Auto Trends

The midsize car market is a brutal segment in the automotive industry, one that is dominated by the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord with both the Chevrolet Malibu and Ford Fusion also making a strong showing. Virtually every automaker is represented in this segment, consisting of over twenty different models for consumers to choose from.

With such a crowded field, some models are getting squeezed more than others, putting pressure on automakers to pour money into updating one or more entries, and taking resources away from other products.

Mitsubishi, who has long fielded a midsize model of its own, the Galant, will likely depart this segment when the ninth (and current) generation Galant ages out in four years. Built at the company’s sole U.S. Plant in Normal, Illinois, the Galant along with the Endeavor and Eclipse contributed only 80,000 sales for Mitsubishi for the most recent model year just ended. The plant’s capacity is 240,000 vehicles but only needs to produce 100,000 units annually in order to turn a profit.

Falling short by 20,000 units, Mitsubishi is looking to replace the Galant with a better selling model, perhaps its compact Lancer or its small Outlander SUV, maybe both. Both vehicles could be built in the US with excess capacity shipped overseas.

Mitsubishi recently completed an agreement with the United Auto Workers to keep the plant open for at least four more years in exchange for employee concessions. A move to smaller, more desirable vehicles could ensure that the plant’s life is extended well beyond that time frame.

To help maintain product build, Mitsubishi has begun to export the Galant and Endeavor, but isn’t seeing that much success. Like so many other automakers stuck with excess capacity, shipping products abroad is being a much more competitive undertaking, one that is falling far short of expectations.

For consumers, finding a great deal on most any midsize car is easy to do thanks to heated competition. The Hyundai Sonata, Pontiac G6, Chrysler Sebring, and Buick LaCrosse have all been heavily discounted this year, making the midsize market a car buying extravaganza for savvy shoppers.

(Source: Motor Trends)

America’s all-electric car maker - Tesla Motors - has been wowing fans ever since its small two seat sports car finally rolled off a British assembly line earlier this summer. Lots of delays pushed back the car’s release, resulting in Tesla bleeding through more cash than it had expected to before production got going.

As a result of the delays, Tesla’s financial picture suddenly became very bleak as cash reserves dwindled to below ten million dollars, a small amount of money on hand even for a tiny automaker. Talk that the company would seek bankruptcy protection began to surface, but those fears have now been allayed thanks to new funding that has become available.

Prior to its most recent announcement, Tesla Motors had received cash injections of $145 million from private investors including tens of millions of dollars contributed by Elon Musk who is the company’s chairman and chief executive officer. Indeed, it was Musk and a team of private investors who coughed up the most recent forty million dollars which should be enough money to keep the car company going for the long run.

So far, just fifty Tesla Roadsters have been produced, an all-electric sports car with a phenomenal zero to sixty speed of just 3.5 seconds. Priced at $109,000, the Roadster has some 1200 buyers on its waiting list, people who have put down deposits for the rare sports car.

Tesla says that the new funding will be used to speed up Roadster production while freeing up funding for a second vehicle, the S Model. The “S” is a four door sedan that the company plans to build at a new factory being assembled near San Jose, California. That car was to make its debut near the end of 2010, but production isn’t likely to begin much before summer 2011.

The Tesla Roadster is the first of what will likely become several electric cars produced by a variety of manufacturers worldwide. Fisker Automotive has a sedan in progress, while General Motors will be producing the Chevrolet Volt, a small sedan that should be ready late 2010. Toyota, Nissan, and Chrysler each have several models in the planning and/or production pipeline, while other manufacturers including BMW are currently testing pre-production models of their own.