Dixie Toyota celebrates grand opening with Japanese flare

It was a long time coming but Dixie Toyota was finally able to open the doors to its new home at 1600 Toyo Circle in Mississauga, Ont.

"To be able to open these doors after seven years is a very special feeling," said Mario Toyotoshi, Chief Experience Officer of Toyotoshi Group Canada, in an interview with Canadian auto dealer.

The dealership celebrated the grand opening of its new facility on Aug. 16 with much fanfare, weaving in elements of traditional Japanese customs.

Special guests were welcomed into the new 37,000 sq.ft. facility with valet service and were also treated to gourmet food, which included sushi, and other entertainment.

Larry Hutchinson, President & CEO of Toyota Canada, Ambassador Naoyuki Toyotoshi, Councillor Carolyn Parish for the city of Mississauga, and Hazel McCallion, former mayor of the city of Mississauga, also attended the event.

The grand opening ceremony began and concluded with performances from the Nagata Shachu drummers, and also included a special sake ceremony, in which several of the dignitaries and executives donned traditional jackets and collectively opened a casket of sake.

Guests were also able to tour the new facility, which provides all services on one floor.

Though the new facility is only a few blocks away from the old location, Mario Toyotoshi said he had always dreamed of building an up-to-date facility that can meet customer expectations.

Unique features of the facility include an environmentally-friendly car wash, a state-of-the-art shop aimed at reducing wait times at the dealership, widespread visibility into the shops and offices, and a multi-purpose drive through that can display vehicles or provide an indoor delivery area.

"We're very happy with the new facility. It offers a clean and bright approach to serving our customers in this area better. Their approach here really is to have an open concept where the customer can see everything that's being done. There's nothing behind the curtain," said Hutchinson in an interview with Canadian auto dealer.

"Mario had some unique ideas and challenged us in some ways but we were open to see what is new, what is upcoming and try new things. As much as Kaizen is about continuous improvement, sometimes you have to make jumps. I think this facility jumps in some areas that we're really interested in seeing how well it is going to be received," Hutchinson added.

While the facility has only been open to the public for a few days, Mario Toyotoshi said feedback has been positive so far.

"Every guest who has come to our dealership has absolutely loved it. It's easy to come to. They found the facilities to be so open and easy to walk around in."

by:canadianautodealer.ca



Dixie Toyota Celebrates Grand Opening with Japanese Flare......... www.redlineautosales.ca/dixie-toyota-celebrates-grand-opening-with-japanese-flare.htm

KBB names top 10 back-to-school vehicles

With school just around the corner, you may start to see more parents and university students walking into your dealership, looking for the perfect back-to-school vehicle.

Luckily, Kelley Blue Book in the U.S. has come out with a list of its top 10 back-to-school vehicles to help buyers make a decision. These 2016 vehicles suit a range of transportation needs, and are all available under $20,000.

"Safety is the paramount decision when it comes to back-to-school cars, and practicality and affordability are also high on the list of desirable characteristics, at least according to parents," said Jack R. Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book's KBB.com, in a written release.

"The kids involved also prefer to have a car they're happy to be seen in, which suggests that style is part of the equation too. Our 2016 list of the 10 best back-to-school cars addresses all of these wants with an array of cool cars that has something for just about any student," he added.

The top 10 vehicles on the list include:

1. Honda Fit
2. Kia Soul
3. Honda Civic
4. Honda HR-V
5. Mazda Mazda3
6. Nissan Versa Note
7. Subaru Impreza
8. Mazda CX-3
9. Ford Fiesta
10.  Chevrolet Spark

by: canadianautodealer.ca


KBB Names Top 10 Back to School Vehicles.................................................... www.redlineautosales.ca/kbb-names-top-10-back-to-school-vehicles.htm

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES WOULD NEED MANDATORY INSPECTIONS

If automakers hope to avoid liability in crashes involving autonomous vehicles, regular inspections must be mandated, the chief economist for the National Automobile Dealers Association said.

Steven Szakaly, speaking here at the Center for Automotive Research's Management Briefing Seminars on Tuesday, said the auto industry should take its cue from the aviation and mining industries, which bring their vehicles in for regular, mandated service to ensure systems are working properly.
"You cannot allow those systems to fail," Szakaly said. "And if you have those systems fail, or you don't properly maintain those systems and that leads to failure, that liability is on those manufacturers."
Automakers and technology companies such as Google have said they aim to introduce driverless cars to the market by 2020. As that point approaches, much of the discussion around autonomy has centered around who would be at fault in the event of a crash: the owner or the automaker.
Szakaly said it is a given that consumers will misuse or misunderstand autonomous technology, so it is imperative that automakers ensure everything is properly maintained - especially since a failure in an autonomous system is more likely to affect other vehicles than, say, a transmission problem on a manually driven car.
"There's a 100 percent certainty that if we don't have mandated service intervals someone's system is not going to be properly maintained, and there's a 100 percent certainty that will end catastrophically in some way," he said.
Sales forecast
Szakaly said NADA expects 17.7 million new light-vehicle sales in the U.S. this year, a number that it sees falling to 17.1 million units in 2017.
"We've had six straight years of steadily rising sales, which has been a fantastic period of growth, and vehicles per household have returned to the same level prior to the Great Recession," he said. "But most pent-up demand has been satisfied."
He said the shift in demand away from cars and toward light trucks is here to stay thanks in part to a healthy economy and low gasoline prices. Szakaly said light trucks will account for about 59 percent of new vehicle sales this year.

