Rick Kranz, product editor at Automotive News, had an epiphany: “To understand Victor Muller’s obsession with China, you need to understand where that market is headed,” Kranz wrote. Ok, enlighten us, sensei. Where is it headed? (Read More…)

Logic makes you think that used cars sales would skyrocket at the moment in Japan. The auto industry barely has started producing and will not be back to normal before the end of the year. Hundreds of thousands of cars have been destroyed. In Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture alone, 146,000 cars are estimated to have been severely damaged or destroyed, 10 percent of the 1,540,000 cars registered in the Prefecture. Used cars should be flying off the lots. But the opposite is true. (Read More…)

Victor Muller is getting desperate. Hard up for cash, he is willing to sell 24 percent of Saab to a car dealer in China. It’s not any car dealer, but Pangda, one of the larger chains in China. According to a Spyker press release, Pangda has “over 1100 dealerships nationwide”, according to Pag Da’s own profile (see below) is has about half of that. Be it as it may, it is a dealer group, not a larger automaker. Not even a smaller one. (Read More…)

“If you have no cars, you will lose market share,” said double-CEO Carlos Ghosn at last week’s annual results conference of Nissan. He said openly what other carmakers on the other side of the Pacific only dare to whisper into the ears of sympathetic reporters, or via analysts at banks and brokerages: The March 11 tsunami will cost Japanese makers big chunks of market share. The questions is: For how long? (Read More…)

In a normal world, an automaker wants to time the announcement of a new car just right: In time to build anticipation. Not too early, because that would hurt sales of last year’s models. In Japan, they keep things simple and have the press event the day the car goes on sale. Today, I was […]

Further on today’s results conference at Nissan, I could regale (or most likely bore) you with what you will hear from just about any Japanese carmaker, and possibly from non-Japanese carmakers as well: Last year was a good year, the March 11 tsunami makes this year a challenging year, but what will not kill us makes us stronger, and in ancient China, crisis and opportunity were one and the same.

Now this is Nissan and Carlos Ghosn who has bet a farm in France and one in Japan on the future of the electric car. Ghosn made a few points today that are well worth noting. He talked about nukes, CO2, blackouts – and batteries.

(Read More…)

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn treated reporters to his trademark Gallic body language and quick-witted repartees during the presentation of the fiscal year 2010  results today at Nissan’s swank waterfront headquarters in Yokohama. Ghosn delighted stockholders and analysts with the news that Japan’s #2 automaker made a net profit of 319.2 billion yen (US $3.72 billion) on net revenues of 8.7731 trillion yen (US $102.37 billion). Operating profit was 537.5 billion yen (US $6.27 billion).  Ghosn created much happiness by announcing that the last quarter of the fiscal year, which ended on March 31, resulted in an operating profit of 88.6 billion yen ($1.1 billion), also exceeding expectations. (Read More…)

Jefferies is one of those starchy global investment banks and institutional securities firms where a two tone collared shirt is their idea of casual Friday. It is also a place where highly paid financial analysts outsnark the most ruthless TTAC writer, Yesterday, Jefferies sent its “Jefferies institutional clients that include investment managers, insurance companies, hedge funds and pension funds worldwide” a research note that my pal who owns a hedge fund volunteered to share with TTAC readers, as long as we guarantee full anonymity. No problem.

The note is titled “Is GM Turning into a Busted Thesis?” and deals – you guessed it – with the GM stock. H. Peter Nesvold, CFA, and Thomas Fogarty, CFA, both equity analysts at Jefferies, are underwhelmed by the GM share. (Read More…)

Something else was announced today at the Toyota results conference, and lost on most in the packed room. A remark by CFO Satoshi Ozawa that the long discussed rotating power rationing plan is now a done deal. (Read More…)

When I arrived at Toyota’s downtown Tokyo basement conference room, I bumped into Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco, who was in the grips of stage fright. Annual results conferences with the world watching can do that to a spokesman. Trying to cheer Paul up in my charming way, I said: “Come on Paul. This one will be great. It’s the next ones that will be rotten as hell.” Paul gave me a pained look.

When I left an hour and a half later, I had changed my mind. Toyota will survive this crisis just like it survived the previous two: Stronger. Not unscathed, but not as badly affected as some officially fear and silently hope. What may not survive are Japanese jobs. (Read More…)

In a packed conference room in downtown Tokyo, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda announced this afternoon that Toyota finished the fiscal year to March 31, 2011 with a group net profit of  408.1 billion yen ($5 billion), up 95 percent on the year. This despite an ever increasing yen that is driving the company – and a lot of the Japanese industry – “to the limit” as CFO Satoshi Ozawa (above) warned. Sitting next to Toyoda, Ozawa said that he might have to recommend to his CEO to move production elsewhere unless a level playing field is created.

Ozawa put the impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami at  110 billion yen ($1.36 billion). However, the fiscal year had ended two weeks after the catastrophe. Financially, the worst is yet to come. Toyota appears to be in excellent financial and operational shape to weather a few quarters until production is back on line – which will happen earlier than expected.

More as I have worked through my notes. There will be some interesting morsels.

A bevy of industry figures and politicos congregated yesterday in Torrance, CA, to celebrate the grand opening of a new gas station. But it wasn’t just any new gas station … (Read More…)

Honda revealed prices for their „Chinese Brand“  Everus S1.  As reported before, these “Chinese brands” are brands created by joint ventures, based on (usually not the latest) foreign platforms, filled with parts of foreign pedigree, and as much Chinese manufacture as possible. Supposedly, these brands are targeted at the lower income brackets. They better start saving. When the concept was launched, the target price for the cars was under $10,000, but what is going on sale is consistently over that. (Read More…)

Our patent pending GM China sales oracle saw it coming: GM China was down in April, therefore, the whole Chinese market had to be down in April. And so it was – by a hair: April new vehicle sales in China were down 0.25 percent, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers announced at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon. This is the first decline in 27 months. (Read More…)

Remember the first auto part that had been in short supply after the March 11 tsunami? It was car paint. Certain car paint that uses a shiny pigment called Xirallic, to be exact. That will also be one of the first Japanese parts that will move elsewhere as a result of the disaster. Germany’s  Merck said today it will shift production of Xirallic pigments from Japan to Germany. (Read More…)