If you want to offer hybrid cars, but don’t have the money / time / run rate / wherewithal to do it yourself, who’re gonna call? Toyota. But who would have imagined that haughty Daimler picked up the phone, dialed 0081, and said: “Let’s talk?” Daimler considers joining the growing list of automakers that source their hybrid systems from Toyota City. Toyota is in talks to provide technology and core components for hybrid vehicles to Daimler, after having been approached by the Germans, says The Nikkei [sub]. Read More >
I think there’s a decent business case if you take the long view
Chrysler Dealer Don Lee gives Automotive News [sub] his take on Chrysler’s pitch to new Fiat/Alfa dealers, thereby confirming that few dealers expect a Fiat franchise to take off in the short term. And for those “decent” long-term prospects, Chrysler’s saying that
a showroom of 2,500 to 3,000 square feet would be sufficient to start… To get there, some dealers are going to have to take it slower. They’ll have to offer a separate showroom but go beyond that as more product becomes available.
So, what will the 500 do for dealers? According to the Pentastar gang, dealers can expect
healthy gross profits of up to $1,500 on each Fiat 500
Lee reckons that figure is “optimistic,” but we disagree. Chrysler has said that 500s will start around $20k, and they’ll have to considering any US-bound 500 that comes out of Chrysler’s Toluca, Mexico plant could be sold for near double that price in Brazil. Per-car profit margins on US-market 500s will be strong… it’s the 50k projected annual sales volume (78k by 2013) that prospective dealers need to worry about.
Yesterday, The Nikkei [sub] had it on good authority that Mitsubishi and PSA will co-develop a compact commercial electric vehicle for the European market. Now, Mitsubishi says it’s a product of fantasy in overdrive. Mitsubishi told Dow Jones Newswire that the story is not true. The funny thing is, the Nikkei wire is dead silent on the issue. Even funnier: After saying that it’s not true, the Dow Jones rehashes the allegedly false Nikkei story in great detail.
It used to be that joint ventures with Chinese manufacturers were strictly for Chinese consumption. The Chinese would like nothing more than to expand to other markets with their foreign branded products. Strict joint venture contracts typically forbid just that. Sure, sometimes there are some small scale exportation tests. But usually, what is made in China, stays in China. Contracts can be changed or amended. More and more Chinese automakers seek to expand their relationship with joint venturers beyond China’s borders. Read More >
A few days ago, TTAC reported that Vladimir Putin issued an ultimatum to foreign car makers, “invest here or else”. 4 days later, VW announced that they were planning a new assembly line at GAZ, and more capacity at their Kaluga plant in Russia. Coincidence? Probably. But it seems like others are following suit. Pretty bloody quickly. Read More >
We can’t pretend to be overly enamored with former “car czar” Steve Rattner, who oversaw the auto bailout before being disgraced for his role in a New York pension fund pay-for-play scandal. Still, the guy was in the thick of things during last year’s negotiations over Detroit’s rescue, so he knows where the bodies are buried. And in his new book, Overhaul, which has been released to select outlets ahead of its October 14 publication, he tells a whole lot of stories about the months of bailout proceedings that led to the rescue of GM and Chrysler. Of course, Rattner has an agenda in all this, namely proving that
The auto rescue remains one of the few actions taken by the administration that, at least in my opinion, can be pronounced an unambiguous success
so he’s not necessarily an unbiased source. But with grains of salt at the ready, let’s dive into his spilled guts and see if what secrets lie beneath.
Days after Vladimir Putin, well, encouraged foreign carmakers to come to Russia, open car factories and better bring the latest technology, or else, Martin Winterkorn announced that Volkswagen is planning a new assembly line at Russia’s GAZ and that they will expand their factory in the Kaluga region in the future. Winterkorn said that after meeting Putin himself and most likely after having received a similar speech as what was previously broadcasted. Read More >
When Opel needed a a low-cost subcompact for the European market, it did what all good car companies do: rebadged a Suzuki. And thus, the Opel Agila was born. For the latest version of the Agila, which debuted in 2008, Opel opted to let Suzuki build the car itself at its Hungarian plant (alongside the Suzuki SX4 and Fiat Seidici). It also tasked its Managing Director, a man known around the office as “Mr Opel,” with developing the new micro-MPV in partnership with Suzuki. For his trouble, Mr Opel (aka Hans Demant) was then shunted aside by GM, and ended up being poached by VW to head up “international project coordination.” Quite by coincidence (or not), VW’s biggest international project is in building new low-cost small cars with… Suzuki. Automotive News [sub]’s Paul McVeigh notes that
Neither GM or Opel has commented publicly on Demant’s defection to archrivals VW. But executives are said to be very angry in private.
