Volkswagen and Porsche will need to live in concubinage for a while longer. They will live and work together, they will be seen at parties such as the upcoming IAA in Frankfurt together, they share beds and platforms, but they won’t be officially married. Volkswagen announced today ”that the planned merger with Porsche SE cannot be implemented within the time frame provided for in the Comprehensive Agreement. Nevertheless, all parties remain committed to the goal of creating an integrated automotive group with Porsche and are convinced that this will take place.”
And why are the nuptials delayed? Says Volkswagen: Read More >
Yesterday, Bloomberg poured gasoline into the smoldering embers that used to be a Volkswagen-Suzuki relationship. Bloomberg said that Suzuki doesn’t want to talk to Volkswagen. The trouble is: Bloomberg most likely is wrong. Bloomberg and the world at large became a victim of Lost in Translation. Read More >
You might think that now that Mercedes is coming out with a four-door-coupe-wagon, the four-door-coupe craze of the last several years might be ready to disappear in a puff of internal contradiction… but you’d be wrong. So focused was it on the four-door-SUV-coupe and the bloated-sedan-hatch-cum-GT niche, BMW completely slept through the four-door-sedan niche that Mercedes first attacked in 2004. And as far as the Bavarians are concerned, it’s better to attack a niche late than never. And they’re doing so with a “GranCoupe” that is remarkably similar to the existing 6er coupe… only with two doors. The entire premise behind the four-door-coupe is that it combines the practicality of a sedan with the panache of a coupe. The problem, in this case, seems to be that BMW’s 6er coupe has so little panache, this four-door model blends right into Bee-Emm’s increasingly indistinguishable lineup. Between that and the late attack on a played-out segment, it’s difficult to harbor high hopes for this latest niche-warrior.
August usually is not a strong car selling month. Especially not in Germany, where everybody is on vacation. Nevertheless, BMW sold “significantly more than 100,000 units” in August, thereby breaking all its records for the summer month. “Business is better than we thought,” said BMW CFO Franz Eichiner to Germany’s FAZ.Read More >
I was living in Austria when the first-generation A2 came out, and I was mildly shocked to find that I couldn’t find a single native who was as geeked about Audi’s baby aluminum wonder as I was. Sure, it was geeky and overpriced, but for me it surpassed even the TT as the apotheosis of Peter Schreyer’s bauhaus-inspired design language. Tyroleans of all ages laughed off my enthusiasm as eccentricity, and across Europe the A2 never sold especially well.
But by the time production ended in 2005, the A2 was as fresh as the day the first example rolled out of Neckarsulm, and even to this day its resale value has held up extremely well. To be completely honest I don’t actually have the numbers to back that up, but it’s what I was told when I was in Germany earlier this Summer. And in Volkswagen’s Autostadt, the A2 has a special place of honor inside the Zeithaus (House of Time) alongside another ahead-of-its-time freak: the Citroen DS.
Will the next A2, a concept version of which is headed to the Frankfurt Show, be as special? It still has an aluminum spaceframe… but it’s also 2011, not 1999. The A2 2.0 has its work cut out for it…
It’s been 12 years since BMW offered a four-cylinder engine on a US-market offering, but starting this October, US dealers will begin offering new “TwinPower”four-pot versions of the Z4 roadster and 5-series sedan. And, as BMW’s US-market boss Jim O’Donnell explains to Automotive News [sub], there’s no reason to fear the four… anymore.
It wasn’t in line with our image, because it didn’t have the performance of the six cylinder. We were selling ourselves as the ultimate driving machine and really it wasn’t. Now that the engines have developed so far, it’s not an issue at all.
But now BMW is offering four-bangers because they offer an even better driving experience, right? Less weight, better turn-in, that kind of thing… right? Read More >
Porsche engineers have long been frustrated by the fact that the company’s iconic flat-six engine cannot be extended much beyond 4.0-litres. It’s also felt that in the Ferrari-dominated market, eight cylinders are a pre-requisite.
Moving to a larger engine would also differentiate the new model from the new 911 and next-generation Cayman range. It’s thought that the creation of such an engine has been made easier by the engineering working currently being done on the new turbocharged flat-four engine, which will be offered in Porsche’s planned entry-level roadster. This all-new motor is thought to be modular, allowing it to be extended into the next-generation flat-6 and a flat-8.
Porsche chief Matthias Müller found a big gap in his program. A price gap. “It bugs me that the 911 stops at around €250,000, and then things start moving again with the 918 for €750,000,” Müller complains to the Süddeutsche Zeitung today. “Ferrari builds a comfortable and pretty much competition-free nest. We need to get in there.” Read More >
The new Mercedes B-Class has been extensively discussed here, it was shown at the Shanghai Auto Show, where it found itself upstaged by the requisite Chinese copy. Slowly, it is time to show the production model. Which will happen at the Frankfurt Auto Show. After the rest of the world has seen the B-Class, now Germany can too.
