2012 Honda CR-V prototype involved In accident with a Toyota

We have talked quite a bit about the 2012 CR-V. In the first post, we explained that Honda wasn't copying anyone in the CR-V's design, but the logical reasons behind the CR-V's similarlity with the silhouette of a Volvo XC60. Subsequent post was about whether Honda is debuting a 7-seater version of the CR-V. A few days after that, we learned that the heavily camouflaged validation prototype CR-V was involved in a serious accident with 3 other vehicles on the Pacific Coast Highway in California. As if it was not bad enough for a highly confidential heavily camouflaged vehicle to be involved in an accident, one of the cars hit by the CR-V, a Toyota Highlander, belongs to Jean Aw, a high profile blogger of Notcot.com, a creative design site. To make things worse, excluding the CR-V, 2 out the other 3 cars involved are Toyota SUVs - a Toyota Highlander and a Lexus RX. We don't know much details, but the pictures are not doing Honda any favour. It appears that the CR-V made a sharp left turn, hitting the blogger's Toyota Highlander, pushing it towards oncoming traffic, at which point it was hit by a Lexus RX. Did the heavy camo at the rear blocked out the driver's view? Probably. There was no mention of the identity of the third car involved. The blogger claims that the CR-V made a sudden sharp left turn into her. Remember that USA is a left hand drive country, so they drive on the right side of the road and traffic merging is towards the left.

The Lexus RX involved.

Familiar looking guy? This appears to be the same guy from another picture in the earlier post - with the other CR-V prototype, the one with no roof rack.

Even before the 2012 CR-V is launched, Toyota already scored a couple of +1 from this incident. Netizens are giving the Highlander thumbs up for keeping the passenger cell in tact. Plus the blogger's own thumbs up for her Toyota.

On other thoughts, I wonder just what is the probability of hitting 2 Toyota SUVs in a row in California. Pretty high it seems.

On a more serious note - we are glad that the crew from Honda are safe. Remember that last month was the first anniversary of Toyota's star test and racing driver Hiromu Naruse's passing, who was killed while testing a prototype Lexus LF-A.

Just a few months before Naruse's fatal accident, a Mercedes-Benz's test driver was seriously injured when his protoype 2012 Mercedes ML struck another car that had broken down at the road side, causing the Mercedes to flip.

More on those in another post here. The job of test driving or as OEMs call it - on road validation, is not as fun as it sounds. Driving long distance, across extreme weather, and poor roads over long periods of time can wear you down.

Daimler Announces Q2 2011 Results

So Daimler announced its Q2 2011 financial results today. But this post is less about Daimler's financial numbers, and more about the media. In many ways I am a numbers guy, but the irony is that I myself don't trust numbers. In my opinion, numbers on its own are meaningless, and the information they represent are only as valuable as the intellect, or even position of the person who reads it. Numbers are relative. They can carry a very positive meaning when compared to one set of reference, but yet can carry a very negative meaning when compared to another set of reference. It's all a matter of how the person reading the numbers want to present, or should I say, massage the numbers. Every time someone quotes some study or survey results, the first thing I do is to check who is paying or sponsoring for the study, or who has the most vested interest in the results.

Just look at the two different headlines below, from two different sources. Both are reporting on the same issue.

This is the headline from Daimler's official press release

According to Daimler,
Daimler AG (stock-exchange symbol DAI) achieved earnings in the second quarter of 2011 that were among the best in a quarter in the Group’s entire history: Group EBIT amounted to €2,581 million (Q2 2010: €2,104 million).
Net profit increased to €1,704 million, which was also a record level (Q2 2010: €1,312 million), and earnings per share amounted to €1.51 (Q2 2010: €1.18).

This is the headline from Reuters.

Reuters article opens with :
German car and truck maker Daimler's (DAIGn.DE) second quarter revenues fell short of expectations, indicating that demand for cars in emerging markets may be starting to cool.

Second-quarter revenues rose about 5 percent to 26.34 billion euros (22.36 billion pounds), Daimler said on Wednesday, missing an average estimate of 27.99 billion in a Reuters poll.

So on the surface, it seems Daimler missed its earnings target, which is quite a big hoo-ha in the stuffy world of shareholders, suited men in corporate board rooms. But was it really that big of a big deal? Below is Daimler's quarterly earnings history from 2010 to Q1 2011. Also shown in the pop-up is the estimate for Q2 2011. The estimated earnings were the result of estimates provided by 11 financial analysts. The earnings estimate range from a pessimistic 25.8 billion Euros to a highly optimistic 29.3 billion Euros. So Daimler's 26.3 billion Euros revenue results for Q2 was well within range.


