This week, Opel will embark on a pan-European begging tour. Applications for government aid will be sent to Germany’s central government, Germany’s states with Opel plants, and to the European countries where Opel has a presence. A business plan, and an expert opinion from the little known CPA firm Warth & Klein will complete the package, writes Das Autohaus. Target of the funds drive are €2.7b. Opel management still counts on wage concessions of €265m per year over five years (a total of €1.3b). Unions and the Opel Works Council already have said “nein” to the concessions. Governments want to see the paperwork first, Read More >

TTAC has reported on VW’s plans to become the global number one. Looking at Toyota’s current quality problems, one could be excused for thinking that there just might be some substance to Wolfsburg’s plans. After all, Toyota’s days of glory seem to be over, while VW is on a roll, with sales growing and quality improving. Right?

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An AMG-tuned S Class Coupe prototype (note that the CL moniker has been dropped) gets stuck in a drift while testing in the icy north. Auto Motor und Sport reports that it took the combined efforts of an ML prototype and an S Class prototype to pull the beast from its icy resting place. Sportisch!

Germany is suffering from Abwrackprämien-withdrawal. Message to dealers: Not this month, we have a headache. January sales are down 4.3 percent compared to January 2009. Only 181,189 new cars found their way on Deutschland’s roads. 4.3 percent may not sound earth shattering. But we are comparing with an exceptionally crummy January 2009, when sales were so awful that Berlin quickly launched their German cash-for-clunkers Abwrackprämien program. This time around, Germans bought even less. It’s been the most miserable January in some 20 years. Read More >

Opel is running out of time and out of money. In the second quarter of 2010, the company will be out of cash again, figures the German Handelsblatt. As indicated yesterday, discussions with the unions are going nowhere. Says the Handelsblatt:”Management is preparing for a breakdown of the talks.” Reilly and his crew are trying to find ways how to get Opel going without wage concessions by the unions. But how? Read More >

Opel’s turnaround negotiations with German unions have gone pear-shaped again, as top labour rep Klaus Franz left talks denouncing GM’s decision to cut 9972 jobs instead of the promised 8300, according to The Wall Street Journal. “Fundamental questions have not been answered,” fretted Franz. “Management’s plans seem to change on a daily basis.” Rudi Kennes, a labour representative from Antwerp, concurred, saying the atmosphere between management and the unions “has never been as bad as now.” He added ominously that “(Mr Reilly) needs to answer our questions.”
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What got into the German unions? The powerful German metal workers union IG Metall is vehemently against government aid for Opel. The Berlin paper Der Tagesspiegel writes that union chief Armin Schild appealed to the federal government in Berlin and to the Opel states: “No government aid should be given on the basis of this restructuring plan.” Read More >

Opel finally has a restructuring plan. Opel CEO Nick Reilly announced the good news this morning, says Automobilwoche [sub]. “All we need to do is to come to a final agreement with the unions and the works council. I hope, this will happen within the next two or three weeks,” said Reilly. I there a doctor in the house? We have a serious case of relentless optimism. Read More >

A suit filed yesterday by Elliott Associates LP, Glenhill Capital LP, Glenview Capital Partners LP and other financial firms who were NSFWd by Porsche‘s attempted takeover of VW, alleges Porsche “manipulated the price of VW stock as it secretly accumulated control over almost all of VW’s freely traded shares” [suit available for online viewing here]. Porsche has been under investigation in Germany for stock manipulation since October of 2008, and the legal wardrums have been sounding ever since. The plaintiffs are seeking over a billion dollars in damages… and yes, Bertel, one of the plaintiff hedge funds (Glenview Capital) is owned by Goldman Sachs. What is it that they say about payback again?

The Japanese press is making a big to-do out of the combined 2009 sales of Volkswagen and Suzuki. Or rather out of the fact that the two together sold more than Toyota. „Suzuki-VW Beats Toyota In Global Sales In ’09” headlines The Nikkei, as if the two would be one company.

That the two of them could easily crush Toyota is no news to TTAC readers. When we announced the VW-Suzuki nuptials on Dec 9, 2009, we said: “Suzuki has an output of 2.36 million units a year; added to VW’s sales, Toyota would be toast.”

The Nikkei did the adding, and writes:  Read More >

The German paper Rheinische Post runs an interesting op-ed piece today. Headlined: “Opel fights its demise,” the article concludes that Opel most likely won’t make it:

Opel CEO Nick Reilly is facing a dilemma. Even before the outbreak of the economic crisis, Opel was confronted with an overcapacity of 20 percent. The Abwrackprämie being behind us, sales will crater. This creates extra pressure to eliminate more jobs. If Reilly implements his restructuring program, then he will have to fight the opposition of the workers. For once, it is easy to put a number to this: €265m a year. The workers wanted to forgo this sum – if Reilly won’t shut down any plants. Now Reilly is €265m short – and has to cut more jobs. At that point, the governments, on who’s support Reilly counts, will call it quits. Whether Opel is kept alive with tax money, with funds from the parent, or with money from the workforce: an artificial respiration of a company is ultimately more expensive than anticipated. And it is almost never successful.

Not surprisingly, the decision to close Antwerp is not sitting too well with Opel’s European Works Council. Their reply: Forget the wage concessions you wanted from us, and which are so critical for Opel’s survival.

Management at Opel wanted employees to contribute €265m annually to the cause. The unions were ready to deal, but wanted shares. Reilly reneged on the shares, which raised union hackles. Now, the offer is off the table. And with it, an essential piece of Opel’s future. Read More >

Osamu Suzuki said today he would probably refuse advances by Volkswagen if they would want to get deeper in bed with their new Japanese bride.

“When Suzuki becomes a bigger and more successful company, Volkswagen will probably want to buy more of our shares,” Suzuki said. “If that happens, Suzuki will probably respond by saying, ‘Let’s continue as we are.'”

We’ll see.

Belgium’s Antwerp can focus on its core competencies as a hub of the diamond trade. Opel will close their plant in the port city of Belgium within the next months, reports Das Autohaus, citing an announcement by Opel. The plant will be closed “to safeguard the future of the company quickly and sustainably.”

Nick Reilly expressed his supposedly sincere condolences: Read More >

ADAC is who responds to essentially every automotive Panne (breakdown) in Germany. And with the Germanic proclivity for thorough record keeping, they have kept them all, and analyzed them more thoroughly than any of Freud’s patients ever were. Did your mother have a flat in 1983? ADAC knows. And they’ve been using it to publish annual best and worst reliability rankings since 1978. If you caught the Toyota Starlet CC, you’ll know that it was the queen of the ADAC numbers, and the bane of Mercedes and the other (once) proud builders of  the world’s most presumably durable iron. Since ADAC doesn’t have an easy way to see all thirty year’s worth of the good and naughty, my Germanic side kicked in and I spent a chunk of last night transcribing them unto a spreadsheet, because…well, that’s just how Germanic I am. Read More >