#AutoIndustry

It’s that time of year again.

The global automotive industry could shrink from nearly 30 major automakers to merely a half a dozen in the future.

Nissan is the first Japanese automaker to take advantage of the weakening yen, with prices being cut on seven models while boosting incentives.

Ford topped all automakers in sales last month, moving 228,818 vehicles and holding 15.75-percent market share for March 2013 as well as year-to-date.

Cries rang throughout the world last night as President Barack Obama clinched a second term in office, but what that means for the auto industry is still somewhat unclear.

Ever since the use of E15 has been approved, rules and warnings against its use have been popping up left, right and center. Now a new mandate for the 15 percent ethanol, 85 percent gasoline mixture is causing more users to be up in arms.

Debates around ethanol use have out-burned the fuel’s actual use since E85 started showing up at pumping stations in 2005. Most recently, a study suggests that E15 is likely to incur costly repairs in older engines.

American automakers are performing much better regarding vehicle safety recalls compared to their Japanese counterparts. Approaching the middle of 2011,  there have been 59 recalls, potentially affecting 6.8 million cars and light trucks. In 2010 at this point in the year, there had been 65 recalls potentially affecting 9.6 million light vehicles.

Auto industry legend Bob Lutz may no longer be in the employ of the Big Three, but that hasn’t ever stopped “Maximum Bob” from giving his two cents on what the industry could do improve upon At the New York Auto Show, Lutz held court for a handful of journalists and expanded on what he felt were the key failures of the domestic manufacturers.

We’ll spare you the awful cliches about failing to learn from the past and get right to the point. “Emerging markets” like China and India are all the rage right now for profit-hungry car makers, but the same problems of too much supply and weakened demand could spell doom for OEMs if a similar situation pans out in the locales that automakers are banking on to help propel their recovery.

China is looking at doing away with their mandatory rule forcing automakers to enter into 50/50 joint ventures with local Chinese auto makers.