Source : Bloomberg

Between 2010 to Q1 2011, sales of Mercedes-Benz passenger vehicles rose a whooping 86%. Obviously that was a short anomaly and cannot be sustained, even for a high growth market like China. The China factor is a quite a major variable in Daimler's earnings. Currently, China is Mercedes-Benz's third largest market after Germany and USA. But more crucially on the profit front, China is Mercedes-Benz's largest market for its top of the line (and more importantly, high margin) S-class limousine model. Last year, in a bid to counter the worsening traffic situation, the city of Beijing implemented its most drastic traffic control measure in automotive history - by limiting vehicle registration to just 240,000 vehicles a year, down from 850,000 vehicles a year. That's a massive 70% drop in car sales.

On top of that, the Chinese government is struggling to reign in inflation, which threatens to overheat the Chinese economy. Bank lending will be tightened but these are all part and parcel of a normal economic cycle. Daimler's quarterly and annual earnings have been on an uptrend almost like a clockwork. It is not realistic to expect this trend to continue perpetually.

Every media company, is owned by someone, and with that comes along their own vested interest, and also their own perspective of things. One can't report something or present any critique without taking any position on the topic. Which is fine, because that is only part of human nature. Hence the need to have a balanced viewpoint and refer to multiple sources.

BMW and MINI in MTV

BMW and its sub-brand MINI seems to be trying hard to court the MTV generation, presumably trying to groom them up to be future fans of the brand. First, BMW was featured in Jennifer Lopez feat Pitbull's "On The Floor" MTV. The video opens with J Lo riding up to a dance club in a BMW 7-series, with the camera panning over to focus on the BMW roundel, giving the brand about 15 seconds of exposure in total.

Now, a new band, coming out from I-dunno-where, by the name Cover Drive, have released its debut single called "Lick Ya Down." Yup. That is the title. But for some reason, the Madison Avenue type folks convinced BMW that it is a good idea to tie-up its young MINI brand with a sexually suggestive titled MTV. The video opens with its lead female vocalist rolling up a driveway in a MINI Cooper Cabrio, giving the car around 15 seconds of exposure, culminating with the camera focusing on the MINI badge at the car's rear.

This is J-Lo and Pitbull's On The Floor.

Some years back, I had the chance to speak to former senior staff at Lamborghini global. His tenure at Lamborghini was right after VW's acquisation of Lamborghini. He did mention that back then, Lamborghini couldn't be as successful as Porsche partly because the brand had a rather questionable image - that it was too associated with pimps, drug dealers, and the hip-hop crowd. They had to spend some years cleaning up the brand's image and vetting its dealer network, some of them were owned by mafias! Bentley too is popular amongst the hip-hop rapper crowd, with the brand featuring in quite a few song lyrics as well. But Bentley's association with hip-hop was a result of organic growth, rather than a deliberate move by the brand's custodians. So far, Bentley is doing fine, and introduction of the Flying Spur sedan drew in more buyers from the "right crowd" and balanced up its image somewhat.

Besides the two, there is another recent MTV that featured a BMW - Katy Perry's Teenage Dream featured a very BMW 2002 convertible. But it being an old car, I doubt BMW was directly involved in the MTV's production. You would expect them to be more interested in promoting their current range of cars.

Honda CR-V - more spyshots

About two months ago, the first set of spyshots for the 2012 Honda CR-V surfaced, thanks to the work of Brenda Priddy and Company. Because of the elongated D-pillar, increased length and a heavily covered up rear three-quarter window, many speculated that the next CR-V will spot a 7-seater option. We were quite convinced that a 7-seater model will be sold, at least as an optional extra. We base our conclusion on the fact that market leader Toyota RAV4 is sold with an optional third row seat in the US, giving it MPV-like seating capacity. But we recently came across the latest set of photos - showing inside the CR-V's rear hatch, and surprise surprise! No third row seats. The omission of third row seatbelts points tell us that there aren't any seats folded beneath the cargo either. So we are not too sure now.

