Brazilian industrial output contracted for a second straight month in April
Brazil’s industrial output unexpectedly contracted for a second straight month in April even as the government steps up measures to boost economic growth.
Output fell 0.2% in April after dropping 0.5% in March the national statistics agency IBEG said on Thursday in Rio de Janeiro. Output declined 2.9% from a year ago.
On Wednesday the central bank reduced the benchmark Selic interest rate to a record low 8.5% in an attempt to revive growth that is recovering slower than the government initially anticipated.
Finance Minister Guido Mantega said that the recent weakening of the Real, the worst performing major currency this year, will help protect local manufacturers from foreign competition. The Brazilian currency is down 7.1% against the US dollar since the beginning of the year.
Last week the government eased reserve requirements to free as much as 18 billion Reais for lenders to grant automobile loans. Mantega also cut taxes to reduce car prices by as much as 10% and trimmed a levy on consumer goods.
Factory output in April fell in 13 of 27 sectors, led by a 3.7% drop in the food industry. Production of capital goods, a barometer of investment, rose 1.9%.
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Mind you, I have a new VW Gol i-Motion, made in Brasil and it's not bad at all.
We don't have those here.hatchbacks are not big here. I also noticed that there aren't many automatics or a/c equipped vehicles there.
The i-Motion is VW's world-wide fitment, made in Argentina. It is an automated manual transmission: a layshaft gearbox fitted with an hydraulic, computer controlled shift mechanism - no clutch pedal. These transmissions offer manual fuel economy with the convenience of an automatic.
Most new cars in Uruguay that I looked at, even the Chinese ones, had A/C, as does mine.
Do you stil have to shift gears with that type of transmission or you can leave it on Drive and it will do the things (like VW s DSG?)
first , write honest comments here ...
Neither Clio nor Corsa importing to USA..
There are used “ litre ” not “ gallon”” in Latin America/Asia/Europe.
Imagine a manual transmission where the driver has no clutch pedal and the gearshift does not move when the gears are changed to suit the circumstances: pedal pressure, engine speed, gradient of the road (transducer in gearbox detects torque / speed demand), overun (the gears change down as required and removing pedal pressure completely allows engine braking).
That is what the AMT does without driver input.
Yes, the driver can 'change' gears but only if the perameters are within specified limits set in the ECU, otherwise the 'AMT takes over' and shifts the gear anyway. So it is impossible to damage things ONCE THE CLUTCH HAS BEEN ENGAGED.
Pulling away involves the driver just pressing the accelerator sufficiently for the circumstances / how he or she wants to drive and the computer will feed the clutch in correctly for any of the choices the driver has made.
Reversing out the garage is easier with the AMT than a manual transmission because the AMT takes care of clutch drag / heat growth.
These is one thing to watch about any AMT however: they allow the car to roll back on hills and the handbrake or footbrake needs to be used for safety. Torque converter autos will, as you probably know, hold the car and can be set to creep for slow speed parking etc.
Parking is not a problem with the AMT, you just have to remember the rollback.
Gentle pressure on the accelerator gives the best results whilst still beating most vehicles away from a start due to the change gear speed being consistent. This needs watching if the car in front, having revved the engine, etc at the traffic lights, then does not have any real power / the driver allows the engine to bog down. This just comes naturally once you realise that the car is quicker than the manual car when driven by an inadequate driver.
Gear changes are very smooth and in most case are done without the clutch being disengaged, so there is very little / no wear on the clutch.
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