In a recent press event, Derrick Kuzak, the product development chief of Ford Motor Co. said the company is considering an inclusion of a new compact crossover vehicle  to its luxury brand, Lincoln. “We do think that there is room for a smaller car in the Lincoln brand,” he said.

The Lincoln brand might get the C-segment car at the same time, when it will replace the Ford Escape early next decade. However, Kuzak didn’t go into details, but the upcoming car is likely to be based on the European Ford Kuga crossover vehicle. (more…)

August proved to be a very difficult month for Toyota and the Detroit 3. Nissan Motor Co., on the other hand managed to post a solid gain in terms of its US Sales. Their sales are up 1 percent for the year to date. The company confirmed that its US sales rose by a huge margin of 13.6% in the month of August, to 108,493 vehicles, due to the increased demand for large trucks and SUVs.

Nissan-brand sales were up 14.2 percent to 97,417 vehicles in August, driven by a 32.6 percent jump in light-truck sales, Al Castignetti, who is the vice president and general manager of Nissan Division, told Reuters. (more…)

In order to reduce the number of new car quality complaints, Nissan Motor Co. is increasing the number of its quality control inspectors and engineers.

The Japanese automaker has set the goal of cutting the quality complaints by half on new cars by 2012. Therefore, the company is putting the responsibility for quality improvements in the hands of 5,300 people.

According to the automaker’s spokesman, Pauline Kee “Quality commitment is one of the three commitments in our GT2012 business plan, and Nissan is putting in a lot of focus and effort to meet our commitments.” (more…)

Irvine-based Quality Systems Inc. named Steven T. Plochocki as its new President and Chief Executive Officer on Tuesday.

Plochocki, 56 has been on Quality systems’ board of directors since 2004 and a longtime local healthcare executive. He replaces the former CEO Lou Silverman. Silverman has been the Quality systems’ CEO since 2000.

Plochocki will take over as CEO on Saturday. He is the former chairman and CEO of air medical services company Omniflight Helicopters Inc. and he has also worked at health care billing company Centratex. Plochocki was also CEO of Lake Forest-based medical scanning provider InSight Health Services Holdings Corp. and was president and chief operating officer of Lake Forest-based home healthcare provider Apria Healthcare Group Inc. (more…)

As long as the present scenario is concerned, we can say that the days of  $4-a-gallon gasoline are gone, at least for now. Today the nation-wide price of gasoline is $3.81-a-gallon, as confirmed by AAA, of Heathrow, Fla. The current price is dropped by 16 cents in a week  The survey that was done by AAA is based on data, collected from as many as 85,000 filling stations nationwide.
 
Midgrade unleaded is selling the gasoline for $3.97-a-gallon, down 37 cents of the original price. The price of Diesel dropped by 27 cents from a month ago, to $4.53-a-gallon. (more…)

At a public hearing of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on new CAFE standards, the administration drew opposition from automotive industry advocates and critics on Monday.

In the United States the Corporate Average Fuel Economy or CAFE regulations are designed to reduce energy consumption by increasing the fuel economy of cars and light trucks. Congress passed a bill late last year that mandated NHTSA to set standards requiring cars and light trucks to achieve a 35 miles per gallon fleet average by 2020, or go beyond that level if possible. (more…)

North America’s largest auto finance company and General Motors finance arm, GMAC is tightening its financial policies including both leases and loans, in response to the tough U.S. auto market.

GM consumers with lower credit, now will have to opt for less expensive vehicles. Otherwise, if they opt for expensive ones, they need to pay higher down payments than the past. The dealers will take care of size of the down payment and employment status of the consumers before the approval of a lease or loan. (more…)

After two leading Japanese automakers, Toyota and Honda, another Japanese company, Nissan Motor Co. plans to make production cuts in trucks and minivans and will focus more on fuel- efficient passenger cars. The automaker is threatened by the higher gasoline prices and consumer demand shift from larger vehicles to smaller cars.

Like most of the companies in the automotive industry, Nissan will shift more of its North American production to smaller cars with four- cylinder engines, while cutting back on truck production and minivans. (more…)

Despite the huge fall in oil prices, the shares of automobiles managed to climb up by their biggest margins in the recent months. The oil prices dropped by $10 a barrel in two days but the shares of General Motors and Ford Motor Co. each managed to achieve a profit margin of more than 15 percent after going downwards in the share market in recent weeks.
 
The stock market drew all its support margin from the huge fall in oil prices, that fell by a combined $10.58 a barrel in last two days. General Motor finished up $1.64 to $11.48 (16.6 percent) a share, while Ford finished up at 18.0 percent per share in the share market. (more…)

According to reports, Nicole Nason, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA will be resigning next month.

Nason joined the NHTSA on May 31, 2006. She has been the nation’s chief motor vehicle safety regulator since then and she has been responsible for the implementation of several important auto safety regulations. Earlier, she was the assistant secretary for government affairs in the Department of Transportation since July 2003. (more…)