thegriffon

Don't forget an entire plant building Trailblazers has already been closed—I don't think there is that large a backlog, although even the 4Runner has a lot of sales to rental fleets. Despite the decline in the segment (which has affected all the major entries equally) the Trailblazer has more than held its own. Although sales are down for the year overall, it is on track to unseat the Explorer as America's best-selling midsize SUV/crossover, and may yet retain its crown as GM's best-selling SUV as well, if it can maintain its recent advantage over the Tahoe.

BTW, light vehicles sales are up just over 6%. Medium trucks are down after the W-series was discontinued.

GM's Winners Escalade (+1000 over July and 40% over Aug 2006) SRX (Flat and 7.6%) Cobalt (+5000 and 7%) Suburban (Flat and 27%) Equinox (+5700 and 13.5%) Express (+4200 and 16%) HHR (flat and 49.5%) Trailblazer (-800 but up 6.6%) Uplander (+2600 and 28.5%) Silverado (+20,000 and 32%) G6 (+4200—outselling Malibu in 2007) Grand Prix (+4000 and 11%—get yours while you still can) Torrent (+1900 and 41.5%) Sierra (+7700 and 34%) Yukon XL (+800 and 12.6%) H2 (+400) 9³ (flat and 9%) Aura (+900)

Two months in a row no less

Fleet. Until the Dodge Grand Caravan Cargo comes on stream it is the only entry in the midsize commercial van market, of which there are, let's see, seven or eight brands in Europe.

Looks like a RAV4 or Qashqai.

I believe midsize SUVs will be reduced to a few specialized models, hardcore off-roaders such as the H3, Grand Cherokee and Discovery, and 7-seat pickup-based models such as the Pathfinder, 4Runner, and Blazer, all three returning to their pickup-based roots with a core market outside North America and Europe. The main wildcard is Chinese-owned Ssangyong and its Russian offspring (Severstal's new UAZ models will be Ssangyong-based).

It's only a matter of packaging at the moment. The increased width of Epsilon II will make all the difference to the Malibu and Aura, which already ride on a longer wheelbase than the Impala. You can expect the LaCrosse to be just as large.

See it and weep:http://www.mitsubishi-motors.co.jp/colt/styling/index.html (Yes that's a column-shift). Do three-across buckets count?

Ahh, there's the problem, Toyota doesn't have a 4.0 L V8. It's a 4.7 L V8 and a 4.0 V6.

