Faced with mounting competitive pressure in the midsize sedan segment, Toyota isn’t planning on raising incentives for the Camry beyond their current elevated level.

 
After Camry sales failed to keep pace with industry growth through the first five months of the year, in July Toyota began offering aggressive discounts with the goal of keeping its bread-and-butter sedan the top-selling passenger car in the United States.

 

According to Edmunds data, Camry spiffs averaged $2,581 in July, compared with $627 for the Honda Accord.

 

The strategy worked, with Camry volume shooting up 16 percent to 34,780 units for the month, but Toyota doesn’t intend on increasing incentives again to chase further gains.

 

“For incentives, we don’t think that our current level is necessarily high, but traditionally, we try not to be too dependent on them,” said Nobuyori Kodaira, executive vice president at Toyota. “I can’t really comment on our future plans, but our plan for now is to stick to that as much as possible.”

 

In the future, some industry analysts believe that Toyota may respond to heightened competition from sedans like the Ford Fusion, Honda Accord and Nissan Altima by setting aside incentive spending in favor of a new strategy.

New safety features or even a refresh similar to Honda’s revamped 2013 Civic could be on the horizon to increase the Camry’s appeal, Kentaro Hayashi, an analyst at Tachibana Securities Co. in Tokyo, speculated to Automotive News.

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Following lengthy negotiations, Fiat and joint venture partner Guangzhou Automobile Group have reached an agreement concerning a location for Jeep production in China.

 
The two automakers will build Jeeps at their jointly operated plant in the central China city of Changsha, according to an Automotive News report citing Chinese media sources.

 

Jeep, which in 1983 became first western brand to assemble vehicles in China, has long angled to resume production in the world’s largest new car market. Local assembly would allow Jeep ti sidestep the hefty import tariffs that currently force its prices upward and limit sales.

 

But talks with Guangzhou, which began in 2011, have moved forward at a deliberate pace. In January, Jeep and its parent company, Fiat, negotiated a preliminary agreement with Guangzhou to build SUVs together in China, but a dispute over the production location had held up proceedings until now. An official accord is expected to be signed sometime over the next few months.

 

In the past, Jeep CEO Mike Manley has suggested that the new Cherokee will likely be the first Jeep to be screwed together in China. Manley believes that the Cherokee could double Jeep’s Chinese volume, which totaled 46,000 units last year.�

Photo by Ronan Glon.

With a 29-mpg highway rating, the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray is a fairly efficient machine relative to its considerable underhood might. However, upcoming government fuel economy regulations may force General Motors to go back and find new ways to eke out even more mpgs from the 455-horsepower sports car.

 
The addition of a stop-start system could become an unavoidable necessity down the road, much to the chagrin of the C7 development team, which initially rejected the technology as unsuitable for new Corvette.

 

“It is more mass and more cost,” Tadge Juechter, Corvette chief engineer, told Edmunds. “It is very disconcerting to have your lively, great-sounding engine stall every time you come to a stop. The real customer value, the real environmental value is zero. So you are hauling around all that stuff to get a better label value (for mpg on the window sticker). It wasn’t worth it.”

 

Juechter said that stop-start technology – which cuts the engine when at idle to reduce fuel consumption – would likely increase city mileage by around 2 mpg, although it would be defeatable for drivers who prefer a V8 soundtrack to silence at a stoplight.

 

If adopted, stop-start technology would join the Corvette’s already-considerable arsenal of fuel-saving systems, including cylinder deactivation, direct injection and a seven-speed manual transmission.

Photos by Andrew Ganz.

BMW has published a teaser sketch that previews the upcoming Vision Grand Turismo concept.  Eschewing major auto shows all around the world, the digital concept will make its public debut as downloadable content on Grand Turismo 6, a video game designed for the Playstation 3 console.

The sketch depicts an aggressive-looking race car that borrows aerodynamic design cues such as its large rear wing and low front bumper from BMW’s DTM cars.  Although not based on a production model, the Vision Grand Turismo is reminiscent of both the i8 plug-in hybrid that will debut in Frankfurt next month and the retro-styled M1 Homage Concept that was presented at the Villa d’Este Concours d’Elegance a couple of years ago.

Virtual technical details are not available, but the concept was designed to offer realistic handling and power at the tip of players’ fingers.

More information about the concept will be available when Grand Turismo 6 is released on December 6th of this year.  Although BMW has not confirmed this, the concept was developed exclusively for the video game so it will not be built, let alone given the green light for production.

Alpine, Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Aston Martin, Infiniti, Volkswagen and Nissan are also designing downloadable concepts exclusively for the game.  