It could be also that Honda is playing some games with spyshot photographers. First they heavily concealed the rear-three quarter window area, making it clear for all that they are hiding something important at the back, and then deliberately opening the rear hatch knowing that a photographer is trailing the crew in another vehicle. I say deliberate because if they are really serious on keeping things hidden, typical rules for driving of prototypes on public roads include not stopping a vehicle unless absolutely necessary, and to cover the vehicle in a large black drape before opening the vehicle. Plus, it wouldn't make much sense to lengthen the car's rear and not fit a third row seat option. Trunk space is not something that comes up frequently in CR-V customer clinic surveys.

Note that there are two different cars featured in the image sets above. Scroll up and you will notice that the vehicle in the first set do not have roof racks, while the vehicle in the second image sets comes with roof racks integrated into the roof rails. You will spot a tow kit at the car's rear. The car we saw with the rear hatch opened does not have roof-racks. So the 7-seater model option reserved for a higher range model only?

Kia Boss Hooks Up To A Lie Detector

What does it take to convince a potential customer that what your brand's claims are genuine? How about putting the company's boss through a lie detector test? That was exactly what Kia Motors Belgium did. To convince the public that Kia's 7-year warranty offer is genuine, Benoit Morrene, GM of Kia Motors Belgium allowed himself to be hooked to a lie detector while answering questions streamed from the Internet. Live video feed and incoming questions were posted online.

The ad campaign was done by a Belgian agency LDV United. If you speak Dutch, you can follow the entire proceeding here. The transcript of questions and answers given can be downloaded here.

I don't think it is possible not just for Kia, but for any car company to do the same thing here. It's not so much about manufacturer's here are out to fleece you, but I would imagine the load of rude and negative rubbish that will be submitted. Just ask anyone in the customer service / support line on the sort of horribly written complain letters that they have to deal with. Plus, this was done in Belgium, where people are more civilized, and consumers understand what is their right and what is an irrational / rude complain.

Regarding extended warranties, there are quite a number of car manufacturers offering them. But no two extended warranties are the same. You maybe offered a 5-year extended warranty package, but most of the time, what the extended warranty package really is a 3-year (or even 2-year) warranty covered by the manufacturer, while the remaining is picked up by a third party, usually an insurance company. The coverage given by the manufacturer (first 2 or 3 years) is different from the coverage given by the third party insurer. Does it cover rust, engine, transmission, or does it exclude these? The extended warranty may only cover parts and not labour. So be sure to read the fine print on what items are covered within what period. In some cases, the extended warranty is tied to the first owner, so it cannot be transferred to the next owner once the car is sold.

In the case of Kia Motors Belgium, the 7-year warranty offered is bumper-to-bumper (meaning it covers the entire car with no exception), including parts and labour, It also includes a free 7-year roadside assistance. And the best of all - these are transferable to the next owner, so it dramatically increases a Kia's resale value. Just how many used cars can you buy out there that are still under warranty?

2012 Porsche 911 - Video

Porsche has just released a new teaser video, showing heavily disguised prototypes of its upcoming 998 generation Porsche 911 undergoing hot weather testing in South Africa. Vehicle development / testing videos are getting quite popular as a promotional tool. And Porsche have a history of creating some of the best vehicle development promo videos since those pre-Youtube days. In fact, I still have some of early videos featuring the Boxster, Cayenne and 996 models.

The latest video doesn't reveal much about the car's exterior or interior but then again there's nothing much to guess on its exterior looks. After all, how different can a new generation 911 look compared to the previous generation models? Whatever it is, we know for sure that the next generation 911 won't be a disappointment.

For every new generation of 911, it always seems that Porsche has created the ultimate, most usable supercar, and it's hard to imagine how can the bar be raised any further. But come each model generation model, the folks at Porsche will somehow, still manage to up the ante further with careful application of the latest technology. It's the same story with the high performance Turbo, GT3 and GT2 variants. We thought the 996 models were right at the limit already, but Porsche up the stakes again with the 997, and again with the 997 series-2 models. The current 997 generation cars are already the best of the breed and is unlikely that any further improvements can be still squeezed out. History however, suggests that we are likely to proven wrong, again.

In the teaser video, I particularly liked the scene with the kids laughing themselves silly. Every young boy's eye will glisten up innocently at the sight of a 911. In fact, it's something that many of us still feel an emotional attachment to. I still remember my first experience with a Porsche. I was 7 when I first saw a 911. It was a white 964 generation model rapidly catching up and passing my dad's car. You just knew that it's something very special. Adults too will cheer up to the sight of a 911, but not with the same pure emotional joy, but often, it is corrupted by ego, the pursuit of status and doing a one-up against the neighbours or members at the golf club.


