G. David Felt

Clearly BMW is not what it once was, their sales across the board are UGLY!

Traditional expectation of cars sales drop, CUV sales rise. But interesting that the number of posted sales are showing a clear slowing of auto sales over all.

Interesting to see that the Impreza and Crosstrek are their big sellars. Confirms the move to CUV type auto's.

August is the month that Chevrolet opened the BOLT to everyone in every state, so half the US states could finally receive BOLT's in the month of August. From July to August, the sales went from 1971 for July to 2107 for August. 136 sales increase from July and a total jump from 9563 to 11,670 YTD. This is doing better than many German Luxury auto's. I am hopeful we see a bigger jump in September as all states and dealerships should have BOLTs on their lots.

Cars are being murdered and cuv's are doing decent. Surprised Mazda is doing this well.

One ugly sales report with very few bright spots.

To be expected numbers considering they are cutting way back on fleet sales.

Savana and Caprice sales exploded Nice what GM is doing for the relief effort in Texas. Course the State says Don't Mess with Texas, so why is everyone helping them?

WOW, Nissan is down but still respectable sales numbers.

Some are very surprising especially Jeep Down and GMC up. WOW Really appreciate all the work that goes into reporting this by Bill and the companies. One interesting observation is that some companies seem to be resorting to just giving overall sales numbers, % up or down and highlighting just a few models. This makes me wonder about the confidence in that automakers product line when they stop reporting individual numbers and generalize their overall sales. Wish Tesla would get onboard with better sales details and certain German brands that have gone generic would pick up the ball and report everything.

Toyota is just killing it, I am surprised by the Rav4 sales, so overrated in my view and not very roomy for big people. Guess that Lemming boring look clearly is appealing to some.

VW seems to be making a steady comeback on the back of cars of all things.

Always amazes me how little auto selling companies can survive on such little sales, but then Audi has VW to back itself.

Guess the Lemmings love their Meh cars, Honda seems to be one of the few that is still going strong on cars compared to everyone else.

Also nails home buying a OEM certified Lease return auto or buying an older one and then fixing it up the way you want. So many ways to have a nice ride for much less cost.

So german love making is soulless, calculated and engineered to perfection. Italian is hot heavy sweaty and passionate but not reliable. So that must mean North American Love Making is perfect since you have the freedom to do it your way, any way with enough quality to keep you coming back again and again. Solid like a Rock, Most dependable longest lasting with a measure of 100 year toughness and innovative! Yup America Rocks!

Totally makes sense, the days of a manual trans are over. R.I.P. Manual Transmissions You were fun while it lasted, but a new bad boy is on the horizon, the paddle shift EV / Hybrid auto!

Green, Super Green, Extreme Green Green power generation is showing proof of even bigger drops in emissions! Electric Insights Quarterly in UK just published their latest report that is proving the fossil fuel industry to be wrong. For years the Fossil Fuel industry has stated that electric auto's pollut equal to if not more than ICE auto's. Yet the latest studies are now showing that in many cases, green energy production has reduced car emissions by 2/3rds. The report shows that in the 1980's emissions was 740 g/kWh, down to 500 g/kWh in the early 2000's and now consistently seeing a bounce of below and just above 100 g/kWh in production. In many cases, green power generation from Solar, Wind, Water has allowed deep decarbonisation. Using Tesla, there is examples of just how green the EV auto's have become due to the greenness of power production. Check out the report. DRAW Q2 Report

Seems depending on where you read about this car, Mini and BMW will share the same i3 underpinnings and have between a 150 to 200 mile range is all due to the size. Samsung seems to be the battery supplier and the Mini E is expected to be considerably cheaper than the BMW i3. The Mini E just gets a Meh from me as I am not sure why but the Mini line of auto's just does not do anything exciting for me. Interesting reads can also be found here: http://www.caranddriver.com/news/mini-electric-concept-photos-and-info-news http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1110496_new-all-electric-mini-e-to-launch-in-2019-as-halo-for-brand http://www.businessinsider.com/bmw-electric-mini-concept-frankfurt-motor-show-2017-8 https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/08/mini-teases-a-2019-electric-car-at-the-frankfurt-international-motor-show/ https://www.motoroids.com/news/mini-electric-concept-to-debut-at-iaa-cars-2017-in-frankfurt/ So why is it taking Mini so long to get this to market when the bulk of it is an i3 already in production? Mini is saying a late 2019 model available in early 2019 or a 2020 model in late 2019. Overall, still seems slow to deliver. Being a rebadge of the i3 from BMW, why is it taking so long to get this to market?

Everyone see's things differently, but my first time seeing this auto when Bill posted the pictures, it just reminded me of the Ford Escape CUV. Over all shape. The back end, especially the rear quarter panel really has similarity to the MDX and the grill is an oversized version of BMW. Kia has always copied everyone on their style and that is how I see it. Check out the pictures here:

Taking the Ford Escape cross bred with an MDX and add the BMW, I mean Kia kidney grill and you have a .......... Not sure what you have but it is not pretty.

Tesla has finally put some decent info on their web site as an FAQ about the Model 3. Model 3 Reservation FAQ Rather interesting to see the estimated delivery dates to their 5X production ramp by the end of December. Enjoy

How is the Cruze doing now? Maybe I missed it, but if you traded it in, what did you get now? Let us know.