The Hong Kong Stock Exchange announced that the board of directors of Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Limited ” has noted the increase in share price and trading volume of the shares of the Company today and wishes to state that the Board is not aware of any reasons for such increase in share price and trading volume.”

Brilliance, BMW’s Chinese joint venture partner and maker of its own line of cars (which kind of look like Bimmers) “confirms that there are no negotiations or agreements relating to intended acquisitions or realizations which are discloseable.” In other words: They say they have no idea why their stock would move.

We called around a bit in China. Everybody is likewise flabbergasted. A source we trust, and which shall remain undisclosed to protect his job, says: “There is nothing unusual going on at Brilliance. They will announce some homegrown new models this year. No new BMW joint venture cars are planned.” So why the sudden interest in their stock?

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India’s Economic Times can’t believe it: “Porn baron Larry Flynt says that the US Government should help rejuvenate the industry, which has been bearing the brunt of the ongoing global economic crisis, with a financial assistance of five billion dollars. The Hustler magazine founder has even joined forces with ‘Girls Gone Wild’ video series’ creator Joe Francis to approach Congress so as to sustain the same kind of financial aid as was recently approved for automakers.”

A Bollywood fantasy? No, says Xbiz Newswire, the adult entertainment industry news authority. Xbiz says Flint and Francis are serious. Or at least seriously looking for headlines. Xbiz talked to Larry Flint’s flak Owen Moogan, who made a compelling case: “With the Big Three automakers asking for assistance, and with banks asking for assistance, we thought, ‘Why not us?’ The adult industry is another great American business entity. We represent the all-American pursuit of sexual gratification.”

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An overview of what happened in other parts of the world while you were in bed. TTAC provides round-the-clock coverage of everything that has wheels. Or has its wheels coming off. WAS is being filed from Beijing this week, from Berlin next week,

Mitsubishi electrifies PSA: Mitsubishi will supply France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen with electric cars beginning as early as next year, the Nikkei (sub) reports. The French government is providing subsidies of up to 5K Euros, and tax breaks for consumers who purchase electric cars. “With the U.K. and Germany offering incentives as well, Europe is expected to soon become a leading electric-car market,” says the Nikkei. Mitsubishi Motors will provide its iMiEV passenger car on an OEM basis. This plug-in electric vehicle, which is powered by a high-performance lithium ion battery, is slated to debut in Japan this summer. It runs 160km on a single charge. The iMiEV is expected to be priced competitive with conventional gasoline-powered cars in France once the subsidies are taken into account. “Mitsubishi Motors Corp shares jumped 5 percent” on the news, Reuters reports.

Mazda saves cash in cats: Japan’s Mazda said on Thursday it would introduce technology that would slash the amount of precious metals used in catalytic converters by 70 percent in the new Mazda3 model, due for sales globally this year, Reuters says. Mazda said it would be the world’s first application of the single-nanocatalyst technology. The technology will be rolled out globally on certain models. Nissan last year introduced nanotechnology that would halve the amount of precious metals used in the new Cube.
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A short overview of what happened in other parts of the world while you were in bed. TTAC provides round-the-clock coverage of everything that has wheels. Or has its wheels coming off. WAS is being filed from Beijing.

Toyota asking workers to forego pay: In an unusual move, Toyota has begun negotiating with labor to treat some of the 11 additional days during which the company plans to suspend domestic operations as vacation days without pay, the Nikkei (sub) writes. Toyota aims to close all 12 of its domestic factories for six more days than planned in February and for five additional days in March. Extra factory closure days used to be treated as paid days off. Toyota seeks to stop this practice from next month to cut costs. Toyota hopes to reach an agreement with labor this month. The unions already balk.

Germany looks like bottoming out: Germany’s car buyers bought 6.6 percent less in last December than in the prior year. This is nowhere near the disaster called America. Germany’s November sales had been down 18 percent. Germany closes out the year 2008 with a minus of just 1.8 percent, Automobilwoche (sub) reports. Still, “Germany notched up yet another post-reunification low for the year, with just 3.09 million vehicles registered throughout 2008,”  Reuters writes. The big loser is Toyota with a loss of 27 percent for the year. Volkswagen sold 5.7 percent more than in 2007 and raised its market share to 19.9 percent. Opel lost 9.5 percent of sales, Porsche 8.2. The Smart gained 5.7 percent. Amazingly, SUVs gained 3 percent for the year, the high price of gas be damned. The share of diesel powered cars dropped 3.6 percent to now 44.1 percent.

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When Porsche, led by Wendelin Wiedeking and his CFO Holger Härter engineered the classical short squeeze, when they drove the VW share into the stratosphere and hedge funds into deep losses, the men received applause. Hedge funds are supposed to know what they are doing. And no kittens were harmed.

