Next week I will test drive a magnificently innovative automobile that almost no one yet cares about – not here in Canada and not anywhere else in the world except perhaps China. Yes, China. The car is the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt, a battery car with an estimated range of 383 km, available for $31,434 plus …
Winners and losers in the Canadian car market
Audi? Winner. Ford? Bigger winner. General Motors? Much bigger winner. Then we have Infiniti, Porsche, Subaru, Kia, Maserati and Smart? Massive winners across the board. Sales of all these brands in Canada jumped as much as 318.6 per cent in November (Smart) and as “little” as 13.2 per cent (Audi). Losers? Fiat Chrysler (FCA), Hyundai, …
2017 Lexus IS: what it lacks in German cachet is made up for in comfort, reliability and driveability
MALAHAT, B.C. — The changes to the 2017 Lexus IS are subtle but visually and even emotionally substantial. All of them are designed to enliven the look and feel of a Lexus compact luxury sedan well and capable of entertaining you for hours on a tricky and tight track like the Vancouver Island Motorsport Circuit …
Deal too good to be true? Beware of a used car masquerading as new
You most likely are familiar with the most obvious sales sweeteners or “spiffs” that dealers and manufactures use to clear their lots – cash giveaways, cheap financing, gas cards, and so on. Find details here: www.carcostcanada.com, www.unhaggle.com and www.apa.com. You’re probably unaware of dealer spiffs. The simplest are quotas that stipulate how many vehicles a …
February 8, 2017 | Commentary, First on the Grid 2 Comments (0) |
GM: no love despite making piles of money and very modern vehicles
Yes, it’s easy to mock General Motors – Government Motors – even now, nearly eight years removed from bankruptcy. The stain of failure is hard to clean. But isn’t it time to cut GM a little slack? The GM of 2017 is most definitely not the GM of 2009, whose bankruptcy filing reported US$82.29 billion …
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