None of you are being honest and objective. Accurate information on rebates offered by Toyota is practically impossible to find, no matter where you look. Edmunds is wrong, Toyota does not specify, and dealers are all over the place, if they mention it at all. The Sierra, Silverado and F150 etc. are established vehicles with essentially peak market share. If there is a truck buyer to be had, they already ave them. Any market share gains are going to be minor unless one of them gets it seriously wrong. Thus sales fluctuations are primarily due to the over-riding demand for large pickups. This has in recent months been in freefall due the housing downturn and credit crisis in the US market, which affects the basic demand—individuals and businesses have less work and a harder time getting credit to buy new trucks. It has nothing to do with Tundra. Of course with the traditional market slowing down so much, every sale is critical, even to non-core buyers who just want a big family vehicle which can tow and may be looking at SUVs, minivans and crossovers as well. So everyone is offering large rebates in this segment, just to stay even (of course some are offering larger incentives than others. Toyota can of course afford to lose money large pickups, GM can't. GM too carrys a larger inventory to cater to the specific whims of individual customers, while Toyota previously expected people to choose a truck from what was on hand and be happy about it (Toyota has acknowledged that pickup buyers used to getting what they want from the big 3 are not happy with having to compromise) but this means that when demand falls there is a commensurately larger supply compared to demand. Rather than offer $8000 ebates, they are cutting production. Tundra however is essentially a brand-new product as a competitive large pickup. Sales had no-where to go but up. It doesn't matter how the overall market for pickups is going, because Toyota wasn't really part of it before. It doesn't mean that the Tundra is doing better than the Silverado or Sierra, it means the new Tundra is doing better than the old Tundra. Toyota is benefiting from being essentially a new entry (despite what CR thinks—in fact it may be a reflection on how poorly the old Tundra was doing that even CR doesn't know it was a completely different product), that has yet to find its natural level. Of course it doesn't hurt that the Tundra's half-ton segment is less affected by the downturn than 3/4 and 1-ton pickups offered by the domestics. Until it finds it's natural level a downturn in overall segment sales will not appear to impact as much on the Tundra as it has on the 4Runner (sales of which are collapsing just as much as those of the domestic midsize SUVs), since no-one knows what they would have been without the downturn. Now is the Tundra's natural level above the Sierra (which it already outsells, in total, in recent months)? Probably. In fact it is probably above the Ram as well. It will be a very long time indeed before it can come close to matching the Silverado or F-150 though (15-20 years at least, by which time Toyota may decide the market isn't worth the investment required—if Tundra does come close to the Silverado the CAFE burden alone will be an enormous additional cost to Toyota. If Toyota isn't concerned about the Tundra's fuel economy now, they will be then). The latter have an enormous entrenched position that even a superior product will find almost insurmountable (how else does the ancient Econoline keep outselling the Savana, let alone the Express). Pickup buyers are loyal, none more so than upfitters and coachbuilders which drive a large portion of the market and which cannot change trucks without major changes to their own products (generational changes are by comparison minor and often supported by the truck manufacturers). It doesn't matter if a competitor has a far better product.

A0 segment anything (Matiz, Picanto, 500 etc.) affordable A-segment anything (Swift, Agila, Cube, bB), unlike the Yaris hatch and Mini B-segment MPVs such as the Opel Meriva, Toyota Ractis and Nissan Cube Cubic. B-segment wagons such as the Raum, Fusion, HRV, SpaceFox and Fabia C-segment wagons like the Astra Caravan, Nissan Wingroad and Toyota Caldina (under-represented) 7-seat C-segment MPVs like the Touran, Zafira and Mazda5 (under-represented). midsize MPVs like the Grandis, Presage, S-Max, Espace and Galaxy mainstream midsize wagons like the Vectra, Mondeo and Passat compact pickups like the Montana/Tornado and Courier LCVs such as the Combo, Caddy, Transit Connect and Doblo Medium commercial vans such as the Vivaro and Scudo.

It will be factory rebates, although much of it may be in the form of "dealer incentives", which they don't have to pass along, and thus not usually counted as a rebate. The big regional distributors (SE Toyota and Gulf States Toyota) will offer their own rebates (and different D+H charges than elsewhere in the country) as well.

The previous one was a minivan (a very low and long one), but this one has abandoned the monospace/cab-forward form and is, realistically, a station wagon with a third-row seat (even less exciting, especially without a turbo engine like the Caldina GT-four or Astra Caravan OPC). A Peugeot 307 SW (SW for Station Wagon) is more of a minivan than the current Stream.For a real cause for "Oh joy another minivan- yipee. " here are Toyota's: 1.bB/Coo/Materia (A-segment built by Daihatsu) 2.Avanza (7-seat B-segment for developing markets) 3.Ractis (5-seat B-segment) 4.Porte (5-seat high-roof B-segment) 5.Sienta (lwb 7-seat B-segment) 6.xB (5-seat C-segment) 7.Corolla Verso (5-7 seat C-segment) 8.Wish (7-seat C-segment) 9.Isis (7-seat D-segment) 10.Ipsum (7-seat D-segment) 11.Noah/Voxy (7-seat D-segment) 12.Estima (7-seat D-segment) 13.Alphard (7-8 seat E-segment) 14.Sienna (fullsize) 15.Hiace/Regius Ace (Japan) (cab-over 3-12 seat medium van) 16.Hiace (Europe) (forward-engine 3-12 seat medium van) And under the Daihatsu brand: 17.Move/Move Custom (Keijidosha) 18.Tanto/Tanto Custom (keijidosha) 19.Atrai/Hijet (keijidosha) And that doesn't count the Raum (a Yaris station wagon with dual sliding rear doors and no B-pillar), or the TownAce/MasterAce (the last version of the ancestral Toyota minivan in hiatus awaiting the new generation—some of you may remember an earlier generation sold in the US), which would make 20. And that's after cutting the Atrai7, Funcargo, Nadia and Corolla Spacio, and merging the bB with the smaller Daihatsu YRV.

