Latest Cars Models: August 2011

Daihatsu Japanese manufacturer of cars

Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd. (ダイハツ工業株式会社, Daihatsu Kōgyō Kabushiki-gaisha ?, TYO: 7262, OSE: 7262) is the oldest Japanese manufacturer of cars, known mostly for its smaller models and off-road vehicles. Many of its models are also known as kei jidōsha (or kei cars) in Japan. Its headquarters are located in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture.

The name "Daihatsu" is a combination of the first kanji for Osaka (大) and the first of the word "engine manufacture" (発動機製造, hatsudōki seizō ?) ; when put together they are pronounced "dai hatsu."

Daihatsu was formed in 1951 as successor organisation to Hatsudoki and, by the 1960s, had started exporting cars to Europe, although it did not enjoy any major sales success until well into the 1980s.

Since February 1992 in North America, it has been common for Toyota to distribute Daihatsu models.

In January 2011, Daihatsu announced it would pull out of Europe by 2013, citing the persistently strong yen which makes it difficult to turn a profit from its export business. Daihatsu's sales in Europe had plummeted from 58,000 in 2007 before the financial crisis, to 19,000 in 2010.

Contents

* 1 Company history

* 2 Recent market withdrawals

* 3 Electrics and Hybrids

* 4 Passenger car models

* 5 Plants

* 6 References

* 7 External links

Company history

Daihatsu Midget Model DKA, 1957

* 1907 – Hatsudoki Seizo Co., Ltd. founded

* 1951 – Company renamed: Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd.

* 1967 – Signed an agreement with Toyota Motor Corporation

* 1988 – Daihatsu USA launched with the Charade and Rocky

* 1992 – Daihatsu USA shuts down in February

* 1999 – Toyota gains a controlling interest (51%) in Daihatsu Motor Ltd.

* 2011 – Daihatsu states that sales of Daihatsu motor cars will cease across Europe on 31 January 2013.

* 2011 – Daihatsu will invest 20 billion yen ($238.9 million) in Indonesia to build a factory that produces low-cost cars smaller than Etios which has been launched in India in December 2010.[3] The construction has been initialized on 70,000 square meters in May 27, 2011 and will start operation at the end of 2012 for producing 100,000 cars per year.

Daihatsu

honda accord markets throughout the world

The Honda Accord play /əˈkɔrd/ is a series of compact, mid-size and full-size automobiles manufactured by Honda since 1976, and sold in a majority of automotive markets throughout the world.

In 1982, the Accord — which had always been manufactured in Sayama, Japan — became the first Japanese car to be produced in the United States when production commenced in Marysville, Ohio at Honda's Marysville Auto Plant. In addition, the Accord is, or has been, produced in Nelson, New Zealand, Swindon, England, Guangzhou, China and Ayutthaya, Thailand. The Accord has achieved considerable success, especially in the United States, where it was the best-selling Japanese car for fifteen years (1982–97), topping its class in sales in 1991 and 2001, with around ten million vehicles sold. Numerous road tests, past and present, rate the Accord as one of the world's most reliable vehicles.

Since initiation, Honda has offered several different car body styles and versions of the Accord, and often vehicles marketed under the Accord nameplate concurrently in different regions differ quite substantially. It debuted in 1976 as a compact hatchback, though this style only lasted through 1981, as the line-up was expanded to include a sedan, coupé, and wagon. By the Accord's sixth generation in the 1990s, it evolved into an intermediate vehicle, with one basic platform but with different bodies and proportions to increase its competitiveness against its rivals in different international markets. For the current generation of the Accord released for the North American market in 2008, Honda has again chosen to move the model further up-scale and increase its size. This pushed the Accord sedan from the upper limit of what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines as a mid-size car to just above the lower limit of a full-size car, with the coupe still rated as a mid-size car.

honda accord

mazda Japanese automotive manufacturer

Mazda Motor Corporation (マツダ株式会社, Matsuda Kabushiki-gaisha?) (TYO: 7261) is a Japanese automotive manufacturer based in Fuchū, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.

In 2007, Mazda produced almost 1.3 million vehicles for global sales. The majority of these (nearly 1 million) were produced in the company's Japanese plants, with the remainder coming from a variety of other plants worldwide.

Contents

* 1 Name

* 2 Leadership

* 3 History

o 3.1 Partnership with Ford Motor Company

* 4 Marques

* 5 Emblems

* 6 Alternative propulsion and Bio-Car

o 6.1 Bio-Car

* 7 Auto racing

o 7.1 International competition

o 7.2 Spec series

* 8 Sponsorships

* 9 Marketing

* 10 See also

* 11 References

* 12 External links

Name

The company website states that name "derives from Ahura Mazda, a god of the earliest civilizations in West Asia...the god of wisdom, intelligence and harmony..." Ahura Mazda is the Persian – Zoroastrian God. The company website also notes that the name "also derives from the name of our founder, Jujiro Matsuda."

Leadership

* Jujiro Matsuda (1921–1951)

* Tsuneji Matsuda (1951–1970)

* Kouhei Matsuda (1970–1977)

* Yoshiki Yamasaki (1977–1984)

* Kenichi Yamamoto (1984–1987)

* Masanori Furuta (1987–1991)

* Yoshihiro Wada (1991–1995)

* Henry Wallace (1995–1997, appointed by Ford Motor Company, first non-Japanese CEO of a Japanese automaker)

* James E. Miller (1997–1999)

* Mark Fields (1999–2002)

* Lewis Booth (2002–2003)

* Hisakazu Imaki (2003–2008)

* Takashi Yamanouchi (2008–)