Usually, automakers never mention the competition, especially when you are BMW and the competition is Porsche. Soon, the Porsche 911, according to BMW “the flag-bearer of the German sports car fraternity,” will celebrate its 50th birthday, and BMW has a special birthday greeting. Read More >
Germany has seen heavy floods, and it is beginning to impact car production. Porsche had to stop production of the Cayenne in its Leipzig plant. Not because the plant is under water: Bodies for the SUVs are made in Bratislava, Slovakia, however, they don’t reach Leipzig because the railroad tracks in the Czech Republic are under water.
After Germany’s sudden 3.8 percent sales rise in April, this site did not buy into the sentiment that the worst is over in Europe. It’s not. After the calendar-induced April fool’s gold, the German market continued its downward run, with the rest of Europe sure to follow. Read More >
Haerter goes to court
Porsche’s former high-flying finance chief Holger Härter was been fined 630,000 euros ($820,000) for misleading French bank BNP Paribas in loan negotiations in early 2009. This despite testimonies by bank representatives who said BNP did not feel misled. Read More >
The death of an Australian woman who was rear-ended two years ago is making new headlines. In 2011, 32-year-old Melissa Ryan was killed when a truck with two trailers hit her Volkswagen Golf from behind. A coroner is looking into the matter. The report is expected to be completed in July. In the meantime, Australian media does not let simple technical facts get in the way of a bad story. Read More >
The much debated Volkswagen Law most likely will remain much debated for a while, says Automobilwoche [sub]. The matter is pending at the European Court of Justice, and no decision has been rendered, however, “an influential expert witness” (Automobilwoche) rendered the opinion that the current situation is within the law. Read More >
According to media reports, Volkswagen workers received a hefty, inflation-busting pay rise today, giving the impression that VW workers are being especially coddled. Not true. Metal workers in all of Germany received a 5.6 percent raise in May (3.4 percent more from July on, followed by 2.2 percent starting in May 2014, to be exact.) Volkswagen workers received more or less the same. Read More >
42 journalists who had the honor of being invited by Porsche to what was called a “Plug-In Hybrid Technology Workshop” found themselves used as lab rats, and to produce a mileage rating that supports Porsche’s published results for the hybrid Panamera. It didn’t quite work out that way. Says a Porsche press release: Read More >
First signs of the interaction between Opel and its Bochum workforce getting nasty. Today, Opel workers in Bochum stopped the lines for several hours to attend a so-called “information session” with the works council, Germany’s Automobilwoche [sub] says. Read More >
Daimler presented its new S-Class yesterday night in the airbus factory in Hamburg, and with the pomp and circumstance appropriate for a car that is supposed to bring the big turn-around at Daimler. German Spiegel magazine promptly grouched “that the most revolutionary part in the car is the fact that in large parts, it is not new at all.” Der Spiegel called an unimpeachable witness: Germany’s Kraftfahrtbundesamt, the agency that issues type approvals in Germany. It simply amended the type approval for the old W221 model. Read More >
GM won’t punish its German workforce for the uppity behavior of Bochum’s employees. Instead of moving production of the Zafira to UK’s Ellesmere Port, as some expected, production will remain in Deutschland. Read More >
BMW’s CEO Norbert Reithofer lambasted EU lawmakers for attempting to “hurt European industry in competition with the United States and China,” as Reuters reports. Said Reithofer at today’s General Meeting of Shareholders in Munich: Read More >
Our cross-cultural adviser, showing a little A-Class
Bloomberg relentlessly covers a fight very few care about: Who sells the most “luxury cars?” Never mind that the only way to win this is to sell more, what do they call them, “approachable” cars. Which Bloomberg’s latest dispatch from the upper class struggle aptly proves.
Now that Opel workers in Bochum refused a plan to keep the factory open, now that an intervention by UAW’s Bob King went exactly nowhere, the question is where to move production of the Opel Zafira when Bochum closes its doors by end of 2014.
In the running: Rüsselsheim, Germany, and Ellesmere Port, UK. Read More >
Jesus Christ! Visitors of the 2013 Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta on May 10-11 will think a red Mini convertible will drive on water.
BMW’s MINI brand sponsors the festival of university and college rowing along the along the Schuylkill River. The miraculous MINI actually is a fiberglass mold of the car mounted to a boat hull. Powered by a 6 hp outboard motor, it floats down river.
Recent Comments