Recently, Nissan claimed that their Leaf will have a battery production cost of $375/kWh. A what? Anyway, this was:
But Tesla’s founding father didn’t like that at all. (Read More…)
I ought to start this article off with the reasons as to why I decided to write this article. I got scalded recently for criticizing Jack Baruth’s article on why Top Gear USA will fail. On reflection, the scalding was well earned. It’s a bit unprofessional to criticize a fellow worker’s work no matter how much you disagree with it.
But this set off a light bulb in my head. Why should I post a comment about why I disagree with an article, and get browbeaten, if I can write an article of my own, highlighting my thoughts? Isn’t that the American way? Why give something away for free, when you can sell it? (Read More…)
When Apple releases a new product, people wait in line for it. Steve Jobs talks, everyone buys. Apple often runs out of stuff that is in high demand. Usually, people will wait. Hyundai has a similar problem. But maybe not a similar solution. (Read More…)
I was watching TV the other day and on came “National Lampoon’s Vacation”. I absolutely LOVE this film. The thought of driving 2408 miles across the United States to visit “Wally World” is something I’d love to do (OK, maybe not “Wally World”, but you get the idea). If I drove 2408 miles across the UK, I’ll end up driving my car off a cliff as we’re such a small country. However, what DOESN’T appeal to me is driving 2408 miles across the United States in a “Wagon Queen Family Truckster” (which, according to IMDB trivia was actually a modified Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon). As the picture will show you, it’s a bit of a monster. But it got me thinking… (Read More…)
Nitrobahn reports that Kimmel and Silverman, a law firm, has noticed that cases that have the fuel pump on BMW cars as Exhibit A are on the increase. According to both, bad fuel pumps have been found in 1, 3 and 5 series BMW’s. Kimmel and Silverman have fought these cases on behalf of claimants and have been awarded refunds and cash recoveries. (Read More…)
Last month, I asked whether the UK car market had taken a blue pill. The reason I’d asked is because sales were rising despite the local “bangers for cash” scheme had ended months ago. Well, it appears that the effects are finally wearing off (I was going to say “flopping” but we’ve used that metaphor enough). The SMMT reports that UK new car registrations fell 13.2 percent in July 2010. This marks the first month in this year where sales dropped. This is expected to continue through 2010 as the market slows down. This is not surprising as the government cutbacks will start to take effect this year.
“A drop in private registrations compared to the scrappage-fuelled months of 2009 was expected and has brought the first market decline for 12 months,” said Paul Everitt, SMMT chief executive. “Subdued consumer confidence and a still fragile economic recovery make the outlook for the remainder of 2010 challenging, but a stronger than expected first half means full year volumes are still forecast to exceed 2009’s total.”. Another curious finding of the report was how diesel vehicles are now the dominant powertrain of choice, with market share up to 50.6 percent. Anyway, shall we take a closer look at the figures? (Read More…)
Running a multi-national car company the size of, say, General Motors, Ford or Toyota means having lean, efficient operations. In the SUV/light trucks segment, turning a profit is easy. Because of the inherent profitability of these products, your operations don’t need to be that efficient to turn a decent profit. Where you really need to concentrate on profits is the other end of the scale. The small car market. This is where raiding the parts bin, nicking a platform from another division and moving production to a low cost country are taken as read when producing a plan for your next small car. But what if you’re trying to break into a market where small cars need to be firmly in the “four figures” price bracket? Well, this is the problem that Volkswagen is having in India. Like China, every car maker wants a piece of this Asian Tiger Elephant, but Volkswagen just simply doesn’t have the presence there to make their cars profitably. Or do they? (Read More…)
Yesterday, I wrote about how GM had beaten the French and made them concede benefits in return for job security. Well, it seems that the French got their own back on GM in a round about sort of way. Bloomberg reports that Opel sales in France dropped a massive 30 percent to 6,462 units in July. This doesn’t bode well for Nick Reilly, head of GM’s European division, as he tries to make Opel attractive enough for the corporate mothership to finance a turnaround with American taxpayers’ money. Shall we take a closer look at the French sales figures…? (Read More…)
When you hear “McLaren” mentioned during Formula One races, do you sometimes want one? Now you can. Street legal. And a steal for only $280,000 MSRP. To make that dream possible, McLaren group has taken on £40 million ($63m) worth of loans from HSBC to finance the construction of a new factory in Woking, Surrey. The new factory will be the home of McLaren’s new super car, the MP4-12C (catchy name!). McLaren is forecasting to build 1,000 units in the first year of production, but within five years, McLaren is hoping to be building 4,000 units per year. One of the main selling points of the MP4-12C is the fact it’ll be able to get to 124mph in 10 seconds. It even has air brakes, implements usually used to bring jet fighters to a stop. (Read More…)
The Korea Times reports that the Seoul Central District court has ordered the union of a subcontractor of Hyundai-Kia to remove a picture from the walls of the union headquarters. A court order? To take down a picture? Why? (Read More…)
Yes, there were abortive attempts to rename French Fries to Freedom Fries (you want ketchup with your freedom?) There were calls for a boycott of all things French, including French mustard, excluding French’s Mustard (and maybe the Statue of Liberty.) Nevertheless, I think deep down the Americans secretly admire the French. With their lavish welfare system, generous benefits and their willingness to strike if someone so much as asks them to work an hour outside of their contract, who wouldn’t want to be French?
