After Taiwan’s Yulon Motor pays a symbolic Taiwan dollar for the 49 percent stake General Motors holds in their local joint venture Yulon General Motors, GM will give them the keys, and say bye-bye for good, reports the Dow Jones News Wire via CNN Money.

Yulon, like many other car companies, needs cash. GM doesn’t have it, so they decided, to heck with Taiwan, it’s not worth the hassle, we’re outta here. Or in the more proper words of F.J. Pan, the CEO of the former joint venture: “Yulon General Motors needs a fund injection to cover losses and develop business, and General Motors has cash flow problems, so they said they don’t plan to inject funds,”

For long, Yulon was more known for flooding the island with rebadged Nissans. In 2004, Yulon split itself in two entities to allow a dalliance with another joint venture partner.

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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. For the next two weeks, WAS will be filed from Tokyo.

Hyundai up for sale: According to Reuters, the 11 shareholders of Hyundai Corp, “are planning to offer a 50 percent stake plus one share” (i.e. a majority) to an interested buyer, at the paltry price of $127.6m. South Korean banks and a state agency, led by KEB and Woori Bank, own a combined 87.95 percent stake in Hyundai Corp after bailing out the former unit of the Hyundai Group in 2003. According to readily available information, Hyundai Corporation is composed of five divisions: Automobile and Electrical Equipment, Ship and Machinery, Steel, Brand and Commodities, and Natural Resources. However, the Reuters article refers to Hyundai Corp. as a “trading and resources-development company,” or an “energy developer.” Something doesn’t compute quite yet. The story bears monitoring. Nothing yet on the other wires.

Mazda sends U.S. workers home: Mazda plans to place about 400 workers at its joint venture plant in the U.S. on temporary leave starting in the middle of next month as part of ongoing production cuts, the Nikkei reports. In addition, Mazda began scaling back output of the Mazda2 subcompact, known in Japan as the Demio, at its joint venture plant in the Chinese city of Nanjing this month.

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Osamu Suzuki has seen it all. The 78 year old patriarch was 15 when WW II ended. He has seen and successfully overcome the oil shocks of the 1970s and a number of other major business hardships during his career. Suzuki is not ready to retire. Actually, he took on another job: Two weeks ago, Suzuki’s President and Chief Operating Officer Hiroshi Tsuda asked to step down “for health reasons.”  Suzuki, Chairman of Suzuki Motor Corp., decided not to replace Tsuda and took his job. Today, the Nikkei (sub) had a little chat with Osamu Suzuki. What they heard wasn’t pretty:

“We have not hit bottom yet,” says Suzuki.  “There is a time lag between what is happening with the Big Three U.S. carmakers and the impact that will have in Japan. It is as if tsunami waves are rolling toward Japanese shores. I believe a real wave will hit us around July or August next year, with car sales hitting rock bottom.” Asked, what management should do when it finds itself in a crisis, Suzuki has a simple answer:

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The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren is – and soon was – an Anglo-German sports car jointly developed by Mercedes-Benz and McLaren Automotive. The standard version of the little critter would set you back just half a mil. If you want one, then better hurry: Production of the SLR will cease in June 2009.

Or, if you want an extra special SLR, and have a little more discretionary cash sitting around, wait until June 2009, because the SLR will go out with a bang. According to the London Telegraph, Mercedes and McLaren will celebrate the death of a legend with “an exclusive SLR inspired by British motor racing legend, Stirling Moss. Only 75 will be made, each costing €750,000 .” At today’s rate, that’s just a little bit over $1m.  So for only twice the price you will get … not even a front window.

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China is sick and tired of the bad crash test rap their cars receive abroad. Many of them, a few years ago, were really bad. To remedy this, China established their own Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC) in Tianjin, which smashes new cars for a living. The standard they use is the Chinese New Car Assessment Program, or C-NCAP. According to China Daily, C-NCAP “is similar to Euro-NCAP.”

Gasgoo reports now that “China’s domestically made cars are making progress in terms of safety.” Homegrown Chery A3 (shown in the video) and SAIC’s sortof homegrown Roewe 550 received five stars at CATARC. Six stars would be best, and so far, only one, the Hongqi, received top honors earlier this year.

Amongst the joint ventures, the China-made Mercedes-Benz C200, and FAW-VW’s New Bora also received five stars.