But then, GM could hardly have expected Demant to stick around after having been shuffled off to “intellectual property protection” after nearly 40 years of service to Opel at some of the highest levels. The fact that he’d just been demoted at a time when Opel’s owners in the RenCen were enjoying record-low popularity in Germany made the move all the more likely. And because it’s happened at a time that Opel is struggling for its life makes the move just as damaging to GM as it is a windfall for VW.
Despite the deep ties between his firm and Volkswagen, Ferry Porsche firmly believed that Porsches could only be Porsches if the company remained truly independent. “Independence,” he says in the video above, “has always been the attitude at Porsche.” But as the latest addition to the Volkswagen empire, tasked with developing mass-market architectures and planning Porsche-brand versions of the Audi Q5 and Volkswagen BlueSport, Porsche’s culture has little choice but to change. But will becoming a good team player within the VW-Audi-Seat-Skoda-Bentley-Lamborghini-Bugatti strategy kill off the spirit that made Porsche great? Or can cultural independence survive the VW takeover?
Suzuki is hustling to avoid needing more help from partner Volkswagen. For instance in India, a market VW covets. Suzuki used to own more than half on the Indian market. In the recent months, that share slipped a bit. Not because customers in India don’t like Suzuki. Suzuki can’t keep up with the demand. Customers have to wait for months to get delivery of popular car models such as the Swift hatchback and the Swift Dzire sedan, reports The Nikkei [sub]. Suzuki is finally doing something about it. Read More >
From a week deep in our “How The Hell Did We Miss That” file comes a Reuters report that shows GM considered floating its IPO on the Hong Kong Hang Seng index. GM’s interest in a Hong Kong float has obvious roots: the company is extremely well-positioned in China, where high savings rates and the prospect of steady local sales growth could have helped bring in both private investors and GM’s partner firms. But according to a Reuters source, GM rejected the idea because it would have delayed the IPO past its Thanksgiving deadline
I don’t think signaling goodwill toward Asia is likely to be a significant enough argument for all the cost and complexity. I don’t want to overstate the cost and complexity but it’s not insignificant
„I’ve said Alfa is not for sale“ grouched Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne at journos who badgered him about Alfa possibly going to Volkswagen. While he was at it, Sergio told Automobilwoche [sub] that business is so good that he probably will raise year-end guidance in the third quarter.
Opposition to the Ethanol industry’s push to allow gasoline blends with up to 15 percent ethanol is coming together this week, as a massive coalition of interest groups calls for congressional hearings on the EPA’s pending E15 decision [via PRNewswire]. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and Association of International Automobile Manufacturers joined 37 other groups, ranging from the National Resources Defense Council to the Outdoor Power Equipment and Engine Service Association, in calling on congressional energy committees to take up the issue.
China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) has formed an alliance of 16 Chinese government-owned businesses, aimed at unifying EV standards and speeding up research and development. According to CRIenglish.com, the non-profit group has a startup budget of about $186m, but Peoples Daily claims the group is ramping up to spend $14.7b on EV development over the next ten years (time to start worrying about an EV subsidy gap?). The alliance is said to include the country’s top three oil majors, top two power grid operators, battery and charging equipment makers, as well as the automakers China FAW Group Corporation, Dongfeng Motor Corporation and China Changan Automobile Group. And though this smacks of a response to US government spending on EV stimulus, the Chinesse industry is not exactly praising the new state-owned alliance with one voice.
With GM’s IPO S-1 now set for a Wednesday filing, The General is announcing a joint engine development project with its Chinese partner SAIC, spurring on rumors that the Shanghai-based automaker could buy into GM’s forthcoming IPO. Reuters reports that GM and SAIC have signed an agreement to develop a new range of 1.0-1.5 liter direct-injection, turbocharged engines in the vein of Ford’s EcoBoost mills. The ground-up joint engine development is significant because, as the WSJ [sub] reports
it marks the first time when GM and SAIC – partners for more than a decade already – are going to develop “base” propulsion technology, going a step further than simply integrating existing engine and gearbox technologies into automobiles.
GM has already moved much of its advanced technology development to new Chinese R&D labs, and this attack on Ford’s EcoBoost technology is likely to become a global engine. But what does the ever-increasing cooperation between GM and SAIC (which recently bought out GM’s controlling interest in their Shanghai GM joint venture) portend for the GM IPO?
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