Hell, in the UK we wish we could be like them. If we were we might still have some global companies in our ownership, instead of selling out to the first bidder. But as Peter Schiff (who I’ve mentioned before) said, the party is over, we have to stop paying ourselves these lavish benefits, allow the free market to function and stop being lazy. In the UK, the government is going on a massive austerity program in order to balance the books, Italy pushed through a huge €24b cost cutting plan and even Spain just managed to push through a €15b budget reduction plan by a majority of just one vote. France hasn’t made a cost cutting plan of their own. It’s almost as if the current economic turmoil doesn’t apply to them. French benefits have survived recessions before and they’ll survive this one, right? Well, don’t be so sure. It seems that the French may be coming around to the rest of the world’s thinking, and the message to change their ways is coming from an unlikely source. General Motors. (Read More…)
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Sergio Marchionne was successful in getting the majority of the unions at his Naples plant to sign a new work agreement. This was supposed to herald in a new era in Italian work practices and pacem in terris. Well, it seems that Fiat wants to press the issue home to the unions. Reuters reports that Fiat is so determined to teach Italian unions at their Pomigliano plant that their working practices are not sustainable, that they are now going to some extreme lengths. Fiat is now going to set up a new company to manage the plant near Naples. Doesn’t sound extreme, right? Well, there’s more. (Read More…)
The WSJ reports that “senior officials at the U.S Department of Transportation have at least temporarily blocked the release of findings by auto-safety regulators that could favor Toyota Motor Corp. in some crashes related to unintended acceleration, according to a recently retired agency official”. Governmental departments suppressing documents? Much like Toyota suppressed their design flaws which landed them a record $16.4m fine? You have my interest… (Read More…)
Fiat is determined to drag their Italian operations into the 21st century, says The New York Times. Lacksadaisical attitudes produced some novel ways of shirking work. Some examples include calling sick at Fiat (remember, you get paid in full even if you call sick) and using that time to work another job or faking a doctor’s note. The latter is particularly used when a local football team is playing. Well, no more, according to Marchionne. He wants to impose foreign style work standards to encourage more pride in Italian workers’ jobs and improve the competitiveness of Italian factories. Some have an opposite view. (Read More…)
During the 1970’s and 1980’s everyone (mainly, the United States) thought that Japan would rule the world, economically speaking. At its peak, the Nikkei Dow stood at 38,957.44. Brands like “Zenith” and “RCA” made way for new brands like “Sony” and “Panasonic”. General Motors feared Japanese cars so much, they set up “Saturn” to fight them off. The UK government flirted with Toyota, Honda and Nissan to build their factories in the UK. Yep, the Japanese were the original rising dragon. Then came the 1990’s, and it all imploded. Since then, Japan was never quite the same. They were still strong, but manageable. While Japan got cut down to size, their car industry stayed strong. They still carried on taking market share in North America away from the domestics. Despite the Japanese prospering in North America, it wasn’t reciprocal. American car makers, and, indeed, many of our B&B, believe that Japan has a closed car market and has tariffs on imported cars. Our resident German has talked about the subject many times and successfully managed not to have an aneurysm over it (though he may have turned to drink) [ED: He did not.] Well, if Japan does have a closed car market, nobody told Ford. (Read More…)
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