The Chinese are quick studies: In the two years the center has been in operations, the proportion of five-star cars rose from a horrendously low 8.3 percent in 2006 to 36 percent in 2007 and to 46 percent in 2008. Still, in 2008, more than 30 percent of all tested models limped out of the testing lab with only two or three-stars.

Now, “similar to Euro-NCAP” isn’t “same as.” The devil is in the details, especially in crash testing. We’ll see how they fare with a Euro-NCAP, which will be much tougher in 2009.

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. For the next two weeks, WAS will be filed from Tokyo.

Japan’s auto production in the dumps: Production of cars, trucks and buses in Japan fell 20.4 percent on year in November, marking the second straight month of falls, the Nikkei (sub) writes, Vehicle output declined to 854,171 vehicles in the month from 1,072,519 vehicles a year earlier, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said. Japanese domestic vehicle demand in November totaled 368,884 units, down 18.2 percent from a year earlier. Japanese exports of passenger cars contracted by 19.5 percent.

Joe Isuzu gets a haircut: Isuzu announced temporary pay cuts for all 8,000 domestic full-time employees in response to a steep decline in auto and truck sales, The Nikkei (sub) writes. Executives will get 30 percent less starting in January. Manager-level employees will see 10 percent less from spring. For rank-and-file workers, Isuzu will propose to its labor union as early as the beginning of next year a several-percent reduction in base wages that could begin as early as April. The Nikkei: “While the pay cuts would be temporary, they could last a year or longer.”

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The BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, long treated as pariahs, have lately advanced to savior of the world status. Whatever growth there is on the planet, it’s supposedly made of BRICs. Now, even the BRICs crumble. Latest case in point: A Ford factory near Russia’s St. Petersburg announced today that it had shut down its assembly lines. It will not re-open them until January 21, Russia’s news agency Novosti reports. Reasons? Don’t even ask. You know them already: “The ongoing global financial crisis and the necessity to reduce production due to the expected drop in car sales in the country next year.” That’s coming from Russia, where last summer unit sales were up by 41 percent.

The Ford plant was opened in the summer of 2002 to satisfy the demand. It employs some 2,200 workers, who’s jobs are temporarily pisdoj nakrytsja (gone.)  According to Russian labor law, the workers are entitled to two thirds of their wages during the closure.

The factory, which produces Ford Focus cars, previously announced it planned to produce 125,000 cars in 2009. Two items stand out:
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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. For the next two weeks, WAS will be filed from Tokyo.

Bad November for Toyota: Toyota’s Japanese production dropped 27.2 percent in November from a year earlier to 288,138 vehicles as exports sagged 23.9 percent and domestic sales skidded 27.6 percent Overseas production fell 26.1 percent to 301,367 in the month. Other Japanese companies share in the misery, but not as much as ToMoCo: Honda down 3.9 percent in November. Mazda minus 19.8 percent. Suzuki shed 7.3 percent, writes the Nikkei (sub)

Itai-itai!: Nissan’s and Mitsubishi’s numbers came in by the end of the day in Tokyo, and they are nasty: Nissan’s domestic output shrank by 35.6 percent in November, their exports tanked by 30.2 percent, the Japanese domestic sales down 22.8 percent. Mitsubishi not much better: Output in Japan down 2.6 percent.  November exports minus 13.8 percent. Domestic (Japanese) sales evaporated to the tune of minus 31.1 percent. The Nikkei (sub) carries this moral-enhancing comment: “Some analysts warn that earnings could get worse further down the road, indicating more output drops may come.” Kota Yuzawa, analyst at Goldman Sachs, said: “We still cannot see an earnings bottom.”

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Eamonn Fingleton is the author of insightful books titled “Blindside: Why Japan is still on track to overtake the US by the year 2000” and “In Praise of Hard Industries – Why manufacturing, not the new economy is the key to future prosperity.” Whoever followed his advice either has committed suicide by now, or lives in a place where sharp objects are banned. Except for Bill Clinton and Ralph Nader, who think Fingleton is a swell guy. In truth, the Tokyo-dwelling Irish author has few friends left. He just found a bunch of new ones: the editors of The Detroit Free Press (Freep).

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. For the next two weeks, WAS will be filed from Tokyo.