Yesterday evening, a 74 year old man walked in front of an oncoming train near the German city of Ulm. He used to be a billionaire.  He used to be on the 94^th place of Forbes’ list of richest people. Adolf Merckle had placed his bets on the wrong side of the Volkswagen game.
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Last Saturday, we asked the B&B: “What will be Monday’s SAAR?” You know, that funny Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate, where they look at the sales for a month and then act as if it’s the whole year. Bloomberg had asked a bunch of high paid analysts, and they had it all wrong. Most of them guessed too low. Only Christopher Cearso came kind of close with 10.2m for December.

Our own Mikey iced it: 10.4! That’s exactly what Automotive News has as the, well, not quite official, but officially “preliminary 10.4 million seasonally adjusted rate.” Congratulations, Miky! The title of AFB&B (AbsoNSFWingly Best & Brightest) is deserved well. Second places go to confused1096 with 10.1m and MikeInCanada with 10.7m. Both were only a smidgen of 300K off. And both were still doing much better than Bloomberg’s analysts. We call you the B&B for a reason.

A week ago, AP cited an article in the Nikkei that wasn’t there. That article that didn’t exist was about an all solar car that didn’t exist. Under the headline “Toyota Secretly Developing Solar Powered Green Car” the AP “news” about the article and car that only existed in imagination was reprinted 164k times, as Google has it.

Not only had the original Nikkei article not been printed. TTAC’s B&B also opined that a solar powered car would be total bunk. “There is no way you are going to power anything like a conventional car on a normal duty cycle with only the PV modules on roof of the car,” wrote B&B RedStapler. He was not alone. WIRED wrote that “a chorus of online skeptics have begun dismissing reports that Toyota’s “top secret” solar concept would ever see the light of day.”
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A short overview of what happened in other parts of the world while you were in bed. TTAC provides round-the-clock coverage of everything that has wheels. Or has its wheels coming off. WAS is being filed from Beijing.

Toyota Motor Corp halts production at Japanese plants: They’ll do that for 11 days in February and March, Reuters reports. A 37 percent slump in December sales in Toyota’s biggest market U.S.A. was its sharpest fall in more than a quarter of a century and worse than General Motors and Ford Motor.

Porsche owns more than half of VW: Porsche has raised its stake in Volkswagen to more than 50 percent, and as a result they may end up with a truck company they do not want, writes Reuters. A Porsche spokesman confirmed that the sports car maker still planned to increase its stake in VW to 75 percent at some point this year, given a favorable market environment. As a result of its stake hike on Monday, Porsche now has indirect control of Swedish truck maker Scania, in which Volkswagen holds about 69 percent of the voting rights. Porsche is required by Swedish law to make a mandatory takeover offer, but the German sports car maker said it had no strategic interest in Scania and was not interested in acquiring Scania shares. It said it was not bound by pre-acquisition prices and was only obliged to offer the minimum price prescribed by law.

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A – due to worldwide holiday inertia – very short overview of what happened in other parts of the world while you were in bed. TTAC provides round-the-clock coverage of everything that has wheels. Or has its wheels coming off. Until Jan 4, 2009, WAS is being filed from Tokyo.

Japan relieved that Chrysler got the money: The Nikkei (sub) brings its Japanese readership the happy news that “Chrysler LLC received its $4 billion low-interest federal government loan Friday, helping the auto maker continue funding its operations and paying its suppliers for parts.” This is registered with relief amongst JP automakers, as they worry about the health of their suppliers. The Nikkei also points out that “Cerberus is interested in finding a partner for Chrysler.” The search for suitors may be hampered by the fact that Chrysler “relies on North America for about 90% of its overall sales.”

Geely has big plans: China’s Geely aims to boost vehicle sales by 25 percent this year by way of new models and government incentives. Geely plans to sell 281,000 units this year, against nearly 225,000 units in 2008, a company official, Zhang Xiaodong, said according to Gasgoo. Geely is the only larger Chinese car maker that has not formed any alliances with foreign counterparts. They just received a $147m line of credit from China Everbright Bank.

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On Monday, the German magazine Der Spiegel will report that Daimler had looked at taking Volvo off Ford’s hands. But after trying Volvo on for size, the good folks in Stuttgart decided it’s not a good fit. “Daimler boss Dieter Spiegel has carried out a close examination of a possible purchase in the past few weeks and acknowledged a series of possible drawbacks,” the German weekly will say. According to Der Spiegel, Daimler scoffed at problems with harmonizing Volvo with its own Mercedes cars. The article is not even out yet, and it has already been shot down by a missive from Stuttgart. Two days before the report was to appear, Daimler said it’s a fabrication. “We were never interested in Volvo,” a Daimler spokesman said to Reuters. Not interested doesn’t mean they didn’t look.
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On Monday, U.S. manufacturers will announce – as much as they hate it – last month’s sales. It is expected that sales have dropped in December by “48 percent from a year earlier at Chrysler, 41 percent at GM and 33 percent at Ford,” based on the average estimates of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The oracles expect a likewise bloodbath amongst the Nipponese: “Toyota Motor Corp. may report a 40 percent slide and Honda Motor Co. may say its total was down 36 percent,” said Brian Johnson, a Barclays Capital analyst in New York.

