1985 Rx7 Gsl - 1 Owner For 28 Years! Only 79,000 Miles! ~a One Of A Kind Find!~ on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Dealers think Mazda's new Mexico plant will increase Mazda3 sales by 20%

Mazda3 sales in the US were down about 15 percent last year to a total of 104,713 units. According to a report from Automotive News, though, the slowdown in sales has been due more to production constraints than demand.
Good news for Mazda dealers, then, that a new plant in Salamanca, Mexico has just come online. Tom Carey, chairman of Mazda's national dealer council, told AN, "We're going to be in good shape because of that Mexico inventory." If estimates prove accurate, sales of the Mazda3 will increase by about 20 percent when the new plant begins production this month.
If those lofty projections come to pass, Mazda will reportedly be on track to exceed 300,000 total sales in the US in 2014, which would represent the brand's highest figures since its 375,000-unit peak in 1994. The brand hopes to sell more than 400,000 vehicles in the US by 2016, and with well-received products like the latest 3 and Mazda6 sedan, such expectations seem quite possible.

California adapts ZEV mandate with PHEVs for smaller automakers

California is the nation's largest market for zero-emissions vehicles with over 100,000 of them estimated to be on the roads there. The state's goal is to keep that number growing every year. To that end, the California Air Resources Board is now tweaking its rules in a way that might not boost ZEVs but could mean more plug-in hybrids for the Golden State. Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, and Volvo asked for an exemption to the state's zero-emissions vehicle mandate last year due to their relatively small development budgets compared to larger automakers. CARB denied their request but did craft a compromise, according to Automotive News. Rather than being required to offer a ZEV in the state, companies with an annual global revenue of less than $40 billion, like those in this group, may instead sell plug-in hybrids to earn ZEV credits. The companies aren't completely off the hook, though. If these plug-in hybrids don't earn enough credits, the corporations must buy them on the market to make up the difference. Automakers with popular electric models like Nissan and Tesla have made a big business through this trading system by selling their surplus to rivals. Tesla alone pocketed $51 million in the first quarter from this part of its business, according to Automotive News. The changes to the regulations also aren't set in stone, yet. CARB is meeting in 2016 and could adjust things further at that time. Related Video: News Source: Automotive News - sub. req. via Hybrid CarsImage Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Government/Legal Green Jaguar Land Rover Mazda Mitsubishi Subaru Volvo Emissions Electric Hybrid California zev credits zero emissions vehicle

Honda may recall up to 1M vehicles for airbag issue, following Toyota's lead

It seems Toyota won't be the only one recalling the faulty Takata airbag inflators for long. Honda insiders in Japan claim that the company is getting close to announcing its own worldwide campaign that would begin before the end of June.
Unnamed sources close to Honda in Japan tell Automotive News that the company is pursuing an internal investigation into possibly affected models and is working with Takata to gather more information. They claim that it could involve even more than the 1.14 million cars worldwide that the automaker covered under the first recall for the problem in April 2013, including 561,000 vehicles in the US.
Toyota jumpstarted this process last week when it recalled over 2 million cars worldwide, including 844,277 in the US. Soon after, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began a preliminary evaluation into the issue following six reported incidents, and started assembling data about potentially affected models from Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Chrysler. NHTSA also began investigating Takata itself.