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Total auto recalls already on record pace in 2014

If you've noticed that there have been more recalls than usual this year, you may be on to something. According to a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the US market is on pace to break a record for recalls. In 2013, 22 million cars were recalled. We're only a third of the way through 2014, though, and we've already halved that figure, with 11 million units recalled. That's wild.
Considering the past few months, it shouldn't be a surprise that General Motors is leading the charge, with six million of the 11 million units recalled coming from one of the General's four brands. Between truck recalls, CUV recalls and the ignition switch recall, 2014 hasn't been a great year for GM.
Other recall leaders include Nissan (one million Sentra and Altima sedans), Honda (900,000 Odyssey minivans), Toyota (over one million units in a few recalls), Volkswagen (150,000 Passat sedans), Chrysler (644,000 Dodge Durango and Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs) and most recently, Ford (434,000 units, the bulk of which were early Ford Escape CUVs). So while it's been a bad year for GM so far, its competitors aren't doing too well, either.

Major automakers urge Trump not to freeze fuel economy targets

WASHINGTON — Major automakers are telling the Trump administration they want to reach an agreement with California to avoid a legal battle over fuel efficiency standards, and they support continued increases in mileage standards through 2025. "We support standards that increase year over year that also are consistent with marketplace realities," Mitch Bainwol, chief executive of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing major automakers, will tell a U.S. House of Representatives panel on Tuesday, according to written testimony released on Monday. The Trump administration is weighing how to revise fuel economy standards through at least the 2025 model year, and one option is to propose freezing the standards through 2026, effectively allowing automakers to delay investments in technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions from burning petroleum. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has not formally submitted its joint proposal with the Environmental Protection Agency to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review. Even so, last week, California and 16 other states sued to challenge the Trump administration's decision to revise U.S. vehicle rules. Auto industry executives have held meetings with the Trump administration for months and have urged the administration to try to reach a deal with California even as they support slowing the pace of reduction in carbon dioxide emissions that the Obama administration rules outlined. One automaker official said part of the message to President Donald Trump at a meeting on Friday will be to consider California like a foreign trade deal that needs to be renegotiated. Automakers want to urge him to get automakers a "better deal" — as opposed to potentially years of litigation between major states and federal regulators. On Friday, Trump is set to meet with the chief executives of General Motors, Ford, Fiat Chrysler and the top U.S. executives of at least five other major automakers, including Toyota, Volkswagen AG and Daimler AG, to talk about revisions to the vehicle rules. Senior EPA and Transportation Department officials will also attend. Environmental groups are eager to keep the rules in place, saying they will save consumers billions in fuel costs. A coalition of groups plans to stage a protest outside Ford's headquarters in Michigan.

Ford decides C-Max shoppers not interested in fuel economy

If you say a car – the Ford C-Max Hybrid, for example – is "fun to drive," can anyone really come up with some empirical evidence against your claim? What about calling it "versatile"? We wonder if Ford has been thinking along these lines when it talks about the green little hatch. Ford is refocusing its sales strategy for the C-Max Hybrid after the model took a sales hit on both sides of the Atlantic recently, Automotive News reports. That sales dropoff may stem from the fact that Ford has had to revise its fuel-economy figures downward for the C-Max twice since last year, most recently in June. That made the company's once-proud fuel-economy comparisons with the Toyota Prius kind of pointless. Ford is going a different route, calling the model versatile (which, to be fair it was also doing a year ago), technologically advanced and fun to drive. Since the C-Max has about 50 more horsepower than the Prius, that last part may be true. Ford representatives didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from AutoblogGreen about the mpg-mention-free advertising direction, but we will update this post if we hear back. Sales of the C-Max Hybrid have suffered in the US. Through September, Ford sold 15,245 C-Max Hybrids, down 36 percent from last year. We shall see if a new focus away from the car's lowered mpg numbers helps. At least Ford can be pleased with sales of the C-Max Energi Plug-in Hybrid, which are up 51 percent compared to 2013.