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Hurricane Sandy cost automakers 15,000 vehicles, may have ruined up to 200k

Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic storm in US history, and its total economic impact is just now coming into view. According to Automotive News, Toyota, Chrysler, Nissan and Honda are set to scrap around 15,000 new vehicles ruined by the storm. Nissan alone accounts for about 40 percent of those, with 6,000 Nissan and Infiniti models deeded "un-saleable" due to damage. The company saw 56 dealerships shuttered due to the storm, but 51 of those have since reopened.
Toyota, meanwhile, had some 4,000 vehicles at its Newark port facility, and of those, 3,000 may be scrapped. An additional 825 were dealer inventory when they were ruined. Honda and Acura dealers are reportedly sending 3,440 vehicles to the salvage yard. By comparison, Chrysler weathered the storm fairly well with 825 units destroyed, while Hyundai suffered only 400 lost units and Kia scrapped around 200.
As you may recall, Fisker also suffered some losses, and Automotive News reports the manufacturer saw 320 Karma models damaged beyond repair. Ford and General Motors have yet to come up with estimates, and no automaker has commented on the full cost of replacing the vehicles.

Honda to compete in seven Pike's Peak classes in 2014

The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is one of the greatest events on the international motorsports calendar. Its Unlimited class harkens back to the old days of racing, when teams built vehicles to be the fastest with whatever they had. Honda is returning to the event for 2014 for its second year as a sponsor and participant, and it's bringing some cool machines of its own.
The company is fielding seven entrants this year, which is somewhat smaller than last year. In 2013, it brought 11 factory-supported vehicles in 10 classes, including an insane Honda Odyssey with a 532-horsepower turbocharged V6 engine. There's no need to be too disappointed by the shorter list, though. Former 24 Hours of Le Mans-winner Romain Dumas is back piloting a Honda-powered Norma chassis up the hill in the Unlimited class. Dumas attempted to race the car last year, but it broke down during his run. Other competitors include an NSX (pictured above), Fit B-Spec and an S3700, which is an S2000 with a 3.7-liter V6 engine.
In its role as sponsor, Honda says it has also worked with the sanctioning body to add an AirFence safety barrier along some corners for the motorcycle and ATV riders. This year's Pikes Peak is being held on Sunday, June 29. Scroll down to read the full details about Honda's team and start getting excited for this year's running.

Acura will sell its EVs exclusively online starting in 2024

Honda has big plans for the new year and electrification will play a huge part of that, the company's recently-promoted SVP of Sales, Mamadou Diallo, told reporters on Tuesday. Expect to see a lot more Honda and Acura hybrids on the road this year, ahead of a major EV push come 2024. Overall, Honda is officially aiming to move 1.2 million units in 2023, with Acura shooting for 160,000 units, a 20-25% increase over what they sold in 2022. And although the company managed to maintain a single-digit days' supply of vehicles throughout last year, it enters 2023 with a glut of cars and trucks and a 17-day supply. As such, dealers are going to be looking to move a lot of that inventory before this year's models start arriving so fingers crossed, we could potentially see some Tesla-level price cuts in the near future. "In 2023, we will see the strategies we've been talking about, including growing sales of light truck models, increasing volume of hybrid-electric models and the start of digital sales at Acura," Diallo said in a Wednesday press release. "All this leads toward our vision of 100-percent electrified sales by 2040 to fulfill our ultimately goal of zero emissions by 2050."  The ZDX and ZDX Type S will be Acura's first full-EV offerings and serve as the harbingers of the company's new, exclusively online EV sales strategy. Diallo didn't have much additional information regarding how the system would work — such as whether haggling was allowed or how individual vehicle prices would be set — but assured the assembled journalists, "as we get closer to [the ZDX debut], we certainly will be discussing this a little bit more with our dealer body and the press in general. For right now we're still finalizing all those details." Acura joins Ford, Volvo, GM and VW in shifting its electrified vehicle sales to the digital marketplace.  For its part, Honda is planning a significant increase in its hybrid vehicle production in 2023, starting with the newly-redesigned Accord and Accord Hybrid (they'll also be Honda's first with Google Built-In). The company "will continue to increase hybrid sales through core models as an important step in bridging customers to full electrified vehicles while reducing GHG emissions," the Wednesday release reads. Honda anticipates a solid half of this year's CR-V and Accord sales to be of the hybrid variety and its efforts bolstered in 2024 with the introduction of a new Civic hybrid.