The actual numbers reported by the manufacturers will provide fodder for the dreaded SAAR, which will also be announced for December. No, it’s not a disease that will wipe out China, although it might cause similar symptoms. It’s the Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate for the month. It’s a statistician’s shorthand for “how many cars would we sell for the next year if people’s buying habits stay exactly like the last month?” For all we know now, the December rate will probably be the worst in insert-the-appropriate-timescale-here.

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We all know that November was a bad month for car sales. Come Monday, we’ll know how bad December was, and with it the whole year. Don’t expect any positive surprises. Pop quiz: What was the worst segment? The much maligned SUVs? Nope, they are back in vogue, kindof. It’s hybrids that suddenly are on the endangered species list. “Americans’ appetite for hybrid cars is evaporating as tumbling fuel prices and tighter household budgets trump environmental concerns,” writes the Financial Times (sub.)

Yes, bound for extinction are the same cars that were the conveyance of choice for Detroit’s CEO’s during the second round of hearings. One of the hottest segments a few months ago is now a thin slice of its former glory. We’re talking the same hybrids that sucked up billions of investments, and were the target of $25b of Department of Energy “retooling loans.” With gas back to normal, hybrids are going out of style bigtime.

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A – due to worldwide holiday inertia – very short overview of what happened in other parts of the world while you were in bed. TTAC provides round-the-clock coverage of everything that has wheels. Or has its wheels coming off. Until Jan 4, 2009, WAS is being filed from Tokyo

Suzuki down in India: Maruti Suzuki is India’s top carmaker. They own half of India’s car market. Like everybody in India, they got it on the chin. Their total vehicle sales in December fell 10 percent from a year ago. At least, their domestic sales rose from the previous month, after declining in November and October. Total December sales of Maruti Suzuki fell to 56,293 vehicles from 62,515 in the same month a year earlier, the Nikkei (sub) writes.

Tata WAY down in India: India’s Tata sold 23,894 units domestically in December, a decline of 44 percent compared to the corresponding month last year, India’s Economic Times reports. Including exports, Tata’s total sales for December 2008 stood at 25,219 vehicles, down by 47 percent. For the year 2008, their sales fell 11 percent.

Toyota nixes plans for Russia, Thailand: Toyota will freeze construction plans for new factories in Russia and Thailand, Bloomberg writes.

Ford sees further downside: Ford expects industry-wide December U.S. auto sales to drop by some 35 percent from a year earlier with no sign of a turnaround in the first quarter of this year, Reuters writes. Ford’s chief sales analyst George Pipas expects that full-year sales of light vehicles in the U.S.A. will drop to 13.2 million for 2008, down from 16.2 million in 2007. “The sales rates have declined like a lead balloon, really,” Pipas said. “I think when December comes in, every segment will be down. Not one segment will be up versus a year ago.” And there is no quick end in sight: “We’re not looking for the first quarter to be much different from what we saw in the fourth quarter,” Pipas said.
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The Wall Street Journal gets its fair share of flak from TTAC. Now it’s time for a pat on the head. Under a downright TTAC-ish headline (“Treasury to Ford: Drop Dead”,) the WSJ lambasts the Treasury for being a bunch of unappreciative sumsabitches: “When the Bush Treasury decided to bail out Detroit, GM and Chrysler quickly said yes to the taxpayer cash, but Ford Motor Co. said it didn’t need the money and declined. Ford’s reward for this show of self-reliance? Treasury is now helping GM again by giving it a credit pricing advantage against Ford in the marketplace.”

Farago wrote: “If I were the head of Ford or Toyota or Honda’s lending unit, I would be mighty pissed.” The Wall Street Journal agrees. Now that the U.S. Government effectively owns GMAC, it gives them the money to offer zero percent financing – for GM products. Says the WSJ: “The messy little policy issue is that these GM products compete with those sold by Ford, Toyota, Honda and numerous other car makers that won’t benefit from GMAC’s cash infusion. And with the cost of financing often crucial to buyer decisions, the feds have now put the muscle of the state behind one company’s products.”

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It got a little quiet recently about Chinese automakers ogling American automakers-in-distress. London’s Financial Times (sub) decided it’s time to rekindle the flames. “China is the world’s second-largest car market,” the pink sheet writes today, “and rumors swirl ceaselessly about a Chinese carmaker buying Chrysler or General Motors. It is a remarkable transformation and one that cannot be halted, even by the global economic recession.” After waxing prose about the end of the “stratospheric double-digit growth of recent years,” and snidely remarking that “industry analysts are still expecting high single-digit growth for 2008 and possibly 2009 as well. Much of the rest of the global car industry would be happy to see such numbers,” the FT gets right to the point:

“No one expects the Chinese government to step in with a Washington-style bail-out, but last month Chery announced that it had arranged RMB10b ($1.46b) in financing from China’s Export Import Bank to fund overseas activities, and then immediately said it was calling off a small-car partnership with Chrysler – fueling speculation that Chery’s real intent was to buy the troubled US carmaker.”

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