Automotive Trends

 ON JANUARY 18 2018 |   IN  INDUSTRY NEWS ,  ISUZU D-MAX ,  LATEST NEWS  |   BY  ALASTAIR SLOANE  |    If you believe the public relations guff, every distributor in New Zealand last year sold record numbers of new vehicles. But that wasn’t the case. Okay, it was an overall record year, with 159,871 new vehicle registrations. But quite a few brands didn’t do as well as the PR people claim. Press releases saying this or that distributor is gearing up in 2018 to meet rapidly increasing demand for their vehicles are not supported by facts. So let’s look at who did what in 2017. This information has been leaked to  Automotive News NZ.  It isn’t readily available to the public – it circulates only within the motoring industry. The list of 45 brands on this page shows 16 – including many household names – didn’t do as well as in 2016. Some were stalled waiting for new models in 2018; others struggled against competition. High-end, go-faster names come and go anyway. What esp

26 Jul, 2018 7:50pm SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Hyundai Motor Co. said Thursday its net profit for the second quarter fell 14 percent over a year earlier due to the South Korean won's strength against the U.S. dollar. South Korea's largest automaker said its April-June net income was 701 billion won ($626 million), compared with 817 billion won a year earlier. It was lower than the analyst consensus of 897 billion won, according to financial data provider FactSet. Sales inched up 2 percent over a year earlier to 24.7 trillion won ($22.1 billion) but operating profit sank 29 percent to 951 billion won ($849 million). Hyundai Motors's profit fell despite it having sold more vehicles. That is because its overseas profit repatriated to South Korea shrank due to the cheaper U.S. dollar. In April-June, car sales rose 11 percent over a year earlier to 1.2 million units. For the first half of this year, sales rose 4.5 percent to 2.2 million units. In the U.S. market,

ON NOVEMBER 2 2015 |   IN  CAR REVIEWS ,  LATEST NEWS  |   BY  ALASTAIR SLOANE  | automotivenews.co.nz I went to Japan in late 2005 to drive the fourth-generation Triton . I expected the usual route for a ute: a beat over mix of good and bad roads and some 4WD work. Instead, Mitsubishi confined the drive to its high-speed banked test circuit. Why? Because it said it wanted to show the double-cab test ute was underpinned by a chassis that showed car-like characteristics. It quickly halted talk about the radically different look with: “Yes, but wait till you drive it.” Anyway, the ute turned out to be pretty well behaved, sweeping up and down the banked circuit at 130-140km/h, lap after lap. But the polarising new design always headed conversation, even after Mitsubishi’s senior Japanese executives said the company forecast huge growth in the ute sector beyond 2005 and wanted a new look to appeal to a new audience. Fast forward to 2015 and Mitsubishi was certainly right

The 2015 Mitsubishi Triton. Photos / Supplied NZ Herald Mitsubishi Motors' new generation Triton ute has made its international debut in Thailand. Presented for the first time in production form, the 2015 Mitsubishi Triton is promised to be more efficient, offer high levels of safety and raise the bar for passenger car-like steering performance , quietness, and ride comfort across the class. Powered by a new all-aluminium 2.4-litre MIVEC turbo diesel engine with variable geometry turbo and paired to a new 6-speed manual transmission or optional 5-speed automatic, the new generation model retains Triton's working vehicle durability and load-carrying capacity without compromising passenger and drive comfort. The interior of the new Mitsubishi Triton ute. Exterior styling has been updated for the 2015 model, helping the Triton to achieve outstanding aerodynamic performance compared to other models in the ute class. The new design contributes to Triton&