Purists will engage in another round of pointless Internet forum debates about how Porsche is no longer a true performance focused car, getting too fat, too comfortable, too easy for any idiot to drive etc etc. While my personal favourite 911 is the last air-cooled 993 generation cars, I don't adopt a Luddites view on cars and harbour nostalgic feelings for all things old. The 911 have always been the most reliable, usable supercar for its time. Every generation of 911 is a barometer of its era, a reflection of societal demands and our aspirations.

Baojun 630

Back in July 2010, GM, via its local Chinese JV SAIC-GM-Wuling (SGMW) announced the launch of its budget sub-brand for the Chinese market - Baojun. By November 2010, the first Baojun product was introduced to the Chinese media - the Baojun 630 sedan.

The initial plan was to launch the car by July 2011, but was later delayed to August 2011, not because SGMW could not roll out the cars but because SGMW could not certify enough dealers on time. The plan for the Baojun brand is to be an independent sub-brand away from GM, having its own dealer network, so as not to dilute the existing brand positioning of GM's brands. Baojun is targeted at first time car buyers in Tier-2 cities. In China, cities are categorized into 3 tiers. There are 3 Tier-1 cities - Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. Tier-2 cities are usually the provincial capitals. China is not divided into states, but into provinces. There are over 20 Tier-2 cities, the larger ones include Chengdu, Chongqing, Kunming, Hangzhou.

SGMW has now confirmed that the Baojun 630 will be launched in August 2011, with two engine option - a 1.5-liter and 1.8-liter petrol. The Baojun 630 is about the size of a Toyota Corolla sedan. The key attraction to the Baojun 630 however, is its price, estimated to be below RMB 100,000. GM has yet to announce the Baojun 630's price, but it is rumoured to be within the RMB 70,000 to RMB 90,000 range. As a comparison, a Toyota Vios in China only starts at RMB 89,500 (around RM45,000), stretching all the way to RMB 123,900 (around RM 62,000).

Just for the sake of comparison, if the same quantum of price premium between a base model Chinese market Toyota Vios and a Baojun 630 sedan is applied to our local vehicle pricing context, the Baojun would sell at around RM 55,700, or 21.7% lower than the RM 69,000 asking price for a Vios 1.5J Manual here. But that's not all, the base model Chinese market Vios that we are referring to is a 1.3-liter version, meaning that it is cheaper! Chinese market Vios gets two engine option; a 1.3-liter VVT-i 2NZ-FE and a 1.6-liter Dual VVT-i 1ZR-FE. Over here, you would have to pay up to Corolla Altis level money to get the same Dual VVT-i engine, in the Altis 1.6E. The sheer volume of sales in China gives Chinese distributors extremely strong leverage asking for the best stuff from the manufacturing principal.

But the point of this article is not really about the Baojun, as it is not quite relevant to those of us in Malaysia. Lately, I have been thinking and talking to some people regarding the coming wave of Chinese cars. We laugh and scoff at the first wave Chinese cars, dinky little Chery QQs which are really Chevy Spark knockoffs and Geely models in Western markets. But Chinese brands have shown tremendous improvement with each successive new model iteration and it is only a matter of time before they start exporting cars with Korean / Japanese / European like qualities. And their sheer volume will allow Chinese car makers to price them substantially lower than their competitors. In a free market, eventually Chinese cars, built with Western technology and designed by European design studios (most of which are already Chinese owned now) will start flooding the market, in the same way Chinese made Lenovo computers and Haier home electrical appliances are challenging the likes of Dell and LG. Why should the car market be any different? So what happens then? The question is even more critical for mainstream budget car brands, like Suzukis, Daihatsus or even our own national brands. I don't think we have seen this sort of undercutting prices even back in the days when the Koreans and Japanese are starting to ramp up their overseas sales operations.

The Baojun is a pretty compelling proposition. It looks pretty good, a C-segment sedan that is priced more like a B-segment hatchback, let alone a B-segment sedan. GM did not officially mention this, but automotive industry sources indicate that the Baojun 630 is a development of the old Chevrolet Optra's / Buick Excelle (Chinese market) J-series platform, which no longer meets European passive safety nor meets current user's competitive matrix requirements. But it is still good enough as a budget car for a developing market, and frankly, it is still better than many equivalent budget Japanese offerings we have here.

