I’m running out of gratuitous tie-up pictures, so let’s celebrate the good news with a video: The Nikkei [sub] sends us the news that Nissan and Daimler “are in the final stages of negotiations to obtain stakes of less than 5 percent  in each other.” This comes on the heels of yesterday’s news that Daimler and Renault will exchange shares. With Nissan joining the couple, the tripartite axis will be perfect. No Italians this time. (Read More…)

Car researcher Edmunds sees an exceptionally strong March rebound in U.S. car sales. They expect new vehicle sales to come in 31 percent higher than March 2009.  The most muscular comeback kid? Would you believe it, Edmunds expects sales of the already counted out Toyota to explode in March. They also see the Detroit 3 solidly overwhelmed by the furriners, Ford’s heroic efforts notwithstanding. (Read More…)

2009 was a great year for China’s auto makers with a record growth of 45 percent that propelled the market to 13.6 million units and gave it unassailable #1 status. It wasn’t all roses for everybody. For China’s Brilliance, joint venture partner of BMW, 2009 was downright rotten. (Read More…)

A Chinese friend just called me up. Claimed I would know a lot about cars. Asked whether he should invest his hard-earned Renminbi into an Audi Q7 3.6, or a Mercedes ML300, or a BMW X5-3.0, or a VW Tourareg V8?

What do I know. Of course, I didn’t tell him that.

My reputation as a know-it-all foreigner is at stake here. You know, China, all about face. So I’m asking the best and brightest of the Best & Brightest: What should I recommend? Serious, snark-free advice, please. Obviously, this guy has money, and I don’t want to end up on his wrong side. I would suffer a serious quanxi deduction if my advice turns out as bogus.  No other brands, he’s fairly set on these Teutonic choices.

Ah, the tangled web of automotive high finance. Victor Muller, CEO and largest shareholder of Dutch automaker Spyker Cars said “oops” (or Dutch words to that effect) and reduced his voting interest is Spyker from 34.3 percent to 26.8 percent.

Why? It just dawned on Muller (or his CPAs) that with more than 30 percent he would have had to make a buyout offer for the rest of the shares. After having gobbled up Saab through complex dealings involving Russian money of dubious provenance, being forced to buy out the whole company because of some silly law wasn’t a high priority for Muller.

Rules are rules, so what’s a newly minted tycoon to do? (Read More…)

After long hand-holding and necking, Daimler and Renault finally seem to progress to third base. The Financial Times reports that the French and the Germans “are in the final stages of wide-ranging strategic partnership talks that would involve the German and French car makers taking ‘symbolic’ minority stakes in each other.” (Read More…)

When we wrote yesterday that GM’s „car of the future,“ to be shown at the upcoming Shanghai Expo, “looks more like an overgrown Segway scooter,” we meant it in jest. Turns out they are serious. It IS an overgrown Segway scooter. (Read More…)

Opels head shop steward Klaus Franz is mightily mad at Opel’s CEO Nick Reilly. Reilly told the London Times that the Ampera, Opel’s counterpart to the Volt, may be built in the Ellesmere Port plant in the UK:“The chances are quite good that the Ampera will come to Ellesmere Port as it is close in production terms to the Astra and will share many components,” Reilly said. In the meantime, Berlin cues Roberta Flack’s “Killing me softly” as a prelude for Opel’s funeral. (Read More…)

Honda is perplexed and overwhelmed by the demand for their just launched CR-Z small sports hybrid car, says The Nikkei [sub]. Honda had planned for 1000 a month, which turned out to be a big mistake. After one month, they already have more than 10,000 orders, and a hard time filling them. They’ve sold in one month what they wanted to sell in a year, more or less, and the orders keep pouring in. (Read More…)

Malaysia is an economic boom-town, and a country of 28m people. Import duties on foreign cars can run as high as 300 percent. According to unconfirmed rumors, this is to protect the two local makers, Proton & Perodua.

Many foreign car makers have tried to get a chunk of that protected market. One of them is Volkswagen, which does a booming business next door in China. (Read More…)

Shanghai is in the grips of pre-Expo frenzy. Shanghai’s Finest are closing down all world famous adult entertainment establishments to present a clean Shanghai from May 1 to October 31 – no red rope treatment, except at the show entrance . General Motors, corporate citizen of Shanghai, unveiled a new electric concept car to up its image as a supplier of non-polluting cars tailored to keep the crowded mega-cities of the future green and clean. Did I say “car?” It looks more like an overgrown Segway scooter. Or something that escaped the Sunday Funnies, AD 1968 … (Read More…)

Money-wise, the United States is in a bit of a tough spot. Must create revenue wherever it can. From red light cameras to shaking down foreign companies. On Tuesday, Germany’s Daimler AG was charged with violating U.S. bribery laws “by showering foreign officials with millions of dollars and gifts of luxury cars to win business deals,” as Reuters has it. After asking “how much will it take for this to go away?” Daimler plans to pay $185m to settle charges by the U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission. (Read More…)

By 2015, no new car made by Mazda will stand around idle. By this year, Mazda plans to install its idling stop function on all of its new automobiles, says today’s Nikkei [sub]. Some domestic and European Mazda already have this feature. In a few years, it will be universal, including North America, where current EPA regulations discourage idle stop. (Read More…)

A week ago, we ran a story about China’s BYD scaling back – way back – plans to mass produce their E6 pure plug-in. We reported that all they’ll make will be 100 E6 electric cars to be used as taxis in the city of Shenzhen, where BYD is based. Further development of the vehicles will depend on how that test fleet will be doing. At the time, it was only a rumor. Now, the rumor has been confirmed by the BYD man himself, Chairman Wang Chuanfu. (Read More…)

Germany’s Economy Minister Rainer Brüderle poured cold water on hopes for a quick decision on state aid for GM’s ailing Opel. GM expects $2.5b in state aid to come from European countries, most of it from Germany. But Germany, represented by Reiner Brüderle, is dragging its heels. (Read More…)