, the Alto, starts at 229,055 rupees ($4,912 USD).  It’s no wonder that Maruti’s market share has dropped below 50 percent for the first time as the Nano eats its lunch.  From April through July, sales of the Nano handily topped those of the M800, 23,779 to 8,586.

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By Chris Haak

I can hear the ticker-tape machines humming away in the background as I write this from the Autosavant newsroom.  Hot off the press comes word that 68 year old GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre is relinquishing his CEO title on September 1, 2010.  Replacing him will be current GM board member, 61 year old Dan Akerson (pictured here).  Whitacre will remain as GM Chairman through the end of 2010, at which point Akerson will assume those duties as well.

In a curious twist of fate, Dan Akerson in some ways shares his predecessor’s prior experience.  Whitacre, of course, was CEO of AT&T until his retirement a few years ago, and Akerson is the former CEO of Nextel Communications.  Currently, Akerson is serving as Managing Director of the Carlyle Group, a private-equity concern.  Akerson was named to GM’s board in July 2009 as the company exited bankruptcy.  His board membership was intended to represent the US Treasury’s interests in the automaker, which of course is majority-owned by the US government.  Also on Akerson’s resume is the fact that he is a current member of the board of directors of American Express.

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By Chris Haak

Hyundai’s rise to one of the world’s largest – and fastest-growing – automakers over the past several years has been nothing short of incredible to watch.  If you’re reading this site, you’re probably already aware of how the Korean upstart only built its first car in 1968, and only entered the US market in 1986 with the Excel, just 24 years ago.  Yet, thanks to a long warranty, a focus for the past several years on quality, and finally original, attractive designs, Hyundai has elbowed its way into the hearts of consumers.

This consumer consideration is proven not only by the fact that Hyundai was one of just two automakers to see sales increases during the auto industry meltdown of 2009 (the other was Subaru), but also that Kelley Blue Book has anointed the company as one of its five most-considered brands.  Hyundai is now number five on the list, knocking Nissan off the top five altogether.

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