Auto Shows

BERLIN – Earlier this month, Volkswagen threw a party in New York's Museum of Modern Art to mark a breakthrough year in the U.S. and the highest annual sales in the country since 2002.
The celebration proved to be premature. Two days later at the Detroit auto show, Hyundai beat VW's Passat with its Elantra sedan to win the North American Car of the Year award, underlining the company's status as a major competitor to Volkswagen.
The automaker and its

The beleaguered Tokyo Motor Show staged a comeback this year. When its doors closed Dec. 11, the one-time pre-eminent biennial Asian auto exhibition had hosted 842,600 visitors -- up 37 percent from the last show in 2009 and just about back to the pre-financial-crisis level of 2007. More people attended the 2007 show, but it was seven days longer than this year's 10-day event. The first 10 days of the 2007 show had 852,900 visitors. The trend bodes well for a show that was nearly canceled in 2009 and has been overshadowed by

LOS ANGELES -- Despite minimal sales, Nissan North America will continue selling its boxy, youth-oriented Cube crossover, the automaker's top U.S. sales executive says. Nissan sold just 198 Cubes in October. "It's a niche product that has found its place in the market," Brian Carolin, Nissan North America's senior vice president for sales and marketing, said in its defense at the Los Angeles Auto Show. "It benefited particularly when gas prices were spiking earlier this year, and we were struggling to get a supply of it. We had

BERLIN – Earlier this month, Volkswagen threw a party in New York's Museum of Modern Art to mark a breakthrough year in the U.S. and the highest annual sales in the country since 2002.
The celebration proved to be premature. Two days later at the Detroit auto show, Hyundai beat VW's Passat with its Elantra sedan to win the North American Car of the Year award, underlining the company's status as a major competitor to Volkswagen.
The automaker and its

General Motors is counting on a sportier Chevrolet Malibu -- and a fuel-efficient Eco variant -- to extend the mid-sized sedan's successful run. Last week Chevy unveiled the 2013 Malibu at the Shanghai auto show and followed that at the New York show with an Eco version GM says will get an estimated 38 mpg on the highway, a level that mid-sized cars usually reach only if they are hybrids. Before the current Malibu debuted in late 2007, the previous generation had been rental-fleet fodder. The improved styling and refinement

FRANKFURT -- Audi has begun production of the Q3 compact SUV at sister brand Seat's Martorell plant in Spain.
Audi expects to produce 100,000 units of the Q3 a year in the plant, in which Audi and Seat have invested a total of 330 million euros in infrastructure and production lines, Audi said on Tuesday.
The Q3 compact SUV will compete with the BMW X1 as the two luxury-car makers compete to tap the growing demand for smaller SUVs aimed at urban buyers.

BMW will enter the fast-growing swoopy sedan segment that its luxury competitors have created by adding a four-door model to its 6-series family. The Gran Coupe, based on the redesigned 6-series two-door coupe and convertible, will debut next month at the Geneva auto show. The four-door will go on sale in the United States in June. It has coupe styling similar to the Mercedes-Benz CLS, Porsche Panamera and Audi A7. BMW hasn't released pricing but said it will be about $80,000. Initially, the Gran Coupe will be offered as the

Acura will make a splash at the Chicago Auto Show this week with the introduction of its ILX small sedan and the redesigned 2013 RDX crossover. GMC will unveil the next-generation Acadia, and Hyundai will show a coupe version of the popular Elantra. Ten world debuts are scheduled during the press days, Wednesday, Feb. 8, and Thursday, Feb. 9. Here are the highlights:

PARIS -- Renault SA will unveil a redesigned Twingo minicar in September, marking the start of an effort to freshen the brand's styling to revive flagging sales.
The updated Twingo, which will go on sale shortly after being shown at the Frankfurt auto show, is the first test of Renault's new design chief to help sales since he joined the carmaker in late 2009.
The Twingo upgrade is a "quick and dirty" mid-life face-lift rather than an all-new vehicle,