the detroit bureau

Why Daimler's Ultra-Luxe Brand Couldn't Compete With Bentley And Rolls Daimler took hubris to a new level believing that it could simply invent a new brand. What was intended to make a big splash in the premium luxury car market has ended with a dull thud. Almost exactly a decade after it ...

What are you going to do, sue? Good luck. This week's Superior Court verdict suggests there's little to no recourse for consumers. As Autoblog readers likely have already learned, a Superior Court judge in California has tossed out a judgment issued by a small claims court earlier this ...

Why The World's Top Automakers Are Flocking To Beijing Beijing's government has had to resort to a registration lottery to hold down its growth. Skip a couple years in China, as I had, and you're not likely to recognize it when you return, especially the capital city of Beijing. Peering ...

Why Automakers Are Increasingly Entering Alliances It's only a question of how deeply the knife will slice as Mazda's desperate cost-cutting measures take aim at its U.S. workforce this week. The maker has signaled it will post a $1.2 billion loss when the Japanese fiscal year wraps up on March ...

Tokyo Struggles To Remain Relevant On The World Stage

There is one model that looks more like a phone booth than a car, another that dispenses its driver like candy from a vending machine. There are party concepts, ...

At first glance, Kerry Jenkins might seem to be a perfectly normal California girl, with her wispy blond hair and tanned complexion. But in a part of the country where getting an automobile has long been a rite of passage, the 19-year-old Los Angelino is quite content to live without a set of ...

The Future Of The Union Hangs In The Balance

The noises you might here if you drop in at Solidarity House – the headquarters of the UAW – this week are the sounds of union leaders scrambling to prevent what could be a ...

A recent study anointed Geneva the most livable city in the world. Sitting where Lake Geneva flows into the Rhone River, the old city has a surprisingly small town feel and probably wouldn't even be on the global map were it not for the presence of the United Nations – and the annual Geneva ...

Even growing up in New York City barely prepares you for the sprawling metropolis that is Seoul, South Korea. Spend a few days wandering the increasingly affluent town and you'll be hard-pressed to miss the many coffee shops, seemingly at least one on every block. Seoul is a highly caffeinated ...

Ford Fixes Powertrains – But Faces Platform Challenges Ford is betting big on batteries. During a news conference at its Rawsonville assembly plant, the automaker updated plans to put at least five electric vehicles into production over the next couple years, including both battery-electric ...