If you are one of the richest car executives of the world, if you have “about twelve children. You never can tell for sure”, if those children are from four different women (I did not say wives), and if you are 73, you slowly start doing some estate planning.  That’s exactly what Ferdinand Piech, Emperor of Volkswagen and Porsche, did. His heirs are livid. Read More >

Germany doesn’t have an EV yet, but they already have a standard fort he EV plug. I would expect no less from my countrypersons. Before they do anything new, they first create a standard for it. Audi, BMW, Daimler, Porsche and Volkswagen have agreed to support a connector system for the charging of electric vehicles based on IEC standard 62196-2. The five German vendors invited utility providers and other OEMs to join the group. Given Volkswagen’s  monstrous market share in Europe, there won’t be much other choice for the juice. Read More >

If you want to offer hybrid cars, but don’t have the money / time / run rate / wherewithal to do it yourself, who’re gonna call? Toyota. But who would have imagined that haughty Daimler picked up the phone, dialed 0081, and said: “Let’s talk?” Daimler considers joining the growing list of automakers that source their hybrid systems from Toyota City.  Toyota is in talks to provide technology and core components for hybrid vehicles to Daimler, after having been approached by the Germans, says The Nikkei [sub]. Read More >

Who is the most sustainable car maker? And by “sustainable” I mean everything, like fuel-saving ideas, green practices, etc. It’s bound to be a Japanese car maker, right? Toyota, with their hybrid technologies, Nissan and their electric cars or Honda and their Hydrogen FCX Clarity? Nope. Maybe it’s General Motors and their Volt? The answer lies in Munich. Read More >

Historically, Volkswagen has given the U.S.A. much more attention than their sales deserve. The U.S. are considered key to VW reaching their goal of becoming Nummer Eins auf der Welt (I’m sure Herr Schmitt will correct my German – he sure did.). Trouble is, their US head, Stefan Jacoby, deserted to left to work for Volvo and Geely. This means they needed to find someone new. And they may have just done that. Read More >

If cars have DNA, as it is being repeatedly claimed, then perception gap must be running in the family at GM. Now, Opel has admitted that they are afflicted by the syndrome. “I agree with you that the brand has great potential to be hipper and younger,” said Alain Visser, chief marketing officer of Opel in Automobilwoche [sub]. And they are trying real hard. They engaged German songstress Lena as an advertising icon. Not the “99 Luftballons” Nena. It#s a sound-alike, Lena Meyer-Landrut of dubious Eurovision fame. Further forays are imminent.  Says Visser: “After the music, we will occupy the themes of sport, art and science.” Read More >

At home, the market is down 27 percent. Cars?  Who wants them. “What, me worry?” is the mantra from Wolfsburg. Volkswagen’s worldwide group deliveries for the first eight months of the current year totaled 4.70m units, up 13.4 percent. In August alone, deliveries rose by 11.2 percent to 545,500. “As a result, the Group outperformed the global automotive market, not only for the month of August but also for the year so far,” declares a proud communiqué from Wolfsburg.

Volkswagen is exporting itself out of the crisis at home. And they are keeping busy. “This year alone we are bringing over 70 new models to market,” said VW sales chief Christian Klingler. Seventy.

In the first eight months of this year … Read More >

Here’s a cheery study on the effects of Peak Oil, which is widely considered to be happening…right about now (throw in a few more hours/months/years depending on how big of an optimist/denialist  you are). Der Spiegel got their hands on a confidential study commissioned by the German military, which has not yet been sanitized approved for publication. It’s a bit explosive…might get the civilian population riled up and all. It warns of shifts in the global balance of power, the decline of importance of western nations (oil importers), as well as “the total collapse of the markets” and…gulp…even worse. Let’s go talk about 1970 Boss 302 Mustangs. Read More >

When you start a new job, it’s considered important to make a good impression. How does the saying go? “Start as you mean to go on”. Well, Dan Akerson, I suspect, tried to heed that advice and ended up putting his foot in it. The Associated Press reports that Dan Akerson, CEO of Government (soon to be “General” again) Motors, presented a webcast to GM employees. The usual CEO rhetoric came out. “GM needs to keep competitors on their heels rather than responding to what they do” said one GM worker, who asked not to be identified as the broadcast was not available to the public; despite being owned by them. “Attack mode” was another phrase used. But then Mr Akerson said that GM’s Cadillac brand has to make cars that are better than BMW’s. Now I thought this was quite a harmless statement to make. The CEO set a (quite high) benchmark to beat. Sounds reasonable, right? Not according to some. Read More >

A few weeks ago TTAC reported how BMW and Daimler revived a long-ago formed  joint purchasing venture in order to help drive down costs for the 2 independent car makers who can’t achieve high volumes of scale. This was seen as quite a big step in a direction few expected. As our resident German put it, “If you think South Korea and North Korea have communication problems, then you should be in a meeting between Daimler and BMW engineers.” He does have a way with words, doesn’t he? But he wasn’t wrong. It’s been a bit of joke to in the industry how Daimler and BMW view each other. As the mustachioed one put it, “Daimler engineers view their colleagues as boorish Bavarian upstarts. BMW engineers think Daimler is a congregation of has-beens.” And you thought relations between GM and Toyota were frosty! At least they had a plant together. Well, it seems that relations maybe thawing between the boys in Munich and the lads in Stuttgart. Kind of… Read More >

When Volkswagen bought a 19.9 percent share in Suzuki, everybody in the know knew that a much bigger trade was going down. A trade of subcontinents. Suzuki owns nearly half of the market in India, where Volkswagen is a relative nobody. Suzuki is dabbling in China, where Volkswagen rules the roost. Read More >

The current mantra at General Motors: Everybody and everything look sharp and attractive for the coming IPO. During the sprucing-up operations, there are times when someone at RenCen sighs: “Maybe we should have gotten rid of Opel after all.” Read More >

Opel’s German dealer association left the Zentralverband des Kraftfahrzeuggewerbes (ZDK) in a huff, says Automobilwoche [sub] First, what’s a ZDK? It’s Germany’s umbrella organization of the car business. You need to be an industry organization to be a member. Next to the manufacturer organization VDA, the ZDK is the most powerful lobbying group of the car business. And what made the Opel dealers to hand in their membership cards and leave?

ZDK President Robert “Robby” Rademacher had strong words for Opel’s Lifetime Guarantee: “If the Wettbewerbszentrale  would not have taken the case, the ZDK would have taken Opel to court.” Read More >

China is currently in a state of confusion about August sales numbers: More than 50 percent up? Or less than 20 percent? It will take a week or so to sort that out. But one thing is clear: The big winners in China are German purveyors of luxobarges, says Reuters. Read More >

Days after  Vladimir Putin, well, encouraged foreign carmakers to come to Russia, open car factories and better bring the latest technology, or else, Martin Winterkorn announced that Volkswagen is planning a new assembly line at Russia’s GAZ and that they will expand their factory in the Kaluga region in the future. Winterkorn said that after meeting Putin himself and most likely after having received a similar speech as what was previously broadcasted. Read More >