Troubled battery maker A123 is getting another lifeline. This time, from China. Wanxiang Group will invest as much as $450 million in the company, says Reuters. Wanxiang, one of the largest Chinese auto component makers. A123 will soon be Chinese. (Read More…)
China is the world’s largest market for heavy trucks. People who are suicidal enough to have personal experience with Chinese highways will readily agree. Nearly 1 million units of the heavy (and usually blue) units were sold last year, more than in North America, Europe and South America combined. Ford wants a chunk of this interesting market.
The auto industry seems to slowly give up on ideas of returning to the heydays of 17 million car sales per year. And the industry already fingered a guilty party: Young people just don’t buy enough cars. “Financially pressed young people who connect online instead of in person could hold down peak demand by 2 million units each year,” says Bloomberg in a long feature article. (Read More…)
Just when America’s most promising generation turns up its nose at cars, new technology rides to the rescue of the embattled industry: Cars that do away with drivers. A study by the automaker and union-funded think tank Center For Automotive Research (CAR) and the CPA firm KPMG comes to the conclusion that with self-driving vehicles, “the industry appears to be on the cusp of revolutionary change.” Do you buy that? Jay or nay? (Read More…)
Bringing suit against GM for not letting Saab live another day could be turning into a popular sport. Lars Holmqvist, former head of Europe’s automotive supplier body CLEPA, and as such an insider when it comes to the latest Saab dirt, says that spurned Youngman of China is also thinking of suing GM. (Read More…)
So what are people driving in America’s wealthiest Zip codes like 10274, Lower Manhattan, where the average annual income stands at $5.7 million? Must be all Bentley daily drivers with a few Aventadors for weekend fun, right? Wrong, says TrueCar, as it publishes the list of the top vehicles purchased in the wealthiest zip codes. Well, you are kind of right: There isn’t a single domestic vehicle amongst the top ten. (Read More…)
The Daily Caller says it has emails that prove that the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at Delphi were terminated “solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions.”
The emails, says the conservative website “contradict sworn testimony, in federal court and before Congress, given by several Obama administration figures. They also indicate that the administration misled lawmakers and the courts about the sequence of events surrounding the termination of those non-union pensions, and that administration figures violated federal law.” (Read More…)
It is possible to make cars in Europe and to nevertheless survive quite nicely. The secret: Sell a lot of them elsewhere than in Europe. Case in point: BMW. Despite a disappointing month in its home market Germany, BMW had a best-ever global July, following record sales in the first half of the year. (Read More…)
Ford is attacking Toyota’s miserly image. The blue oval announced today that its 2013 C-Max Hybrid crossover gets better mileage than Toyota’s Prius V, Reuters says. (Read More…)
“There is no substance behind the rumors about Stefan Jacoby leaving Volvo Car Corporation,” a spokesman for Volvo Cars told Reuters. He had to, because Sweden’s Dagens Industri named Jacoby as a candidate for the dangerous job as Opel CEO. (Read More…)
Hybrids and minivehicles are still on top of Japan’s list of best-selling cars in July, only more. The Prius is ichi ban with 33,398 units sold. Last time we looked in May, it was 20,789. It is followed by its compact sister, the Aqua (better known in the U.S. as Prius C) with 26,274.
Honda’s Fit is back in #3. (Read More…)
After three years of work, police in Germany concluded its probe into the affair surrounding the failed takeover of Volkswagen by Porsche. Former Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking and his then CFO Holger Haerter have been investigated for market manipulation. According to Der Spiegel, the public prosecutor in Stuttgart, Germany, will charge the duo. Reuters heard meanwhile that the trigger is not yet being pulled, and that the two have three suspense-filled months ahead of them. (Read More…)
After nine hours of talks with the union, and under considerable pressure from the Brazilian government, GM backed off from job cuts at its São José dos Campos factory near São Paulo. The politically sensitive decision (in Brazil and at home) to eliminate as many as 1,840 jobs was delayed until November. (Read More…)
“YES!!!!!!!”
That was the first comment from the acolytes of the recently a bit depressed fansite Saabsunited, when it was announced that Victor Muller’s Spyker sued GM for $3 billion over Saab’s bankruptcy.
“It’s hard to believe. We have no comment until we see the lawsuit,” said GM spokesman James Cain to Reuters. The complaint is attached to this message. (Read More…)
GM’s U.S. sales get the headlines, GM’s volume is a Chinese import: In the first seven months of the year, GM sold 1.6 million cars in China, versus 1.5 million back home. GM’s Chinese sales data deserve more than a cursory look. Let’s look. (Read More…)
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