When Apple releases a new product, people wait in line for it. Steve Jobs talks, everyone buys. Apple often runs out of stuff that is in high demand. Usually, people will wait. Hyundai has a similar problem. But maybe not a similar solution. Read More >
India’s Mahindra & Mahindra is putting in a binding bid to buy a majority stake in troubled South Korean automaker Ssangyong Motor. Ssangyong went bankrupt in 2009 after China’s SAIC dropped the ball. They nearly went up in flames, when militant workers incited a riot and threatened to blow up the paint shop. Read More >
Toyota’s capacity utilization at U.S. plants dropped to 60 percent in the second half of 2008 after the economic crisis hit the U.S. Enough of this. Utilization is up to 90 percent already. Next year, Toyota plans to run its N.A. factories at full tilt. More than that: Workers will be doing overtime, work weekend and holiday shifts, says The Nikkei [sub].
Of course, the fact that NUMMI is off-line could also have something to do with it.
[Editor’s Note: The following is the transcript of a speech given by GM Chairman/CEO Ed Whitacre today at the Center For Automotive Research’s Management Briefing Seminar (via GM Media)]
Thanks, Dave [Cole], and good afternoon. It’s a pleasure to be here…and it’s no wonder why you picked this location.
This really is beautiful country up here. And as a Texan, it pains me to say this, but it’s true…your lake really is bigger than any lake in Texas.
This is my first time at this conference, so I hope you will take it easy on me. You were nice enough to invite me last year…but at the time, I was still trying to figure out my way around the RenCen without getting lost.
Sales numbers for the US market in July should drop today, and based on an early analyst survey, the market’s only recovered to a 12m SAAR at best. Estimates aside though, it’s beginning to look more and more like the US market for new cars is approaching a “new normal.” How so? Automotive News [sub]’s Jesse Snyder figures it’s
Because discipline is breaking out all over– at manufacturers, suppliers and dealerships.
Even Snyder’s headline captures the mood of cautious realism that’s suddenly taken hold of the auto industry: though the market appears to have moved towards 12m annual units in July, Snyder’s analysis is headlined Life at 11 million U.S. sales.
Read More >
Good news for Chinese parts makers: Volkswagen, by far the biggest brand in China, wants to gradually achieve full localization in China. In regular English: Volkswagen’s Chinese joint ventures plan to locally source all auto parts and components needed to make cars in China, and will stop importing them. Read More >
It’s that time of the month again, and welcome to another episode of Chinese Numerology. As it has become a TTAC tradition, the China Automotive Technology & Research Center jumps the gun again with an off-the-wall number. Shameless Bloomberg prints it and reports that “retail deliveries of cars, sport-utility vehicles and multipurpose vehicles rose 15.4 percent last month from a year earlier to 822,300, the China Automotive Technology & Research Center said in a statement today. That compared with 10.9 percent growth in June.” No, it did not. The CATRC is known for pretty good safety research and for awfully wrong numbers. You can safely ignore them, along with the rest of that Bloomberg tale. Read More >
With all the hubbub over Volvo, it’s easy to forget that Geely already owns a foreign carmaker: Managnese Bronze, the company that makes London’s iconic black-cabs. Well, Geely doesn’t “own” Maganese, they hold a 19.97 percent share. That is about to change. Read More >
Did we say last Thursday that the sale of Volvo from Ford to Geely „could close as soon as next week?” Did I believe it? Did I live in Chine for six years? Honestly, there was an element of surprise when, this Beijing afternoon, my inbox made that noise and there was an email from Ford, titled “Ford Motor Company Completes Sale of Volvo to Geely.” The deal is closed. Volvo is Chinese. Read More >
For more than a year, I had been on my very own propaganda mission in China (and I’m still here in Beijing to tell it.) I had urged Chinese parts manufacturers to go overseas and to buy parts houses at firesale prices. By moving closer to the customer and up the value chain, by turning from contract manufacturer to marketer, the Chinese manufacturers could realize much higher profits. By turning from contract supplier to systems house, they would be about 5 years ahead of the technology curve: A systems house is tied into the development of a car. The Boschs, Magnas, Federal Moguls of this world harbor more secrets than a Tom Clancy novel. A year ago, I wrote in China’s Gasgoo: “While the idea of buying a foreign car brand for cheap is good, the practicable choices are limited. So it’s back to buying foreign parts companies. There will be many bankrupt foreign parts companies this year to choose from, all quite cheap, most with an established presence and manufacture in China.”
Someone seems to listen, finally. But maybe a little late … Read More >
Again and again, the mucky-mucks of Daimler and BMW had sworn to do stuff together, buy parts, build engines, there are occasional rumors that the two will tie the knot. North and South Korea will unite and hell will turn into a glacier before that happens – which is not saying that it might not. Some day. In a galaxis far away. As long as Daimler and BMW employ engineers who make crusaders look like the Peace Corps, no jointness between the two luxury brands has any perspective. Every win-win so far has turned into a whine-whine. But it’s not for a lack of trying. Read More >
Legislation aimed at improving the transparency of Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) has passed the Massachusetts state House of Representatives, and awaits approval by the Senate. If approved, Bill 2517 [full text in PDF format here] would require that
The manufacturer of a motor vehicle sold in the commonwealth shall make available for purchase to independent motor vehicle repair facilities and motor vehicle owners in a nondiscriminatory basis and cost as compared to the terms and costs charged to an authorized dealer or authorized motor vehicle repair facility all diagnostic, service and repair information that the manufacturer makes available to its authorized dealers and authorized motor vehicle repair facilities in the same form and the same manner as it is made available to authorized dealers or an authorized motor vehicle repair facility of the motor vehicle.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is opposing the bill, according to the DetN, because it believes the bill is motivated by parts manufacturers who want access to parts in order to reverse engineer and sell them. Literally. And yes, it is China’s fault.
Recently, Opel’s boss Nick Reilly was asked by the Süddeutschen Zeitung how long it could be before GM’s top management decides that it doesn’t want to rescue its European division Opel after all. His answer [via Autobild]:
It’s not a question of two years, but rather six or nine months, before we need to have proven that we’ve made positive progress
Even then, Reilly admits that
We need four to five years before we’re able to get back to where we were
That doesn’t sound so good, does it?
When Chrysler’s CEO Sergio Marchionne took the stage over the weekend to honor Lee Iacocca with an induction into the Walter P. Chrysler Legacy circle, he admitted to feeling unworthy of honoring Chrysler’s most famous executive in recent memory, and called Ford’s Alan Mulally and the UAW’s Bob King to help share the honor. And being the business-obsessed type he is, Marchionne wasn’t about to let Mulally get on stage without at least a mention of Ford’s just-announced $2.6b profit. And though the recognition and ensuing awkward “moment” helped add to the usual Detroit gala hometown booster vibe, it also highlighted the fact that Chrysler still has yet to announce its Q2 results.
Read More >
Toyota Motor Corp. is expected to report a group operating profit of about 100 billion yen ($1.14b) for the April-June period, The Nikkei [sub]. That would be a huge improvement over the same quarter loss of 194.8 billion yen ($2.23b) in 2009. In case you are wondering about the strange quarters: Japan goes by the fiscal year that ends on March 31. The April-June period is the first quarter of the new year, and times are good at TMC. Read More >
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