2014 Honda Civic Si on 2040-cars

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GM, Ford, Honda winners in 'Car Wars' study as industry growth continues

General Motors' plans to aggressively refresh its product lineup will pay off in the next four years with strong market share and sales, according to an influential report released Tuesday. Ford, Honda, and FCA are all poised to show similar gains as the auto industry is expected to remain healthy through the rest of the decade. The Bank of America Merrill Lynch study, called Car Wars, analyzes automakers' future product plans for the next four model years. By 2020, 88 percent of GM's sales will come from newly launched products, which puts it slightly ahead of Ford's 86-percent estimate. Honda (85 percent) and FCA (84 percent) follow. The industry average is 81 percent. Toyota checks in just below the industry average at 79 percent, with Nissan trailing at 76 percent. Car Wars' premise is: automakers that continually launch new products are in a better position to grow sales and market share, while companies that roll out lightly updated models are vulnerable to shifting consumer tastes. Though Detroit and Honda grade out well in the study, many major automakers are clumped together, which means large market-share swings are less likely in the coming years. Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicts the industry will top out with 20 million sales in 2018 and then taper off, perhaps as much as 30 percent by 2026. Not surprisingly, trucks, sport utility vehicles and crossovers will be the key battlefield in the next few years, Car Wars says. FCA will launch a critical salvo in 2018 with a new Ram 1500, followed by new generations of the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra in 2019, and then Ford's F-150 for 2020, according to the study. Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy said the GM trucks could be pulled ahead even earlier to 2018, prompting Ford to respond. "This focus on crossovers and trucks is a great thing for the industry," Murphy said. Cars Wars looks at Korean (76 percent replacement rate) and European companies more vaguely (70 percent), but argues their slower product cadence and lineups with fewer trucks puts them in weaker positions than their competitors through 2020. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Featured Gallery 2016 Chevrolet Silverado View 11 Photos Image Credit: Chevrolet Earnings/Financials Chrysler Fiat Ford GM Honda Nissan Toyota study FCA

Autoblog Podcast #406

Episode #406 of the Autoblog Podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Brandon Turkus, and Chris Bruce talk about the Mustang Shelby GT 350, the Los Angeles Auto Show, and the Volkswagen Golf winning Motor Trend Car of the Year honors. We start with what's in the Autoblog Garage and finish up with some of your questions, and for those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Check out the rundown below with times for topics, and you can follow along down below with our Q&A. Thanks for listening! Autoblog Podcast #406: The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience. Topics: Ford Shelby GT350 LA Auto Show Volkswagen Golf wins Motor Trend COTY In The Autoblog Garage: 2015 Ford Fiesta SFE 2015 Honda CR-V 2015 Audi Q3 Hosts: Dan Roth, Brandon Turkus, Chris Bruce Runtime: 01:26:07 Rundown: Intro and Garage - 00:00 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 - 29:21 LA Auto Show - 40:36 Golf is Motor Trend COTY - 53:50 Q&A - 01:00:42 Get the podcast: [UStream] Listen live on Mondays at 10 PM Eastern at UStream [iTunes] Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes [RSS] Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator [MP3] Download the MP3 directly Feedback: Email: Podcast at Autoblog dot com Review the show in iTunes

2015 Honda CR-V

Predicting the future direction of Honda's compact CR-V would have been difficult based on the Civic-derived model that first arrived on our shores for the 1997 model year. The newcomer, selling alongside the body-on-frame Passport (a hastily rebadged Isuzu Rodeo), was a cute compact crossover with four doors and an awkward curb-side hinged tailgate thanks to its Japanese home-market design. The five-passenger CUV offered generous interior room, but its wheezy 2.0-liter four-cylinder, with an output of just 126 horsepower and 133 pound-feet of torque, required 11.7 seconds to bring the 3,153-pound vehicle to 60 miles per hour. Rear drum brakes didn't help much in the stopping department, but Honda offered safety-minded consumers optional anti-lock brakes on the premium trim.
Nearly two decades after its introduction, the CR-V has matured in spectacular manner. The refreshed 2015 Honda CR-V, now in its fourth generation, is dimensionally within two inches of its ancestor in overall length and nearly identical in height and wheelbase. That consistency of dimension is impressive in this age of size and segment creep, and it stands as a testament to how 'right' Honda engineers got the model's original packaging. Of course, the CR-V hasn't stood still - nearly everything else about the best-selling compact CUV has improved in leaps and bounds.
But Honda is not the only player in this hotly contested segment today, so the automaker has taken the unusual step of updating its fourth-generation model just a few years after its introduction in an effort to keep it seated on the podium. To learn more about the automaker's improvements, and form our own impressions, we spent a day driving the CR-V in sunny Southern California.