by: autonews.com


Autonomous Vehicles Would Need Mandatory Inspections................... www.redlineautosales.ca/car-management-briefing-seminars-autonomous-vehicles-would-need-mandatory-inspections.htm

U.S. approves Volkswagen’s $14.7 billion settlement

The plan for buybacks and a possible fix covers car owners, the U.S. government and 44 states and will cost the company about US$15.3 billion if the agreements are fully adopted. That includes VW's US$603 million accord with the states that isn't part of the settlement before U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco.

"As it appears in your presentation today, as it appeared when you filed your documents, that an enormous effort has been devoted to achieving a series of goals," Breyer said Tuesday in court, where he set a final approval hearing for Oct. 18. "I think from what I've seen, those goals have been achieved, at least preliminarily."

Tuesday's ruling advances Volkswagen's push to resolve a flood of U.S. lawsuits springing from the diesel-cheating scandal. Preliminary approval of the agreement addressing VW and Audi models made since 2009 with 2.0-litre engines still leaves the automaker without a settlement for 82,000 3.0 litre diesel engines while also facing additional state lawsuits by attorneys general in New York, Massachusetts and Maryland that could add billions of dollars to VW's tab.

The pact eats up almost all of the US$17.8 billion Volkswagen had set aside to cover the cost of the scandal worldwide. In addition to investor class actions in the U.S. and lawsuits in Germany and South Korea, the company faces criminal probes in all three countries. The German carmaker took a 2.2 billion-euro charge in the second quarter, chiefly related to legal risks in the U.S. The company will report full earnings figures later this week.

"The parties believe that the proposed settlement program will provide a fair, reasonable and adequate resolution for affected Volkswagen and Audi customers," VW said in a statement. The settlement before Breyer includes US$10 billion for buybacks, as well as US$4.7 billion in government penalties and remediation. With or without a fix, car owners who don't like the buyback option may be able to keep driving the polluting cars in some states.

Drivers who participate in the deal will get at least US$5,100 each as part of a buyback program that will begin in October and run through June 30, 2019, the deadline for the company to get 85 per cent of cars recalled. If it fails to reach that benchmark, it will have to pay US$85 million more into an environmental mitigation trust for each percentage point of the shortfall. It will also have to pay an additional US$13.5 million into the trust for each percentage point it falls below the target in California.

Elizabeth Cabraser, lead lawyer for the consumers, told the judge Tuesday "the money is a means to an end that cannot be achieved without a number of parties working together, as they have throughout the course of negotiations to accomplish a plan that works together in the real world."

Nitrogen Oxide

The carmaker has yet to come up with a fix for the cars emitting up to 40 times the allowable limit of nitrogen oxide gases. The U.S. EPA and CARB must approve any fix proposed by VW. So, far none of the fixes have met agencies' standards.

A Justice Department lawyer told the judge Tuesday that VW is expected in August to submit a new proposal for fixing the 3.0-litre engines.

VW is hiring 250 to 300 people to carry out the settlement requirements, Sharon Nelles, a lawyer for the company, told Breyer. VW will set up a hotline that will be available seven days a week, she said.

by: driving.ca

US Approves Volkswagens 14.7 Billion Settlement................................ www.redlineautosales.ca/u-s--approves-volkswagen-s--14-7-billion-settlement.htm

Federal Guidelines for Autonomous Cars on the Horizon

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx

(TNS) -- Companies working on self-driving cars need to focus on safety - "we want people who start a trip to finish it," Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced Tuesday, saying his department will issue new guidelines on the vehicles this summer.

"Autonomous doesn't mean perfect," he told attendees at an industry conference in San Francisco. "We need industry to take the safety aspects of this very seriously."

Foxx's remarks come in the wake of May's fatal crash involving a Tesla Model S sedan being used in semi-autonomous "autopilot" mode. The car crashed into a truck that the autopilot feature did not sense, killing the car's driver.

The Transportation Department has been working with Google, BMW, General Motors and other companies developing driverless and partly autonomous cars to adapt existing safety rules to the new technologies.

But Foxx said it's time to move beyond existing safety rules.

Although vague about the guidelines, Foxx hinted that they involve "pre-market approval steps" for autonomous car technology. Given industry concerns about regulation hampering innovation, Foxx promised that the approach would be flexible, with a lot of input from businesses, drivers and technology experts.