Interestingly, the name Baojun means treasure horse in Chinese. BMW in China is known as Baoma, which also carries a similar meaning. SAIC-GM-Wuling should not be confused with SGM (Shanghai-General Motors). The Wuling part of the name refers to Liuzhou Wuling Motors Co, a separate entity from Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) and General Motors (GM).

When GM entered China, its local partner was SAIC, creating Shanghai-GM (SGM). Wuling is a minivan specialist who later entered into agreement with SGM, creating SGMW. Wuling branded minivans are the most popular minivans in China, and if I am not mistaken, is the best selling minivan in the world. Baojun is owned by SGMW. Typical GM brands like Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac are under SGM, while Roewe and MG are exclusively owned by SAIC alone.

2012 US Market Camry - undisguised

Just after we posted a story on the Asian market flagship Camry, we came across an undisguised picture of the US market Camry. The US market Camry is expected to be released sometime around October.

Read more about our earlier story on the 2012 Camry here.

Spyshots of 2012 Toyota Camry, Thailand model

An anonymous reader dropped us a tip that the first clear spyshots of the flagship Camry has surfaced from Thailand. Thanks for the tip!

Note that this shot refers to the flagship Camry and will look significantly different from the one teased by Toyota Motor Corp.'s President Akio Toyota in an Internet video recently. That video refers to the US market global Camry, which is due to be launched sometime this October. Thailand is expected to launch the flagship Camry, the model that we will be getting, sometime in Q1 2012. However note that for this coming model change, the Camry will no longer the imported from Thailand but assembled in Malaysia. So expect our local launch date to be at a slightly later date, maybe 6 months later than Thailand's line-off date. So the period between end-Q2 or early Q3 is our estimate.

Image via Edmund's InsideLine.

Toyota sells two versions of the Camry. One is known internally as the global Camry, a smaller model designed for Japan, North America, Latin America and the Middle East, where it is positioned as a mainstream mid-size sedan, often playing the role of a sales volume champion for Toyota in mature markets that has outgrown a Corolla.

A US market Camry, also known internally as the global Camry

The other model is known as the flagship Camry, a larger, more luxurious model designed to cater mainly to Asian markets like China, Taiwan and ASEAN trade bloc states (Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam). In these markets, the larger Camry is sold as a pseudo-luxury model, slotting just below premium brands like Mercedes and BMW. In these markets, a Corolla or a Vios is still the sales volume driver and Camry's role in these market is to cater to value conscious high income buyers. The same car is also sold as the Aurion in Australia, New Zealand and parts of the Middle East. The larger Aurion is fitted with a high capacity 3.5 V6 engine. In these markets, the Aurion V6 is sold alongside a (global) Camry and was originally meant to challenge traditional large RWD sedans like the Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore which are hugely popular in Australia as well as the Chevrolet Lumina / Pontiac G8 in the Middle East. But so far, sales of the Aurion have been lackluster.

The larger flagship Camry, commonly found in Asia. It is also our local market Camry.

The Austrlian market Toyota Aurion, which is similar to our local Camry, but with a larger engine.

Both versions of Camry are built on the same Toyota Modular Platform (TMP), also known as the MC chassis.

A Brazilian motoring site Notica Automotivas also posted scanned pages of a Japanese magazine, which it claims to be finalized design of the 2012 Camry.

However I suspect that this is a Camry Hybrid rather than a standard Camry. The grille is similar to that in the current Camry Hybrid sold in Thailand. Also, it looks like there is a faint blue hue at the badge, and I think I spot the "Hybrid Synergy Drive" badge at the rear. Expect the standard Camry to carry a similar design, but with a different, more conservative (still lots of chrome) grille, more conservative front bumper and different rear tail lense cluster.

According to scans, the new Camry will be 10mm longer, 5mm wider. Although wheelbase remain unchanged, rear legroom is increased by 15mm.

UPDATE : Full pictures of the 2012 Camry can be found here.

Motoring in China

Recently, the good folks at Sime Darby Motors hosted several members of the Malaysian media to witness the launching of the largest BMW 4S Center in China, operated by Sime Darby Motor's wholly owned subsidiary Chengdu Bow Yue Vehicle Sales Co. Ltd. You can read more about that in next week's issue of CBT. Meanwhile, we have published several side stories at CBT's web portal. Read more about them here and here.