High profile German companies not only shut down their Japanese operations like the Japanese colleagues. They are also recalling Germans back to Germany. (Read More…)

Japan’s industrial output suffered major damage after one of the world’s strongest earthquakes, followed by an unprecedented tsunami hit Japan last week. Global supply chains are disrupted.

This is today’s rundown on auto plant closures. (Read More…)

Even if Japan’s nuclear power plants will be brought under control, even if roads, rails and ports are back up, the Japanese car industry will have to deal with a more serious problem: Blackouts.

On Monday, Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, will start turning off the power for three hours each to selected areas. This will happen once, in some areas twice per day. When the schedule was put up on Tepco’s website, the server crashed. That was just the beginning of the problems. (Read More…)

Many friends asked us what they can do to help the people in Japan. After many emails and Skype calls with family and friends, here are Don’ts and Dos of helping. (Read More…)

Many pronounced the end of China’s torrid growth of car sales after they slowed to just 4.57 percent in February. Xing Huang, chairman of state-owned auto parts maker China Auto Parts & Accessories Corp (CAPAC), thinks otherwise. He expects the Chinese auto market to grow at the same speed in 2011 as in the year before, says Reuters. That would  be 32 percent. (Read More…)

The Renault spy farce has taken yet another, this time totally unexpected twist. Presumptive spy catchers at Renault are behind bars. Renault’s security managers Marc Tixador and Dominique Gevrey are being held for questioning at the offices of France’s DCRI domestic intelligence agency which is investigating the matter, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor told Reuters. (Read More…)

While other car blogs interrupt their reporting to show gratuitous pictures from the massive earthquake in Japan, TTAC stays on topic. Even in this confused state, there are better sources for real-time information on the catastrophe in Japan than armchair car bloggers.

“The devastating earthquake that hit eastern Japan Friday will likely deal a severe blow to the nation’s overall economy, as that section of the country serves as a major hub for automobile, autoparts, energy and materials industries,” The Nikkei [sub] reports. The world’s auto industry has barely begun to recover. The disaster in Japan could have a major impact.

While having live news of the evacuation around two nuclear power plants in one ear, here the situation of the auto plants according to the latest news. (Read More…)

How many times had I written that Volkswagen’s sicklish SEAT will come to China? I had to peruse Google to find out. For more than two years, SEAT’s impending arrival in the Middle Kingdom had been floated, and then, like clockwork, the denials followed. So with a good deal of “yeah sure, it has been tried before” do we read the story in Autocar that “the Spanish marque will exhibit for the first time at next month’s Shanghai Motor Show and expects to be selling cars in China from early in 2012.” (Read More…)

„We should check our earthquake bag.“

That was one of the first things my wife said as we watched the news from Tokyo from a safe Beijing distance. Earthquakes are part of your life in Japan.

Next to our bed in Tokyo is a big black knapsack, filled with all kinds of survival gear: Water, space blanket, a small tarp, babywipes, two sets of MREs, a big knife, a radio, a flashlight. When the earth shakes, the idea is to grab the bag and to abandon the building as fast as you can. The evacuation path is mapped out and burned into our brain. (Read More…)

An 8.9 earthquake, the world’s sixth largest, followed by a massive tsunami, rocked the north of Japan. The center is close to Sendai, where Toyota recently opened a new plant. Sendai took the brunt of the quake. Telephone service all over Japan is severely degraded. Via a very spotty cellphone line, I reached Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco, who was standing outside his office building, like most people in Tokyo. (Read More…)

Now here is an interesting tidbit from Volkswagen’s press conference of today.  Remember when three weeks ago J.D. Power announced that 72 million light-vehicles were sold worldwide in 2010, a number never seen before? Volkswagen has a different picture. (Read More…)

Volkswagen looks back at its best year in history. At a press conference today, Volkswagen CEO  Martin Winterkorn announced a consolidated group profit before tax of €9 billion ($12.45 billion). €1.9 billion ($2.6 billion) of that is Volkswagen’s share out of their China businesses.

(Read More…)

Luxury cars, pronounced an endangered species two years ago, are back with a vengeance and enrich their makers. After reporting record sales, BMW follows with record profits. The Bavarian Motor Works are looking at a 2010 pre-tax profit of €4.8 billion ($6.7 billion) on sales of €60 billion ($83 billion). Not bad for a company that delivered only 1,461,166 BMWs, MINIs and a few Rolls-Royces last year. (Read More…)

While Julian Assange fights extradition proceedings to Sweden on charges of a ripped condom (note to Jack Baruth: Never get close to a Svenska flicka), the Wikileak cablegate haul is being used to do a hatchet job on a down and out car company that should qualify for a handicapped parking sticker. (Read More…)

Are there any winners of carmageddon? You bet there are: The Germans. They were sheltered from the American meltdown by virtue of a minuscule market share. At home in Europe, they were saved in 2009 by European cash for clunkers largesse. Following that, they could not make enough cars to power the insatiable export machine.

Development pretty much came to a halt in the U.S. and Japan in 2009. It yet has to reach full revs. Flush with cash, German manufacturers never had to stop the development of new cars. Due to the long development cycles, we just begin to see the beginnings of this effect. (Read More…)