Stefan Jacoby, CEO of bought-by-Geely Volvo needs to bring down the cost of Volvo’s European-made cars.
So where will the new Volvo factories be? You have two tries.
China? Check. Volvo might actually open three factories in China, Stefan Jacoby said recently in Stockholm. Details should be forthcoming within the next weeks.
Ok, now for another country … Read More >
It’s definitive: The fabled New York Yellow Cab will either be replaced by a minivan made in Japan, or by a something made in Turkey. After a long “Taxi of Tomorrow” competition, the NYC’s Taxi has now announced the final contestants:
Which one would the “Buy American” crowd prefer? The answer is easy: Read More >
Ready to buy some GM share tomorrow? A consummate insider who sits on the board of an important GM company says: Don’t.
Klaus-Franz, Chair of the Opel works council and Vice Chairman of the Opel supervisory board warns: “The IPO is premature. Sure, GM has delivered three good quarters. But he restructuring in Europe must be finished to give investors the visibility they need.”
Franz knows the skeletons hidden in Opel’s closet. In an interview with Germany’s Focus Magazine, Franz gives valuable investment advice to potential GM shareholders. To repeat: “Don’t.” Read More >
The Economic Times of India reports that Hyundai is worried about Europe. Hyundai Europe’s Vice President, Allan Rushforth, felt positive about 2010. “This year we’ll probably achieve 2.7 percent market share in a market of around 13.49 million,” he said. But with regards to 2011, he poured cold water on that year. “Next year will be really interesting. We have yet to see scrappage washout – the year-on-year effects of scrappage from the reported registration data…..I think the first half-year will be really, really tough.”
New car registrations in the 27 countries of the EU crashed by 16.6 percent to 1,027,036 units in October. That according to the latest statistics of the European manufacturer organization ACEA. The year looks a bit better: In the first 10 months, demand for new cars has decreased by 5.5 percent, totaling 11,279,542 new vehicles registered. Read More >
America – the greatest country on earth. At least when it comes to Chevy Volt prices. You think its $41,000 tag is expensive? Wait until you hear what the Europeans will have to fork over for the rebadged Opel Ampera, and the Volt will look like the greatest deal on earth. Especially after subsidies. Ready? Read More >
Now that the worst part of the global economic crisis is over, investors are fired up for any investment opportunity that looks good and doesn’t smell funny. Especially in the alternative-energy field. Some ventures make sense while others are based on a rather exotic logic. Better Place, for instance: its institutional investors say it’s “the only EV + infrastructure play”, and therefore something you’d better not miss. I’d just say it requires weird financial reasoning to justify electric filling stations stocked with expensive exchange batteries.
Earlier this week, I was at Mindset Holding’s press conference in Switzerland, where they announced they had received 75 million Swiss Francs of financing from a US fund, GEM Group, with another 108 millions optional. Mindset will be using this money to produce its exotic electric sports coupe — the one I thought was fantastically forward-looking when I witnessed it last year.
Is this madness? After all, Mindset in 2012 will be competing with Tesla’s Model S, the Fisker Karma, and numerous electrified or hybridized German and Japanese luxury cars. Who’d spend 100,000 Francs on a Swiss made electric three-seater?
George Orwell said it would happen in 1984, but better late than never. The European Commission decided that from 2013 on, every new car sold in the EU must have a system called eCall. What is eCall? Think of it as a government-mandated OnStar. If your car crashes, eCall will automatically send an S.O.S. to emergency centers. It will send your GPS-derived coordinates, the number of people on board, impact sensor data, airbag deployment and other data which probably only the EU and the carmakers know. Read More >
The Germans were always a bit sceptic or downright hostile when it came to the great car electrification. Now they get jolted. Better late than never, says Audi and announces their first Plug-In Hybrid for 2014. Of course, the announcement can’t be done without the usual Volkswagen/Audi brand of heavy hubris. Read More >
Full Disclosure: I hate “The Simpsons” and I hate Renault cars. So this article is going to have me seething. Read More >
Oh, to be a fly on the wall of the GM boardroom:
“Did you see the latest Opel numbers?”
“Jeez! Horrible!”
“What are these clowns thinking? We have an IPO to close.”
“Talk about timing. We should have sold them to the Russians. Who was the moron that cancelled that deal?”
“I hope the next rattlesnake wins.”
Indeed, the news from Rüsselsheim aren’t good, and with the IPO closing this coming week, they could not have come at a more inopportune time. Read More >
The strange looking vehicle on the right is a European-spec Mitsubishi i-MiEV, a 63 HP, 75-100 mile-range electric vehicle. The strange looking vehicle on the left is a US-spec Mitsubishi i-MiEV, specially “improved” for the US audience. USA Today puts it best, reporting
The iMiEV for the U.S. will be — surprise, surprise — bigger than the ones it sells in Japan and Europe. That’s because Americans are fatter.
In case you’d forgotten. No word on just how much bigger the i-MiEV needed to become in order to “meet the expectations of U.S. consumers,” but considering the apparent necessity of grafting on a slack-jawed underbite, one hopes the difference is noticeable on the inside. We’ll find out for sure at the LA Auto show, but in the meantime, hit the jump to find out what we hope doesn’t grow as the i-MiEV slips into something a little more American.
The feared Chinese car exports so far have been a dud. The value of car imports beats exports 3:1. This doesn’t dissuade privately owned Chinese carmakers from trying. They are active at the soft underbelly of the world, in developing or emerging markets of South America and Africa. Now, they are getting a bit closer to Europe. Read More >
Toyota and Fiat may not be setting European sales charts alight, but according to a recent analysis of per-vehicle CO2 output, the two automakers are on the cusp of meeting the EU’s stringent 2015 standard. Automakers competing in Europe will have to reduce their carbon emissions to 130 gm/km by 2015, a huge challenge for firms like BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen, which currently have average emissions of 151, 167 and 153 grams per km respectively. Fiat and Toyota, on the other hand, have already reduced their emissions to 131 and 132 grams per km, putting them within a sneeze of the 2015 standard. But the auto industry never though that any of its firms would be on track for overcompliance. In fact, the AFP reports
In 2008 carmakers successfully pushed back from 2012 to 2015 the deadline for technological innovation, allowing them to meet stipulations, in exchange for a commitment to drop to 95 g/km by 2020.
Despite not insignificant loopholes, they can be heavily fined if they miss these targets as the EU strives to meet wider aims in reducing emissions of harmful gases blamed for negative climate change effects.
Toyota is probably feeling a little unloved right now. The US government has been trying to burn them at the stake, Chinese buyers are shunning them and even the Canadians are even saying “No, eh?” (My experience of Canadians is pretty much limited to “South Park” and “Due South”). But love and good news can come from the most unlikely of places. Read More >
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