According to Automotive News [sub] and other media reports, the UAW is trying again to unionize Nissan’s Canton, Miss,, plant. A rally was held over the weekend. It is hard to believe that the UAW is serious, given the fact that it had tried two times, and failed two times. (Read More…)

Dongfeng-Nissan President Kimiyasu Nakamura watches Yao Bin, Huang Kai Fong, and Ye Lei

Yesterday, Nissan’s affable China president Kimiyasu Nakamura brought a Chinese delegation home to Yokohama, to explain to a largely skeptical Japanese press why Nissan had started a new brand in China with joint venture partner Dongfeng.  The brand goes by the name of Venucia. Nissan is not the only one doing that. Nearly every foreign joint venture partner in China either has established a Chinese brand in China, or is intensively thinking about it. (Read More…)

Brussels has bad news for Fiat and PSA, and by extension for Chrysler and GM. There will be no EU assistance for an orchestrated  and painless capacity shedding, Financial Times Deutschland says.  A report of an expert group puts European overcapacities at 25 to 30 percent.  Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has been publicly lobbying for government support, PSA pressured the French government.  As predicted here months ago, a lobby of German carmakers torpedoed any support from Brussels and is for Darwinian solutions instead. With carmakers at odds, European governments are happy that they don’t have to act. After all, there are more pressing problems in Europe. (Read More…)

Already pronounced shot by a bursting bubble, the Chinese new car market most likely will be up when the May numbers will be announced later in the month. How do we know? By looking at GM’s China May sales results that were announced today. When we do that, we will do something that TTAC allegedly is incapable of: We will salute and applaud GM. Three times. (Read More…)

The Japanese car market that has been on a multi-month winning streak could be slowing down quite soon. The reason: The record run on new cars also ran down the government’s subsidy budget in record time. The Japanese government currently is paying a bounty to everybody who buys an environmentally friendly (read: most of them) new car. Thought to last through September, the subsidy-kitty now is expected to be empty by the end of July, The Nikkei [sub] reports. (Read More…)

Up until last month. the German car market was oblivious to the European carnage that had started in Mediterranean countries. and then slowly crawled north. In May. the car consumption disease arrived inside of Germany’s borders. (Read More…)

Managers of premium auto brands keep asking themselves (and sometime me): “What is the secret of Audi’s success?” 30 years ago, Audi had an image worse than Opel. Last April, Audi outsold Bavarian rival BMW for the first time on a global basis. These days, any large automaker that has a luxury division seeks to emulate Audi’s success. Now, Nissan’s Infiniti could be one step closer to getting its hands in Audi’s elusive secret sauce. They hired one of Audi’s key men. (Read More…)

A Ferrari 458, followed by a Lamborghini Aventador were on an outing in Shanghai when a local horse riding club crossed their path. The Ferrari driver demanded the right of way with the tool commonly used in China, the horn.

The horse next to the Ferrari did what many Chinese would like to do: The horse kicked the 458 into the shins, hard. (Read More…)

This is the list of America’s best-selling cars and trucks of may and year-to-date. (Read More…)

The analysts polled by Bloomberg should wear a bullet-proof vest and avoid dark alleys for a while. To a woman and a man, the analysts were too exuberant, guessing way too high for May. Despite a respectable 13 percent gain, the market came in below the expectations created by analyst predictions, which sent car stocks broadly lower yesterday.

Today, the wayward soothsayers receive their just punishment. (Read More…)

GM CEO Dan Akerson might be in another one of his battles with the truth.

In a softballed interview with Fortune, GM’s CEO Dan Akerson said that he was suddenly and surprisingly drafted to lead GM as if it was time to go to war. “This was a call to service for me,” said Akerson, as he wrapped himself in a red, white, and blue flag and regaled  interviewer Geoff Colvin with stories from the U.S. Naval Academy.  Akerson makes the CEO job sound like a hardship post: (Read More…)

GM up 11 percent. Ford up 13 percent. Chrysler up 30 percent. Nissan up 21 percent. Volkswagen up 28 percent. Toyota up a whopping 87 percent. A few months ago, these numbers would have set champagne corks and fireworks flying. Today, these numbers were greeted by a communal meh and by stocks of automakers going south. (Read More…)

Italy has some of Europe’s highest gasoline prices, with the liter going for approximately €1.83. This translates, hold on to your wallet, to $8.54 for the gallon. Italy is also the country of steep sales drops. The Italian new car market contracted by 18 percent last April.  Fiat is Italy’s biggest carmaker and sustains even bigger losses.

Where others see a disaster, Fiat sees an opportunity. It wants to ignite flagging sales with cheap gas. (Read More…)

In the late 70’s, Volkswagen had plans to take over truck maker MAN and to sell a whole range of commercial vehicles, from light vans to heavy trucks under the MAN brand. MAN was never taken over, much to the relief of Volkswagen’s commercial vehicle division in Hannover that feared for its independence. Some 35 years later, the plan is close to become reality. (Read More…)

After four years in the reds, Mazda is trimming its workforce. Mazda will cut a quarter of its sales management staff in Europe and the U.S., in the current fiscal, The Nikkei [sub] heard while checking up on a press release outlining organizational and personnel changes at the Hiroshima carmaker. (Read More…)