GM loses around $49,000 on each Volt it builds says Reuters. GM sold a record 2,831 Volts in August, but that may “have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce,” says Reuters after a deep data dive into the elusive profitability of GM’s green halo car. (Read More…)

Volkswagen’s plans of sending GM to place three on the podium of the world’s largest automakers are most likely postponed.  Volkswagen down-revised its 2012 sales plan by 300,000 units, heard Germany’s Handelsblatt. (Read More…)

Opel must feel like someone who’s on his deathbed, surrounded by relatives who muse how much the organs will fetch. After we ran our piece on Detroit rumors about Opel and PSA, everybody started to weigh in on the issue. The recommendation by a Wall Street analyst that GM should “dump Opel” made headlines around the world. The Economist mused aloud what an “Opel-less future” would be like.

Even here in Chengdu, China, Opel was given up for dead. (Read More…)

Bad day for PSA and by association partner GM:  PSA Peugeot Citroen will be dropped from France’s CAC 40 blue chip stock index, market operator NYSE Euronext told Reuters. To add insult to injury, the former blue chip will be replaced by a Belgian company, chemicals group Solvay. (Read More…)

Germany hasn’t seen the double digit sales losses of other EU countries, but it isn’t walking on water either. August sales in Germany were down 4.7 percent on 226,455 units, says the KBA. For the first eight months of the year, sales in Germany now are 0.6 percent below the same period of the prior year. (Read More…)

Rubbing shoulders with industry types displaced to a Chinese city called Chengdu has its good parts. You hear stories you normally don’t see in a press release. An executive who works for the western partner of a large Chinese joint venture told me today that my story about Chinese interests killing the Opel deal between GM and PSA wasn’t true. At least not completely. As so often, in the denial was a much more interesting story. After another drink for encouragement, said executive told me very much off the record that GM is tired of the PSA deal and wants out. If that means leaving Opel for dead, so be it. (Read More…)

The hordes of Chinese and Japanese reporters roaming the halls of the Chengdu Global Automotive Forum in Chengdu were not really interested in exports. They were sniffing blood. There are tensions between China, Japan, and a few other countries over some rocks in the sea. The rocks are called Diaoyu by the Chinese, Senkaku by the Japanese, and choice words by many others. Nissan’s COO Toshiyuki Shiga sat on the podium, next to the always photogenic Atsushi Niimi. The Japanese were flanked by a BAIC president and a Dongfeng CEO. The reporters wanted to know: How bad is it? (Read More…)

There is one thing about the Chinese car industry that can’t be said often enough: It is learning fast. A year ago, the recurring theme at the Chengdu Global Automotive Forum was brands, brands, brands. This year, nobody talks about new brands anymore. The only one who does is the CEO of Dongfeng, one of China’s largest automakers. He says last year’s brand binge was misguided, “irrational, incompetent, and immature.” (Read More…)

Renault has outmaneuvered partner Daimler, which didn’t have a prayer. Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn handed Pope Benedict XVI (nee Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger) a new, fully sustainable electric popemobile.
It is unclear whether the public will see an emission-free pope. According to a Renault press release, the holy EV is for use when the Pope is travelling at his summer residence Castel Gandolfo. (Read More…)

August sales numbers caught analysts by surprise. They had expected a strong August, but they did not aim high enough. All but Jessica Caldwell of Edmunds. (Read More…)

Volkswagen launched its seventh generation Golf to high acclaim yesterday, but there are people who think it is not good enough. Greenpeace picketed its premiere in Berlin last night, “accusing the German carmaker of doing too little to reduce fuel consumption and tarnishing the most important model launch in the group’s calendar,” as Reuters writes . (Read More…)

Now that we have the August numbers for the world’s second largest car market, attention turns to the world’s largest, China. The Chinese economy is cooling down. Has it hit car sales? Official numbers won’t be here until next week, but our patent=pending China sales oracle has spoken. (Read More…)

When you want to make and sell cars in India, you don’t need a joint venture partner. Except when you are GM. In the dark days of December 2009, GM cut a deal with Chinese partner SAIC, gave them half of its India business and a golden share in China for much needed cash. SAIC underwrote a $400 million loan when GM was out of money. Now, India is flooded with Chinese cars bearing the Chevrolet badge. (Read More…)

Today, the seventh generation of the Volkswagen Golf was presented in Berlin. 38 years after the launch of the first Golf in 1974, and 29.13 million cars later, Volkswagen shows a new Golf that is 100 kg lighter and up to 23 per cent more fuel efficient that the predecessor. If a new Golf ever was “all new” then this one: Built with the new MQB architecture, everything in the new Golf had to be redesigned. And here is a picture count-up, from first to newest. (Read More…)

GM is backing out of plans to share the Opel Insignia platform with its partner PSA, says Der Spiegel. It was planned that PSA will build a mid-sized Peugeot and Citroen with next gen Insignia underpinnings. The cars would have been made at Opel’s Rüsselsheim factory. Together with the Opel model, the cars would have filled the available capacity. Scratch that plan. It wasn’t killed because it was a bad idea. It was killed because Buick and especially GM China complained, says the magazine. (Read More…)