Sex and money are known as the world’s biggest motivators. Volkswagen used sex to make its shop stewards cooperative. This ended in a huge scandal. Opel is using money instead. “The system is the same as formerly at Volkswagen – only without sex,” writes Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a long article about “illegal bonus payments” to members of Opel’s works council. (Read More…)

The trouble with EVs is that they need batteries. Batteries are expensive and heavy, they deplete quickly and are prone to early death. Japanese carmakers and universities are assaulting the problems head-on. They have batteries that go twice as far and live twice as long. But there is a new problem … (Read More…)

More and more drivers are ratted out to police and insurance adjusters – by their own cars. “Event data recorders that function much like the “black boxes” on airplanes, and which are now installed on virtually all new vehicles, can give investigators incriminating details about your driving behavior in the final seconds before a crash,” writes The Tennessean.  The paper quotes Gary Biller, executive director of the National Motorists Association:

“It’s in the cars, it can’t be turned off, and the information is available to anyone with a court order. Our members ask whether these devices can be disabled, but they can’t, because they are integral to the computer systems that control modern cars.” (Read More…)

September, usually a good sales month in China, brought no change to the tepid growth of the formerly red-hot Chinese car market. Automobile output was 1.60 million, and remained “basically flat,” as the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM)  said. Auto sales are up by 5.52 percent compared to September last year. (Read More…)

Germany’s auto motor und sport magazine did a fun statistic: What are the worst selling cars in Germany? AMS calls them (politically highly incorrect) “Verkaufszwerge”– sales dwarfs. What would we call them? Demand-challenged vehicles?

We’re counting down – Germany’s bottom 10!

Number 10: The GM CHEVROLET VOLT. In September 2011, 4 units were registered. From January through September, a total of 20 units were registered. (Read More…)

Divorces usually get messy when there is money involved. The Suzuki vs. Volkswagen case is no exception. There are irreconcilable differences. Suzuki wants out, Volkswagen would like to swallow Suzuki whole. The rest are accusations and counter-accusations that are as interesting as divorce papers. In the last days, the Kabuki dace went into a new phase as both sides ratchet up their rhetoric. (Read More…)

Japanese carmakers are driven out of the country by a rising yen and an urge to diversify their production after the catastrophic March 11 tsunami. A favorite destination is Thailand. Due to free trade agreements with many nations, Thailand increasingly morphs from the Land of Smiles to a South East Asian production and export hub. Now, most car production in Thailand is stopped – again because of killer floods. (Read More…)

Today, at 4pm in Munich, the sixth generation 3 series was launched to the press. Usually, this happens in an exotic place. Today, BMW picked a super-exotic place: Its plant in Munich. More than 10,000 people work here, and the launch in the factory was meant to underscore how important BMW’s volume model is in keeping the 10,000 employed.

First to see the daylight was a 320d, followed by a  328i, bunches of additional 320d, a 328i, a 330i, and finally a 335i. You’ll see lots of pictures after the jump … (Read More…)

The Volkswagen Group ended the first nine months of the year with worldwide deliveries up by 13.9 percent. Last year, Volkswagen had delivered 5.36 million units by September, this year, it is 6.11 million. If VW maintains the pace – and it has done so the whole year – then it could end the year with 8.4 million units. This would be in the same league as Toyota and GM in 2010. (Read More…)

My fleeting 15:21  minutes of dubious fame.

There was no better place to clear up some questions about Saab than in Chengdu. After all, nowhere can you find the CEOs of all major Chinese carmakers and government officials all under the same roof, or even at your dining table. There also was no better place to get entangled in the messiest web of facts and fiction. Here is some local color: (Read More…)

If your dearest wish is that the Chinese car industry will implode, then you should pray that the Chinese remain on strategy. For whatever inconceivable reason, the Chinese car industry has embarked on a plan, which – if properly executed – will mean its assured destruction. (Read More…)

The third day of the Chengdu get-together morphed into what was called a “Global Automotive Media Summit.” The idea was to prep the Chinese car manufacturers for their global push as far as the global media are concerned. For that, the services of TTAC were enlisted.  The manufacturers need any help they can get when it comes to handling the media. From BAIC to SAIC, from Chery to Geely, from state-owned Dongfeng all the way to wannabe manufacturer Pangda, they all were there and delivered their speeches. The speeches could be summed-up in two words, looped like techno-rock:

“Global. Global. Global. Global. Brands. Brands. Brands. Brands. Global Brands.”

Paul Ingrassia, deputy chief of Reuters and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the management turmoil at General Motors, was there and warned about too much haste. His warnings largely fell on deaf ears. (Read More…)

Foreign reporters are a welcome interview target at the Global Automotive Forum in Chengdu, much to the amazement of the reporters who are used to interview other people. There is a lengthy interview with someone from TTAC. I don’t know what it says, it’s all in Chinese. (Don’t trust Google translate. Informed sources tell me the headline says: “Schmit: China’s car makers should open up to the media.”) (Read More…)

While U.S. Senators are wringing their hands and pounding their chests about EV know-how allegedly escaping to China, makers from other countries are doing business. The most recent EV entry is Honda. Honda will build an EV in China and sell it in China in 2012 “in limited quantities,” its R&D chief Toshihiro Mibe told TTAC in Chengdu. The electric vehicle will undergo tests this year. When ready, the EV will be launched under the Honda brand. When asked, Honda spokesperson Natsuna Asanuma was convinced that the Honda EV will qualify for Chinese subsidies.

Mibe dismissed know-how issues: “An EV is much simpler than a regular car. The only difference is the battery and the electric motor.” (Read More…)