What do you do if you lose market share and can’t stand it anymore? You deliver what the market wants. Hyundai is trying to make up for losses in China with a (so far) China only car that slot between the Elantra and the Sonata, says Reuters. (Read More…)

One day after  GM’s  Chief Marketing Executive Joel Ewanick was fired for failing ” to meet the expectations that the company has for its employees,” one day after it was leaked like from a fire hose that there were shady going ons between Ewanick and the Manchester United soccer club, GM signed a seven year contract with just the same soccer club. A day after the ouster of a marketing chief who was tasked with saving billions, GM paid, according to Reuters,  “twice as much as the team’s previous automotive sponsor” for putting “Chevrolet” on the team’s jerseys. Does this pass the smell test? (Read More…)

Germany’s Auto-BILD thinks it knows how it will look when Daimler shrinks the G-Wagen. In 2015, Daimler will bring out a GLG based on the new A-Class, says the magazine. Auto-BILD hasn’t seen more than the own renderings, but that doesn’t keep the rag from bitching: (Read More…)

Panic at RenCen. It’s not that people are leaving GM. It’s how they leave. Two weeks ago, Opel  chief Karl-Friedrich Stracke presented numbers to Dan Akerson. Akerson fires him.  Opel gets two interim chiefs in a week.  Last Thursday, Opel’s new design chief Dave Lyon doesn’t even start his job.  Today, media in the U.S.  and Germany report that Lyon had been escorted from the building and to a waiting car by GM’s head of personnel. A day later, global marketing chief Joel Ewanick suddenly leaves. Instead of wishing him all the best for his future endeavors, GM spokesman Greg Martin puts a knife in Ewanick’s back: “He failed to meet the expectations the company has of an employee.” (Read More…)

Well into the first decade of the new millennium, Changchun, China, was Volkswagen’s Siberia. When someone was transferred to the frigid city in Northern China, the others inevitably asked: “What did you do?”

It looks like Opel is quickly becoming GM’s Siberia, and people rather desert than going. (Read More…)

With China being the world’s largest car market, and the largest market of many of our carmakers, getting good and timely data is essential for stock analysts and journalists alike. Bloomberg has an exasperated story that cries about the absolute mess in China when it comes to hard data. It also describes the great lengths analysts go to when gauging Chinese car sales. No wonder the analyst reports are often messier than even the messiest Chinese data: (Read More…)

If you look at half year sales in Europe, then you see Renault as the worst performer of the volume makers. With EU sales down 17.09 percent, the Renault Group took a bigger hit than European patients Opel (- 15 percent) and PSA (-13.9 percent). Even troubled Fiat was doing better than Renault, by a hair (-17.08 percent for Fiat.) Whereas the percentages carry the smell of death, Renault’s half year results smell downright rosy. (Read More…)

The Wall Street Journal has a long article about Ford “working on one of the biggest gambles in its 108-year history: a pickup truck with a largely aluminum body.” Ford will make parts of its next generation F150 from aluminum to save some 700 lbs, which “would enable Ford’s trucks to go farther on a gallon of gasoline, and open the door to other changes, such as the use of smaller engines.” The fear is that some people will think Ford is building a truck for sissies. (Read More…)

A few months ago, Volkswagen extended its joint venture contract with Chinese partner FAW for another 25 years, with appropriate pomp and circumstance: Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and German Chancellor Angela Merkel witnessed the signature. Now, Volkswagen takes the unusual step of going semi-public with the theft of intellectual property. According to reports in German media, FAW has “systematically and repeatedly” stolen designs of important components such as engines and transmissions. Volkswagen’s hands are tied. (Read More…)

Fiat & Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne’s pointed remarks have attracted the ire of Europe’s 500 pound gorilla Volkswagen. VW demanded that Marchionne steps down as president of the European auto manufacturers association ACEA. If he won’t resign, Volkswagen could resign its ACEA membership – which would send the club into instant irrelevancy, not to mention insolvency. (Read More…)

Countering talk of an impending end to the new car party, augurs predict that July will be seasonally hot. TrueCar says that this July could be the best since the heydays of 2007. TrueCar, which bases its projections on real time transactions from its associated dealers, thinks that July sales could reach 1.17 million, up 10.6 percent from July 2011. Edmunds also sees 1.17 million new cars in its crystal ball.  Kelley Blue Book basically agrees with 1.16 million on its tip sheet. (Read More…)

As you read this, an old friend of mine is probably packing. Who knows, he could already be in the air. He was Volkswagen’s boots on the ground in Malaysia, the many times VW wanted to get its boots on the ground in Malaysia. Last time they tried in 2007, they disrupted Dirk’s retirement and sent him to Kuala Lumpur, where dealers of fake watches greeted him as the old friend he was by that time.  German media says, Volkswagen did not give up and they are trying again. (Read More…)

The New York Times carries a long story today that chronicles changes in the Chinese car market. Written by Reuters automotive specialists Norihiko Shirouzu and Fang Yan, it is a story of China where you now get a discount and instant delivery for a BMW instead of having the option to pay 20 percent more, or wait a few month for delivery.

The car market in China, says the article, is becoming more like that in the United States, where most of the money is made in financing, insurance and maintenance. Indeed it is. (Read More…)

“I am following him everywhere, except into the rest room.” For nearly twelve years, interpreter Yuki Morimoto has been Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn’s adapter to the Japanese world. The lady is a miracle. She simultaneously translates Ghosn’s high-speed stream of wit and Gallic sarcasm into Japanese, and translates Japanese back into perfect English. Morimoto is so in tune with Ghosn that she sometimes finishes his sentences before him – in Japanese. (Read More…)

It looks more and more like a divided Europe. While carmakers Opel, Ford, PSA, Fiat etc. are wailing with pain, German carmakers report expectation-beating profits. (Read More…)