| World sales of vehicles are disputed |
| GM vs. Toyota: big battle for being the Nš1 |
Tokyo, Japan
Agencies
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In the dealers a competition is happening without truce between the principal manufacturers, especially Toyota and General Motors, for the first place in world sales. Foto:AP.
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Since it happens for two years, two big giants of the automotive industry, the Japanese manufacturer Toyota Motor and the American General Motors (GM), the first place keeps on being disputed on the market of sales of vehicles, in a battle without truce that has gone to the benefit of the consumers.
On the one hand, Toyota retained the first place in sales of cars on a global scale, during the first six months of the year, and for other, GM had a better performance than that of his Japanese rival between April and June.
In accordance with a report of Down Jones, Toyota sold from January until June 3.56 million vehicles in five continents. The number includes cars and vans sold by his subsidies Daihatsu Motor and Hino Motors.
This number places Toyota in the first position of world sales, although it represents a 26 per cent decrease if he is compared with the same period of 2008. It is the first time from 1999 – when Toyota began to compile the numbers of commercializations for the group - that the sales fall down during the first semester of the year, a spokesman of Toyota affirmed.
The above mentioned sales reached by Toyota in the first semester of 2009 “they were lightly superior to 3.55 million units sold by GM, which lost the first place last year”, he added the report of Down Jones.
Nevertheless, between April and June, GM occupied the first place, with 1.94 million sold vehicles, opposite to 1.80 million Toyota. The reason was the high demand of vehicles of GM in China.
“ Money for his Old Edict”
Simultaneously, the “battle for the world sales” got a new impulse thanks to the governmental program “Money for his Old Edict” (Cash for Clunkers), in which Ford Motor achieved the first position in sales thanks to his model Taurus, continued by Toyota, who only in July sold 30.000 cars, with the Corolla as his model most sold (next there appear the Prius, the Camry and the Rav4). General Motors locates remote enough thanks to Chevrolet Cobalt.
Meanwhile, the world president of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, had his first public appearance in the United States when these numbers were known, in a conference organized by the Center of Self-propelled Investigations of Traverse City, Michigan.
In his speech, Toyoda expressed his confidence in that the market of vehicles of this nation should recover and that the above mentioned manufacturer should develop quickly a new sports car within reach of the majorities in a few years.
| New Cadillac CTS-V 2009, truly fantastic |
| Hundred sports per cent |
Camilo Alfaro
Autoproyecto.com
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The Cadillac CTS-V is a vehicle of high yield, since it generates more than five hundred horsepowers, which make it fantastic in the tracks. Photo: General Motors.
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There are few cars nowadays that take the breath from me and provide a conversation topic to me for months, and the new Cadillac CTS is one of them. I have always loved the models CTS, I think that they are done by good materials and good construction and engineering. I never thought that Cadillac might improve such a fantastic car until I proved the new CTS-V.
In general when you see the letter V in a Cadillac means that it is a vehicle of high yield, but you would never think that it should have any more than five hundred horsepowers that it is more than you would find in the basic models of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche or Viper, and that that there are sports cars and not a sports sedan. Not only the CTS-V three competes with cars to four times his monetary value, but it is so much or more rapid than they, accelerating from 0 to 60 MPH in 3.9 seconds.
The CTS-V impresses in all the angles from the details of the materials of high quality up to the advanced system of suspension and brakes Brembo of high yield. These brakes do that the CTS-V stops to the moment. The suspension is aggressive when you need it since it is possible to fit with a button in the console of the CTS-V.
With a basic price of $ 57.920, it offers several options of which I recommend the sports seats Reexpensively ($ 3.400), the panoramic sliding window ($ 900) and the system of navigation with traffic reports XM ($ 2.145).
The bad thing is that to this vehicle they beat him with a tax of high consumption of gasoline (Gas Guzzler Tax) of $ 1.300.
Undoubtedly the CTS-V is one of the best sedan that we have proved. There was nothing that I did not like, it is a 100 sports and entertaining per cent. My only suggestions for the proprietors of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz E63 and BMW M5; when they see a CTS with 19 inches wheels and a sports broiler and the letter V look out!
| Sad decision owes to medical recommendation |
| “Schumi“ puts brake to his comeback |
FRANK JORDANS
Geneva, Switzerland / AP
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Michael Schumacher trained even with go-carts to put to point his reflexes and to grow thin, but the medical report was irrefutable: it cannot return to the circuits for the time being. Felice Calabro / AP
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Seven times champion Formula one world cup, Michael Schumacher, affirmed that the cancellation of his return was to the Formula one a really sad “moment”.
“ Schumi” wanted to help Ferrari replacing the pilot Felipe Massa, hurt in a shock last month in Hungary, but it could not do it for the aftermath of the injuries that he suffered six months ago in a motorcycle accident.
“ It is a really sad moment, probably one of the most difficult for me”, mentioned Schumacher. “I was feeling alive again, and now I have to cancel all this”, it added.
Schumacher, who moved back at the end of the period of 2006 after gaining seven world qualifications in 15 years, showed that any rumor on a possible future return to the Formula one is a speculation.
“ From a point of view exclusively medical, there is no reason to discard it (a return). But certainly it is not anything that he is considering right now”, he affirmed.
The pilot, who was seeming grieved in a press conference with his doctor Johanes Peil and his representative Willi Weber, thought that the euphoria that took place for his possible return was “it carries to extremes, so the disappointment also is extreme”.
Peil told that a break in the base of the skull of Schumacher was the injury that he avoided that it was returning to the tracks. Also a vertebra and a rib fractured.
The doctor pointed out that it is very quickly to know if the wounds will cure the sufficient thing like so that Schumacher handles a Formula one racing car again.
Ferrari announced that his pilot of test, Luca Badoer, will fill the vacancy of Massa in the Big Award of Europe in Valencia (Spain).
Schumacher began to feel pain in the neck after handling an ancient model of Ferrari the previous week in the Mugello track.