Toyota doesn’t just sit there. They do something: Toyota is facing its first full-year loss ever, $1.68b for the whole fiscal 2008. Never mind that this is approximately the cash GM burns through in a bad month. For Toyota, it is a huge embarrassment. Toyota will do immediately what GM ignored: Embark on drastic production changes. “The speed, breadth and depth of the global economic downturn is beyond what we had imagined,” says Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe. Their measures will be likewise drastic. Toyota aims to revamp its operations so that it can turn a profit even if parent-only sales fall by 17% from 2007 results. All new production upgrades, including the opening of a plant in the U.S. state of Mississippi scheduled for 2010, will be postponed or scaled down. Capital spending planned for fiscal 2009 will be cut 30 percent to less than 1 trillion yen. For starters. By the way, directors will forgo their bonuses this fiscal year.

Nissan likewise: Nissan is reevaluating its plans for new factories and may postpone construction or scale back the size of some of them, Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga said to The Nikkei (sub.) Nissan had plans to build a new factory in Russia in 2009 and new plants in India, Morocco and China in 2010. In addition, its subsidiary Nissan Shatai Co. had plans to build a new car body assembly plant next year in Kyushu. All of these plans are under review.

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CNW Research’s of Brandon, Ore, is in the business of tracking “consumer confidence, new-used floor traffic, manufacturer and dealer incentives, and used vehicle sales by channel.” In their daily work, they stumbled across a disturbing trend. As every grizzled veteran of this industry remembers, when the economy is down, used cars do well, because folks can’t afford new ones. People hold on to their ride much longer, which lowers the supply of used cars. Fewer new car sales mean fewer trade-ins, which lowers the supply of used cars. Or so the wisdom of the grizzled veteran goes. This time, it’s different. Sales of used cars fell 20.7 percent in November, compared with the period a year earlier. That’s still benign compared to the 37 percent hit the new cars took. But it disturbs the veterans nonetheless.

CNW expects 2008 to come in 36.6m units sold, down 11.5 percent from 2007. That would mark the lowest levels since the 1982 recession. Whoa: November new car sales also were the lowest since 1982. Are people tired of cars, whether old or new? Have we just been catapulted back to the bad early Reagan years?

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According to a picture posted on Flickr, corporate identity firms all over the globe are busy adapting their clients’ corporate design to the new strained financial environment. People dig it: A the time of this typing, the picture has received  4172 diggs. The current “Top in all topics” is “If Marijuana was legal” with only 1981 diggs.

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. For the next two weeks, WAS will be filed from Tokyo.

Toyota officially in the reds for 2008: Toyota announced today what we had reported a few days ago: “Toyota will make its first-ever operating loss in the fiscal year through March as recessions at home and abroad corral Japan’s biggest automobile maker into as tight a corner as it has ever known,” the Nikkei writes. The dark stars are in perfect alignment: The yen is too strong, the slump in vehicle sales in key markets like the U.S., Europe and Japan is too big. Toyota expects a consolidated operating loss of Y150 billion, or about $1.68 billion, in the fiscal year through March. Six weeks ago, the company still expected an operating profit of Y600 billion in the current fiscal year. Now, “it’s a kind of emergency that we’ve never experienced before,” said Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe, speaking at a news conference in Nagoya. “The environment surrounding us is extremely harsh.”  The Toyota stock went up on the news. The market had expected worse.

Daihatsu slimming also: In related news, Toyota’s small-car-making subsidiary Daihatsusaid it will cut domestic automobile production by a another 16,000 units, and will shed about 20% of its temporary work force,  the Nikkei (sub) reports.

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Failed four time presidential candidate and god of all ambulance chasers Ralph Nader has found a new enemy: China. The Center for Auto Safety, founded by Ralph Nader with part of the $425K court settlement paid by GM in 1970 for invasion of his privacy, has been researching recalls of Chinese auto parts. Those recalls are now posted on the safety center’s website. The New York Times took the bait, and ran a long story under the headline “Recalls of Chinese Auto Parts Are a Mounting Concern.” If the NYT would have just taken 20 minutes of research, they would have found that they’ve been snowed.

The beast in the picture sits in what’s commonly called your “lower intestinals.” And the butt-ugly critter may just be the answer to our energy problems. Bacteria that live in your digestive tracts, and that can give you the runs, can be genetically modified to eat plants and then shit out jet fuel, high grade gasoline and other petroleum products. According to a CBS report, this was proven by a team of UCLA researchers.

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