China  and the world are waiting for a press conference to be held at 5pm local time (0900 zulu,) for which GM is promising “some important GM news,” relating to SAIC, says Reuters. Nick Reilly will take time off from restructuring Opel, and will personally host the conference.

It is widely expected that GM will cede control of the 50:50 China joint venture by selling 1 percent to SAIC. They will also most likely announce that GM will transfer half of GM’s India operations to the Chinese company. (Read More…)

Mitsubishi Motors and PSA sure don’t waste any time. Hours after the news of their impending nuptials were announced, the happy couple retreated to a love hotel in the Kabuki-cho district of Shinjuku and hatched further plans on top of their planned capital tie-up.
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SAIC halted trading of its stock today due to a “major asset reorganization.” According to Dow Jones Newswire, SAIC’s board will hold a meeting before Dec. 9 to discuss the asset reorganization plan. SAIC said its shares will resume trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange after it announces a detailed plan on the reorganization. While SAIC is tightlipped, Chinese media is abuzz with speculations.
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Renault has its Nissan. Jealous PSA seeks the company of a pretty Japanese bride of its own. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. confirmed to the Nikkei [sub] today that it is in talks with PSA Peugeot-Citroen about some financial shibari. The capital tie-up could see PSA take a majority position in Mitsubishi Motors.

“We have been talking whether we can have deeper relationship, and a capital tie-up is one among many options,” said a Mitsubishi Motors spokesman, declining to comment on the scale or value of any potential deal. The Nikkei [sub] reported earlier Thursday that PSA could buy a stake of 30 percent to 50 percent in Mitsubishi Motors and become its biggest shareholder.
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As another indication that November car sales in China will be a humdinger, Dow Jones Newswire reports that “sales of Ford brand vehicles by Ford Motor Co.’s passenger vehicle-making joint venture in China rose 152 percent in November from a year earlier.”
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As every salesmanperson knows, you’ve got to close the deal. It’s as simple as ABC. Always Be Closing. Looks like the only thing GM is adept at closing is dealerships. All deals to get rid of its unloved, neglected, and money losing brands have either been canceled, or are barely up in the air. From Opel to Saab to HUMMER. Yes, HUMMER. Haven’t we been told that that beast has long been foisted off on a formerly unknown Chinese company called Tengzhong? It hasn’t. And it won’t be for a while. If at all.
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Pundits had prognosticated that the withdrawal from Deutschland’s Dexedrine called Abwrackprämie would cause a serious case of dopesickness, and that the market would crash. They must be disappointed by the numbers released today by Germany’s Kraftfahrtbundesamt. Three months after the last dose of the €5b of cash-for-clunker money had officially been injected into the German market, it’s still powering ahead. In November, Germans bought 19.7 percent more cars than in November of the prior year.  In the eleven months of the year, Germans bought 3.59m new cars, that’s 25.4 percent more than in 2008.

Germany won’t close out the year with 4m cars sold, but it will be close. That’s a third more than the usual 3m cars sold a year in Germany.

Two items should be kept in mind:
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If you are a daily reader of the Nikkei, as we are in the Schmitto-san household, you can sometimes lose your confidence in Japanese precision and accuracy.

Yesterday, we quoted the Nikkei as saying that “sales of new cars and trucks rose 36 percent year on year to 293,410 units in November, marking the fourth straight month of increase, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said Tuesday. Passenger car sales surged 43.8 percent to 268,450 units.”

Today, we read in the Nikkei that “new-vehicle sales increased 18.3 percent to 436,535 units in November for a third straight year-on-year gain, according to industry data released Tuesday.”

Shitsurei?
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GM China’s sales are on a tear. November sales in China jumped 109.5 percent, Reuters reports, citing a company release. GM and its joint ventures sold 177,339 vehicles in November. As goes GM, so goes the Nation.
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You think Japan’s 43.8 percent rise in car sales in November is an aberration that can only be explained with insidious inspection practices? Whatever. Change of venue: Direct your attention to France. France sold 48.4 percent more cars this November than in November 2008, reports Automobilwoche [sub]. Granted, the final months of 2008 were the beginnings of carmageddon. And we will compare against weaker and weaker months worldwide. But growth is growth. And 48.4 percent is a big jump. Of course there is still a little governmental jump starting: Every second car bought received a €700 bonus from Paris as a big merci beaucoup for spitting out less CO2. In the first 11 months, the French car market grew 7.6 percent over the same period in 2008. It’s coming around. Some brands report astounding numbers.
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You have to hand it to the Japanese. They have their numbers down pat. Which country knows on December 1 how many cars they have sold in all of November? Japan does. And guess what: Sales of new cars and trucks in Japan rose 36 percent year on year to 293,410 units in November, says the Nikkei [sub], quoting numbers released by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association. And guess what again: This is the fourth straight month that Japanese car sales have been increasing. Hold on, there is more …
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Bloomberg seems to be down to two informants. More and more Bloomberg stories are attributed to their “two people familiar with the plan.” Again, the familiar duo is the source for Bloomberg’s latest report from death row in Trollhättan, where Saab is quickly running through its last reprieves. Bloomberg’s usually unreliable sources say that GM “may sell parts of its Saab unit to Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. and shutter the brand.”

Assets would be tooling, production machinery and the like. There is a GM board meeting today, and we may know more in the evening. If they would ask me (but they won’t) I would tell them that BAIC needs used production machinery like the proverbial hole in the head.
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The car business and the news surrounding it have their seasonality (hence the SAAR.) As far as the news is concerned, we must have reached the “soak” part of the news cycle. It can only spin faster, or we should all take a vacation. Read on if you suffer from insomnia …
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Hidden deep down in a story written by the Houston Chronicle about Rice Business School students visiting Warren Buffett, there is a startling prediction by the Oracle of Omaha.

Jan Goetgeluk, president of the business school’s Finance Club, asked what Buffett thought of the peak oil theory.

Reports the Houston Chronicle, to the dismay of the many oilmen amongst its readers: “Buffett told him that in 20 years, he believes all the cars on the road will be electric. He’s already invested in a Chinese company working on the technology to make it happen.”
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Pundits keep repeating that the biggest obstacle to Chinese companies buying Western brands is the culture gap. Adept at building monstrous bridges, the Chinese are tackling the culture thing. They even switched from Chinglish to Americanisms. Asked by reporters whether BAIC would consider approaching Saab alone, BAIC CEO Wang Dazong said: “I would just say, ‘stay tuned a little bit’.”

And who says Americans just plan for the next quarter, while Chinese plan for eternities? Wang Dazong sounds like GM is inhabited by slowpokes. Or by folks who had too much weed:
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