You take some of my rescued state-owned automaker, and I’ll take some of yours. That seems to be the cunning plan cooked up by presidents Putin and Sarkozy, as the two face the prospect of rescuing struggling firms in the midst of a weak European market. And actually, it seems that the idea was really Putin’s. French-owned automaker Renault is “more than happy” with its 25 percent stake in the moribund Russian automaker AvtoVAZ, reports Bloomberg, but Russia is offering to buy 15 percent of the French firm if France in turn takes on more AvtoVAZ equity. Considering that Reanult paid $1b for 25 percent of a firm that has been kept alive only by government intervention, a closer embrace of VAZ does not seem advisable. Nor, frankly, does any form of “Franco-Russian Leyland” sound like a good idea.
I still remember when I accompanied a big cheese of Volkswagen to (then) Czechoslovakia in 1990, shortly after the iron curtain had rusted out. We went to Mladá Boleslav, near Prague, to inspect VW’s latest acquisition: Skoda. The place was pretty much empty.
“Where are the workers?” asked my guy. Read More >
Europe is a bit hybrid-adverse and far removed from Japan, where the Toyota Prius has been leading the charts for the 12th month in a row. In a move to convert Europeans into hybrid-lovers, Toyota started production of their hybrid Auris in the UK. Read More >
I don’t know whether you know, but the UK government has a deficit of £155b which needs to be slashed. On June the 22nd, Chancellor George Osbourne laid out his plans on how to eliminate that ugly budget gap. VAT would be increased to 20 percent from 17.5 percent, civil servants would have their wages frozen and benefits would be slashed. Yep, life is going to be pretty grim in the UK for the next five years. Unless you’re a multi-national company with an electric car up your sleeve. Read More >
One Ford? Not in the all-important D-Segment. While America’s poncy Taurus languishes in sales, Europe’s Mondeo has been facelifted and is ready for another round of competition. And with a full compliment of Ecoboost four-cylinders and diesels, it’s likely to continue selling well there. Meanwhile, the Fiesta, Focus and more models from Ford’s European stables are headed stateside, but there’s still no word of a global unification of Ford’s D-segment offerings. Given that the Taurus has sold 60k units in the last 12 months, it might be time to consider bringing the Mondeo to America.
The 2011 Suzuki Swift has debuted in Europe, and though it looks a lot like its predecessor, Suzuki says it might, maybe, just possibly come to the US this time around. Will they wait for a plug-in version? Will they give it more power than the Euro-market 92 horsepower 1.2 liter? Will the Kia Soul know what hit it? Tell us how Suzuki should bring this car to the US (if at all), and we’ll promise not to make any 18th Century literary references… for now.
Don’t worry my fellow Americans, your supercharged Elises and Exiges are safe. In Europe, however, the introduction of the new 1.6 liter Elise means the old 1.8 supercharged cars are on their way out, victims of the new Euro 5 standard.
“Flirtation between Nissan and GM has a rich history,” said our Dear Leader. Here we go again. This time, with the whole cabal. Renault’s Ghosn has put an entry in the Match.com of the auto trade. Reuters says that Renault could work closely with a U.S. partner if the occasion arose, but it is not crucial. Not only is Renault flirtatious, they make it sound like it’s a no strings attached kind of a thing. It never is … Read More >
The car was the champ of the German Abwrackprämien-mania of 2009: Retire your clunker, collect €2000, and for just €5000 of pocket-change, you get a real car with a real trunk and 4 doors: The Dacia Logan. The car, built in Renault’s Romanian subsidiary sold more than 150,000 units ion Germany since its introduction. It drove car executives bonkers, and engineers to their workstations to design low-cost cars. Now, it’s being pulled off the market. The reason? Read More >
In the first nine months of the current fiscal year Porsche sold slighty fewer cars than in the same period of the previous year. But they made more money: They are looking at operating profits of €0.6b on sales of €5.2b. That’s a double digit operating profit, ladies and gentlemen, and none of the put and call hanky-panky is included. Now what do you think is the catalyst for the wunderbar numbers? Are you sitting down? Read More >
If you go back for what seems to be years, TTAC never gave Opel big odds for getting state aid. Ever since GM reneged on the Magna deal, their chances were pretty much nil. Since then, the German government had been subjecting Opel to water torture. A few days ago, Berlin made it obvious. They had to, because GM was like a psychiatric patient that was slowly going through all stages of the Kübler-Ross model: Denial (“They said they would help us”), anger (“Maybe this will make your chancellor happy”), bargaining, depression, now finally, acceptance. Today, GM and Opel officially threw in the towel. Opel officially gave up on state aid. They will turn to the entity that supposedly wasn’t allowed to help them: The GM mother-ship. In other words: You and me will pay to save Opel.
Batten hatches! Europe is on an emergency dive. According to data just released by the ACEA, sales in May dropped by 9.3 percent compared to May 2009. Our Ford canary in the EU coal mine was right again: May numbers were worse than April numbers. In April, the EU market had been down 7.4 percent. But that’s not the worst part. Read More >
Undeterred by crashing European sales numbers, Nissan is forging ahead and adds – are we reading this right? – “a third shift at its British production line for sport utility vehicles, raising output 30 percent to nearly 24,000 units a month,” says The Nikkei [sub]. Read More >
ACEA hasn’t released European numbers for May yet (they are expected within the next days,) but in case you have a financial, business, or other interest, be advised that the results will be grim. How do we know that? By reading a press release by Ford Europe. Ford has consistently jumped the gun on releasing European numbers, and has turned into TTAC’s canary in the EU coal mine. What TTAC’s patent-pending GM indicator is for China, Ford becomes for Europe. Executive summary: May was another blood bath for the EU. Ford underperformed the EU market nearly 2:1. Read More >
Spyker, proud new owner of SAAB, is overwhelmed. Victor Muller is looking at what’s on his plate and is having an anxiety attack. “How will I ever get that done?” (And with what money?) Spyker needs serious help. Read More >
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