GM’s new partner PSA increasingly reminds of pre-carmageddon Ford: Europe’s number 2 finds itself short on cash and way too long on capacity. Other than Ford that had mortgaged everything, PSA takes more radical steps. After putting is own headquarters building up for sale, PSA is ready to sign over parts of its Aulnay car plant to renters. (Read More…)
Having braved the New York Auto Show with only minor injuries, and after consulting with the calendar, we think we should give you and us a rest for the weekend.
We wish you all happy Passover, an eggstatic Easter, we wish a beautiful Day of Beauty to our friends in Armenia, we wish a successful Woman’s Day to our friends in Mozambique (and to Jack Baruth), we wish a fragrant Flowers Day to our friends in Japan, a good Chakri day to my girlfriends in Thailand, and a great ASPCA day to all our pets in America.
We shall return on Monday (Day of Valor in the Philippines.)
Two years after the Volkswagen Golf was launched, it received a fuel sipping diesel in 1976. I presented the launch campaign in Wolfsburg, and the ground shook. It wasn’t because of my campaign. It was because of the body stamping presses. The offices of the Zentrale Absatzförderung, VW’s advertising department, were two floors above. (Read More…)
The Chinese car market isn’t dead yet. China had delivered a few lackluster months and was promptly feted by the I-told-you-so crowd as the 21st century version of the limits of growth. Suddenly, the Chinese car market shows surprising signs of resilience. Sales data for March are not here yet, but TTAC’s patent-pending Chinese sales oracle has spoken: GM China. (Read More…)
Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, the designer of the Porsche 911, died today in Salzburg. (Read More…)
Nissan waited until the second press day of the New York Auto Show. They did not want their all-electric Infiniti sedan to drown in the floods of other reveals. They should not have worried. (Read More…)
Diesel engines increasingly turn into causes for divorce in the promiscuous automotive business. PSA Peugeot Citroen and Ford are calling off some of their diesel dalliances. (Read More…)
Before and after Saab had gone bankrupt, pipe-dreamers thought that the company can be revived with just a few million dollars. The number commonly used was $50 to $70 million. We maintained that it would cost a few billion dollars to get the company going again.
As it turns out, we were way too optimistic. (Read More…)
A year ago, Carlos Ghosn announced that Nissan is aiming for 8 percent global market share by 2016. This morning in New York, delivering the keynote address at the New York Auto Show, Ghosn said it again:
“We can achieve 8 percent global market share by 2016.”
After a pause, he continued: “Whenever I state this 8 percent goal, I get some skeptical looks.” (Read More…)
A month ago, I wrote about a talk with a friend of mine who still has his high-paying job at a German automaker. He had listened to Sergio Marchionne’s appeal for government intervention in a European car industry suffering from overcapacity. My friend said that his employer and other German makers are strictly against governmental tinkering and artificial resuscitation of automakers in distress. He reported that their order books are full, and they are happy to take the market share of European makers in distress. Now, this memo finally arrived on Sergio Marchionne’s desk. (Read More…)
That was an easy call: Car sales in Europe will decline again this year, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne told his assembled shareholders at a meeting in Turin. Fiat, caught with pants and sales down in Europe’s teetering south, would be in much worse shape without Chrysler, Marchionne thinks:
“This was the only way to preserve Fiat’s future. It does not make sense anymore to talk about Fiat as an Italian or European company… With Chrysler we have fixed our excessive dependence on Europe and have the tranquility to overcome the market’s fluctuations.”
Chrysler surprised again in March with a 34 percent gain and the best monthly result in four years. Back home in Italy, Marchionne already preannounced “horrible sales” for Fiat and March.
Reuters says that the shareholder meeting approved the conversion of Fiat’s preference and savings shares into ordinary shares, which makes it easier for Fiat to buy the 41.5 percent of Chrysler it does not yet own.
They did not know that TTAC’s man in the cold was surreptitiously snapping pictures with his iPhone. Again-elected Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin simply watched while Renault COO Carlos Tavares defaced the hood of a brand-new car with a Magic Marker. Nissan’s COO Toshiyuki Shiga grinned and did not interfere either. This is how they celebrate the opening of a new car factory, this afternoon in Russia. (Read More…)
Not to have another stab at the best “production, street-legal” Nordschleife lap time. That’s not why they are trading the chilly Eifel for balmy Yokohama. Allegedly, Nissan does not want to work on the 7:24:22 lap time.
Instead, says GT-R program director Kazutaka Mizuno: (Read More…)
March was a great month for the auto industry, and an analyst’s Waterloo. The real-time data equipped heavy-weights of Edmunds, TrueCar and Kelley were solidly trounced by bankers with a better feel, better sources, or simply better luck. The podium of March’s “Grade The Analysts” is populated by brokers and bankers, the professional auto oracles have been degraded to also-runs. (Read More…)
Car companies severing ties with Iran are making headlines. After GM’s new partner PSA decided to stop sending parts to Iran, Hyundai “has quietly ended its business dealings with Iran, where it had extensive operations,” says the New York Times. The Times chalks this up as a win for “United Against Nuclear Iran, an American group that has advocated economic sanctions.” UANI keeps a list of companies that still do business with Iran, it also lists companies that have withdrawn from doing so. Hyundai has received a check mark in the “withdrawn” list.
Detroit is looking nervously at that list. Let’s have a look as well. (Read More…)
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