General Motors’ Opel division has published a full set of details about the Monza concept that will bow next month at the Frankfurt Motor Show.  The concept revives a storied nameplate used on a series of sports coupes from 1977 to 1986.  �

Like its predecessors, the Monza takes the form of a sleek, fastback-like coupe, but it breaks with the past with massive roof-hinged doors designed to provide unobstructed access to both rows of seats.  Visually, the Monza is characterized by a sculpted body, thin trim pieces that create an elegant silhouette and a generally futuristic appearance.

The Monza’s interior uses state-of-the-art LED projection technology for the instrument cluster and the touch screen-based infotainment system, a nod to the original Monza that pioneered digital dashboard technology over thirty years ago.  Other highlights found in the cockpit include a highly-stylized dashboard, floor-mounted pedals and wood trim on the dash, the center console and the door panels.

Stretching 184 inches long, the Monza uses an evolution of the plug-in hybrid drivetrain that powers the Chevrolet Volt and the Opel Ampera.  In order to lower CO2 emissions, the range extender is a natural gas-burning variant of the brand new 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine that will debut under the hood of the Adam city car over the next couple of months. Details about the car’s electric motor and battery pack were not provided.

While the Monza hints at the design direction Opel / Vauxhall will take over the following decade, it will likely not be given the green light for production in the near future.  However, the LED dashboard technology will be applied to upcoming Opel products and the plug-in hybrid drivetrain hints at what could lurk under the hood of the next-generation Chevrolet Volt when it arrives as either a 2015 or a 2016 model.

A new report finds a German investment group called Fritz Nols AG has recently placed a bid for Fisker.  Largely funded by taxpayers, the failed startup hasn’t built a car in over a year and it laid off most of its work force last spring.

Led by lawyer Ingo Voit, Frankfurt-based Fritz Nols AG is reportedly offering $25 million for the company and its assets, a small amount compared to the $171 million Fisker owes the United States Department of Energy (DOE).  

Voit has closely studied Fisker’s case and he adamantly believes management issues caused the company’s demise.

“Henrik Fisker put a huge emphasis on design but he forgot that he has to sell the car as well,” explained the lawyer in an interview with German magazine Autobild.  

To return Fisker to profitability, the group of investors plans on shifting Karma production from Finland to the United States and sell about 2,500 cars year.  The company will quickly focus on expanding the lineup with the Surf, a shooting brake based on the Karma that bowed at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show, and the Sunset, a two-door convertible that debuted at the 2012 Detroit Motor Show.  Fritz Nols is not immediately planning on adding the smaller Atlantic to the Fisker lineup because it will be too expensive to produce.

The DOE has not officially commented on the matter so when it will decide who takes home Fisker is not known.​  

Fritz Nols is not the only company bidding for Fisker.  Last May, founder Henrik Fisker and Hong Kong-based investor Richard Li offered the United States Department of Energy (DOE) between $25 and $30 million for the company. China’s Wanxiang and Bob Lutz’s VL Automotive have teamed up with a bid of $20 million, and Beijing Automotive (BAIC) has also manifested an interest in purchasing the company for an undisclosed sum.

A new report finds Tesla Motors will adopt the Tuosule name in China because a trademark scammer registered the company’s name in 2006.

The name Tuosule is a transliteration of Tesla in Cantonese Chinese, a dialect commonly spoken in Hong Kong.  Tesla recently opened a showroom and a repair center in Hong Kong and is expecting to deliver its first car there next spring.

The California-based automaker is also building a flagship showroom located inside the Parkview Green hotel in Beijing.  Scheduled to open before the end of the year, the showroom will be the world’s largest Tesla dealership and will spearhead the firm’s Chinese expansion. �

Trademark Battle

Baosheng Zhan protected the Tesla name in 2006 for use on cars, planes and boats.  Tesla tried to buy the trademark for two million yuan (roughly $326,000) but Zhan reportedly asked for ten times that amount, a sum that Tesla was not willing to pay.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk initially planned on taking the matter to court but the legal battle would have been too lengthy and expensive.  Apple fought a similar battle when it tried to launch its iPad tablet in China and ended up paying $60 million to buy the name from a firm that had used it once on a product several years prior.  The lawsuit lasted two years.  

The other trademark battle that Tesla was involved in ended relatively well as the Chinese swindler who had trademarked the name Tesla Motors a couple of years ago agreed to sell it for an unspecified amount of money last May.  This didn’t solve the firm’s naming problem as the trademark only applied to rail vehicles, sleighs, planes and boats.