If you think that GM will get a handle on its abundant capacity problems in Europe – abandon all hope. Or rather: Postpone hope for until after 2016, or maybe later. Also, write off any expectations that Steve Girksy would successfully play hardball with German Metalworker Unions. Deadball is more likely. With the decision to move the production of Opel’s Astra volume model from Rüsselsheim to Ellesmere Port, and to shift production from Bochum to Rüsselsheim, the fate of the Bochum plant appeared to be sealed.
German unions declared war. Minutes ago, Opel works council chief Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug announced “an armistice” (Das Handelsblatt) and told German media that Opel will continue making cars in Bochum through 2016. Nobody can be fired, no plants can be closed at Opel until January 1, 2017. Even then, Bochum will remain open. Read More >
If anyone is hoping for a turn-around of the European car market, be it Opel, PSA, or Pch101, January definitely was not the month it happened. Some people, who get paid a lot of money for a very long-term vision, believe we have to wait years for the turn-around. The French car market dropped 15 percent in January, with “Volkswagen and U.S. carmakers leading the drop,” Reuters reports. Massive sales subsidies of 2,000 euros ($2,700) per car, reintroduced in October in Spain, could not reverse the Spanish market. It dropped 9.6 percent. Read More >
Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn said today that he does not expect any sales growth in Europe over the next three to four years. He is not giving up on growth, and said that most will come from higher demand in the United States and China, Reuters reports. Read More >
New car registrations dropped a painful 16.3 percent in Europe in an acceleration of a long, and initially slow a downward trend. The European carmaker association ACEA calls the decline ”the steepest recorded in a month of December since 2008.” For the year the EU market was down 8.2 percent to 12,053,904 units, which is the “lowest level recorded since 1995,” says the ACEA. Read More >
Not enough that people in Belgium are losing their appetite for cars (last we looked the market was down 11 percent), now people have even less reason to go to the Brussels motor show: Belgium’s equal opportunities minister Joelle Milquet asked carmakers to keep their product specialists fully dressed. Read More >
We did not believe that EU regulators would let France’s government bailout of GM’s alliance partner PSA skate through unchallenged. State aid to companies is against EU rules, and refinancing of Banque PSA Finance is state aid EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia wrote in a letter to the French government. This according to a report in the French daily Les Echos. Read More >
Car sales accelerate their decline in Europe. The market fornew cars was down fourteen months in a row in November, dropping by 10.3 percent compared with November 2011, says the European manufacturers association ACEA. From January to November, 11.25 million new cars changed hands in the EU, 7.6 percent less than in the same period a year ago. Sales in Europe have not been that bad since 1993. Read More >
Despite previous calls for his ouster, Fiat’s CEO Sergio Marchionne was elected for another year as president of the influential European auto trade group ACEA, Reuters reports. In July, Volkswagen demanded Marchionne’s head after he had accused Volkswagen of exploiting the European crisis to gain market share by offering aggressive discounts. Read More >
Despite being attacked in some circles as symbols of American decadance, the compact crossover is rapidly gaining in popularity. French business outlet La Tribune reports that sales of small crossovers are up 25 percent this year, with crossovers of all sizes now accounting for 10 percent of the car market.
TTAC readers know that this site has an unhealthy fascination with low-cost cars. It’s not entirely unjustified, what with the segment booming in recession-plagued Europe and the fact that low-cost vehicles are cannibalizing the sales of larger, more conventional vehicles.
1,400 new cars, most of them Mitsubishis on their way from Japan and Thailand to Finland went to the bottom of an icy North Sea when the 485 foot car carrier Baltic Ace sunk off the coast of the southern Netherlands last night. Read More >
The European contagion claims another victim: The Amsterdam auto show, scheduled for next April, has been canceled, Reuters reports. The organizers could not find enough companies willing to show their wares – for a modest fee upwards from $ 1 million. Read More >
The battered European new car market continues its drive into the netherworld, but the speed of descent has lowered a little. According to data compiled and released by the European manufacturers association ACEA, 959,412 passenger vehicles were registered in October, 4.8% less than in October last year. It looks like the year will end with some 12 million cars sold, a level the EU 27 hasn’t seen since it existed. Read More >
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