Who not "Grand Prix"?

No, that's a different vehicle (and still called the Odyssey for markets outside NA). The Stream is a compact (not midsize) 7-seat wagon like the Peugeot 307 SW. The previous Stream was a compact monospace MPV similar to (but predating) the Toyota Wish. Both were longer but lower than the segment paradigm created by the 1st-gen Opel Zafira (which in response to Renault's 5-seat Scenic revived the 7-seat compact MPV segment created by Mitsubishi and Nissan in the early '80s and then abandoned). The Wish is JDM only, and while the Stream was offered in Europe it was soon dropped in favor of the taller, wider 2.5 row FRV. More critical than the low seating position and roofline was probably the JDM small-car class body width—try seating 7 in a vehicle no wider than a Corolla—and restricted access to the back seat.

GM newsreel video on the HCCI engine

A better chance of getting people with a genuine interest in engineering cars as opposed to robots e.g.

As long as it's not based on spelling and punctuation eh?

It is quite a bit larger. The old model was 3-series/C-Class sized—a large compact.The new model is squarely in the midsize segment—Alfa 156, 9-3, Passat, Legacy, Mazda6, G35 etc.

This after GAZ developed their own new midsize sedans, only one of which made it to the showroom (and then only briefly). They do well selling commercial vans (in fact they bought Leyland-DAF Vans with their new Daewoo-designed Maxus), but other than that sell the old rwd Volga (now with the Chrysler 2.4 L) and Mahindra's Scorpio. Frequent SUV projects (they seem to resent the GAZ-69 being transferred to UAZ in the Soviet era) have resulted in well-finished prototypes but have also failed to materialize in the showroom.

And that is really all that should read into the relative success or failure of the Solstice v the Sky. Styling in particular is dramatically different, enough to sway most people one way or the other. There are a few people who like both equally well, but I would think the majority have a preference for one or the other on styling alone. It's only natural that more buyers will prefer the styling of one over the other. Going into a long theory about how this shows people dislike Pontiac so much it should be dropped is pure sophistry.

They could do what Honda did and slap on "sumo-suit" to meet US regs at the 11th hour before it goes out of production.

I think your compression ratios must come from a 20-year old textbook. Only the most ancient Chinese and eastern European diesels use a 22:1 compression ratio. A modern common-rail diesel should be running no higher than 18:1, and a newer engine between 15:1 and 17:1. GM's latest 6.6 L Duramax runs at just over 16:1. Even VW's pump-injection engines can operate at around 18:1 compression ratios.A modern spark ignition engine will often run between 10:1 and 11:1 with port injection, and flex-fuel engines optimized for E100 in Brazil at well over 12:1, without direct-injection. GDI engines typically run at just over 11:1 to a little over 12:1 compression ratios, closer to 10:1 with forced induction. An HCCi engine will probably run at around 13:1, perhaps lower. Note that your strategy for lowering the compression ratio is not being use when the engine is running in spark-ignition mode—it is the ability to create an homogeneous charge in a lean air-fuel ratio that allows compression ignition at such low compression ratios, and why getting it to work over a wide operating range has been so difficult in the past. As you say, at higher compression ratios you get knocking. HCCI allows compression ignition at a much lower compression ratio compatible with spark-ignition direct injection—the problem lies in creating a homogeneous charge that will ignite over a wide enough range to be worth the effort.

People in Germany are asking that as well.