A round-up of today's other stories in brief
First look at Hyundai iX45
THIS IS HYUNDAI’S replacement to the current Santa Fe range, one of three new models due in the coming months.Following on from the launch of its i40, rival to the likes of the VW Passat and Toyota Avensis, the firm will next year bring forth a new i30 hatchback and a refreshed i20 supermini. Alongside these comes the Santa Fe replacement, likely to be called the iX45.
The photo shows an iX45 undergoing engineering tests, the firm has officially released a sketch of the new i30, with the new car due to be unveiled at next month’s Frankfurt motor show.
The car has been designed and engineered at the Hyundai Motor Europe Technical Centre in Rüsselsheim, Germany, and represents the next evolution of the firm’s new design language.
Before these cars arrive, however, the firm will introduce its Veloster coupe to Irish customers by December. Prices are expected to be between €25,000 and €29,000 – hoping to revive the interest among the current Hyundai Coupé owners but also capture some of sales from rivals like the VW Scirocco.
GM to cut car platform numbers
GENERAL MOTORS – owners of the Opel and Chevrolet brands – plans to cut the number of vehicle platforms on which it makes cars and trucks by more than half by 2018.
GM’s global production chief Mary Barra told analysts at the GM Global Business Conference in Detroit last week that cutting the number of platforms will trim costs and increase the quality of the company’s vehicles.
In 2010, GM built on 30 platforms, or architectures – the underpinnings of each vehicle that often remain the same through several model lines. And 31 per cent of GM’s vehicles in 2010 were built on “core” platforms, Barra said.
By 2018, the number of platforms will be cut to 14, and 90 per cent of GM vehicles will be built on “core” platforms, said Barra.
Having 90 per cent of GM vehicles built on “core” platforms, “allows us to have a much more efficient investment in each of these vehicles, and it also delivers higher quality, faster-to-market” cars and trucks, said Barra.
Building on global platforms in order to cut costs and share common parts is a strategy used in greater frequency by all car firms. Ford has been successful using this strategy on launches of small and family-sized cars in the past year.
Record used-car prices in US
RECORD-HIGH prices for used luxury cars in the US are driving more buyers to new-car lots.
A new BMW M3 saloon now costs just $34 more a month than a one-year-old used model, according to Edmunds.com. A Chevrolet Corvette is about $12 a month cheaper to buy, the auto-pricing website says.
There is shortage of used cars in the US, the product of manufacturing cuts amid slumping sales in the last three years.
That means buyers have effectively been priced out of the used-car market and into new models. As many as 500,000 new vehicles by mid-2012 may have been sold to people who would have bought used, said economist Paul Ballew.
“There’s a substitution effect going on between new and used,” he added. “When you get those price gaps closing, you get people that are willing to shop new that wouldn’t have before.”
Two years after US auto sales plunged to their lowest level in almost three decades, the supply of used cars coming off leases. Low-mileage used cars will remain so scarce that many shoppers will buy a new vehicle instead, said Ballew. – Bloomberg