When I was still working for Volkswagen, I blatantly picked up the delegations from Wolfsburg in my Eddie Bauer Expedition when they arrived at JFK. The higher paygrades were already used to it. The lower paygrades inevitably asked: “Why don’t you drive a Touareg?” While bouncing down the Van Wyck, I inevitably shouted “Silence in the third row! The Touareg doesn’t even have a third row. If I had a Touareg, you’d be sitting in a taxi.”
Soon I’d run out of excuses: If Germany’s AUTO BILD and the DetN are correctly informed, then Volkswagen will get a big SUV – big enough for Americans, even for those with a smaller wallet. Read More >
Conventional wisdom says that the Chinese will suck all the know-how out of their foreign joint venture partners, and once they are through with them, they’ll discard them like Dracula a bloodless virgin. As a thank you, the Chinese will flood foreign countries with cheap Chinese cars. The trouble with conventional wisdom is that it is rarely true, or wise. Actually, the Chinese are now worried that the foreigners amass too much power. “Foreign car producers have begun to take more control of their joint ventures in China, sidelining their Chinese counterparts from business partners to factory providers,” China Daily writes today. China Daily is owned by the Chinese government. Read More >
Today, Porsche officially disclosed top-secret pictures of the new “Neunelfer”, a.k.a. the 2012 Porsche 911. Most of these pictures have already been all over the webs. In a year, you’ll find them on Wikileaks.
In the name of completeness, here is the whole take, released today, along with the news that:
“At 48, the Porsche 911 Carrera is younger than ever: The completely redesigned generation of the sports car icon is stepping into the limelight with its flat, stretched silhouette, exciting contours and precisely designed details, yet from the very first glance it remains unmistakably a 911. True to the 911 tradition, the distinctive Porsche design language with its tendons and muscles exudes power and elegance.”
Yesterday, we talked a little about Volkswagen’s latest small car, the up! We walked down memory lane, and compared the 2012 up! with the Polo of 1975. The up! is nearly as short as the Polo of ancient times (3.54 meters). The heftier bumpers don’t leave a car designer much choice. And speaking of heft: We wondered how the up! is doing in the weight department.
When the Polo was launched in 1975, it weighed in at 685 kg (1,510 lbs) – with four guys, you could solve parking problems manually. We didn’t have much entertainment in those years, and sometimes carried a Polo to spots that were a bit inaccessible on wheels, like up a flight of stairs. This was a source of a lot of fun, especially when viewed from a beer garden across the street.
Volkswagen did not disclose the curb weight of the new up!, so we called up! Herr Schröder in Wolfsburg on Monday morning and asked. Read More >
We’ve heard about range-extending trailers which could allow EVs to become range-extended plug-in hybrids, but how about this: a trailer with its own battery storage, regenerative braking and even electric-drive assist. That’s the idea behind German camper trailer firm Knaus Tabbert’s concept, on display this summer at Düsseldorf’s Caravan Salon. And besides adding hybrid capabilities to the car that happens to be towing the trailer, the trailer itself can use the energy gained through regenerative braking for its climate control, refrigerator, lights and more. Autobild reports:
Here’s how it works: Two AC generators, each with 850 watts of power are connected to each wheel of the caravan. The energy generated during the drive is stored in lead-acid batteries, which add an extra weightof 70 to 80 kilos. Starting at a speed of about ten km/h the generators begin feeding electricity to the batteries, and the maximum charge power is available by about 35 km/h. If the Caravan’s electricity use is limited to seven hours per day (total power 100 watts), campers can take advantage of up to four days of independence from an external power supply.
Even if you don’t understand German, you might enjoy the video above, which demonstrates many of the promised functions of this system. Outside of videos though, the system still is not ripe for public sale, according to its developer. There’s still no word on when it will be ready or how much it will cost, but it’s one of many small ways that hybrid technology is seeping into nearly every form of transportation.
Volkswagen and Porsche will need to live in concubinage for a while longer. They will live and work together, they will be seen at parties such as the upcoming IAA in Frankfurt together, they share beds and platforms, but they won’t be officially married. Volkswagen announced today ”that the planned merger with Porsche SE cannot be implemented within the time frame provided for in the Comprehensive Agreement. Nevertheless, all parties remain committed to the goal of creating an integrated automotive group with Porsche and are convinced that this will take place.”
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