"We need clear lines of responsibility between industry, government and consumers," he said.

Autonomous cars have great potential to improve safety, he said, but clear rules and guidelines are needed to assure safety and boost would-be buyers' confidence.

He said his department also would create a federal advisory committee to help plan how to "approach autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence more generally" and work with states to come up with standard approaches to regulation.

After the fatal crash in May, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk noted that owners are told that they must remain alert and keep their hands on the steering wheel, even when using the autopilot feature.

Foxx, however, said it must be assumed that some drivers will "push the limits of what the manufacturer intends." Distractions "that can be reasonably foreseen" must be considered for safety's sake.

by:govtech.com


Federal Guidelines for Autonomus Cars on the Horizon...................... www.redlineautosales.ca/federal-guidelines-for-autonomous-cars-on-the-horizon.htm

Ontario gets no applications for self-driving car plan

Ontario's program to allow testing of self-driving cars on public roads has not received any applications since it launched Jan. 1, the Canadian province's government said on Wednesday, as a recent U.S. accident increased scrutiny of the technology.

Ontario, home to nearly all of Canada's auto industry, said last year it would be the first province to allow testing of self-driving cars. Ontario's auto sector has struggled as investment shifted to cheaper jurisdictions, and the government has sought to attract higher paying research and development work.

But the province is a late-comer compared with parts of the United States, where Alphabet Inc's subsidiary Google has been testing self-driving prototypes since 2009.

Debate about the safety of driverless cars heated up last week after driver of a Tesla Motors Inc car in autopilot mode was killed in a collision.

A spokesman from Ontario's Ministry of Transportation said the self-driving car program has a 10-year time frame and has received a lot of interest despite the lack of applications.

Ontario confirmed the lack of applications after Reuters learned about it through a freedom-of-information request.

The province said last year nearly 100 companies and other organizations were already working in the connected vehicle and automated vehicle industry in Ontario, and its driverless-car program would enable them to keep research local.

But some car companies with plants in Ontario are still favoring the United States.

Honda Motor Co Ltd, which does research on autonomous vehicles in the United States, said it had no plans to participate.

Canadian auto parts supplier Magna International Inc said that in most cases it is testing self-driving car technology on closed circuits.

General Motors Co said in June it would expand its Canadian engineering base to add 700 jobs in Ontario as it boosts research spending on connected and driverless cars. It did not immediately respond to questions on whether will participate in Ontario's program.

A spokesman for Google, which has agreed to work with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV to build a fleet of 100 self-driving mini vans, said the company is not participating in Ontario's program, though he said the province was taking the right steps. Chrysler declined to comment.

by: theglobeandmail.com

Ontario Gets No Applications for Self Driving Car Plan............................ www.redlineautosales.ca/ontario-gets-no-applications-for-self-driving-car-plan.htm

THOMA BRAVO TO ACQUIRE TRADER CORP. IN $1.575 BILLION DEAL

Private equity investment firm Thoma Bravo LLC announced it will acquire TRADER Corp., Canada's leading digital automotive marketplace and software solutions provider, for $1.575 billion (CAD), from funds advised by Apax Partners. The transaction is expected to close by the fourth quarter.

"We're extremely impressed by TRADER's growth into the largest and most trusted digital automotive marketplace in Canada," Holden Spaht, a managing partner at Thoma Bravo, said in a news release. "We look forward to partnering with Sebastian Baldwin and the entire TRADER team in their commitment to innovation and accelerating the use of TRADER's current and future software solutions."

TRADER Corp.'s online properties - autoTRADER.ca, autoHEBDO.net and Autos.ca - attract 13 million visits per month. In addition, the company provides software solutions designed to enable its dealer customers to make smarter and faster business, inventory and marketing decisions.

Sebastian Baldwin, TRADER's president and chief executive officer, said: "Thoma Bravo's track record of success in working with and growing software solutions companies makes them the ideal partner for the next phase of TRADER's growth. We look forward to working closely with them to continue strengthening TRADER's market leading position."
"TRADER is well positioned to continue providing high return-on-investment products to its customer base," said Arvindh Kumar, a principal at Thoma Bravo. "We're excited to collaborate with TRADER to expand its product portfolio organically and through strategic investments and acquisitions."
Peter Stefanski, a vice president at Thoma Bravo, added: "We have spent several years evaluating the broader automotive technology sector. Our partnership with TRADER is an excellent opportunity to invest in a mission-critical franchise we believe will benefit from the growth in automotive online media advertising."
Kirkland & Ellis LLP and McMillan LLP served as legal advisors to Thoma Bravo. Evercore served as M&A advisor.


By Auto Remarketing Canada Staff

Thoma Bravo to Aquire Trader Corp in 1.575 Billion Deal........................ www.redlineautosales.ca/thoma-bravo-to-acquire-trader-corp--in--1-575b-deal.htm