Bob Lutz, set to retire May 1, feels confident he’s left GM fixed and on the right track. In an interview at the Detroit News, Lutz states: “I think I’m leaving the company finally focused back on the right thing, General Motors spent 30 years chasing every kind of metric — hours per vehicle, base-engineered content, parts re-use, attainment of diversity targets — 50 different metrics, and excellent products was sort of one. The naïve belief was if you track every one of the metrics and you do well on every one, the end result is a great car company — not,” According to Maximum Bob, that’s all behind now: “Over 8 1/2 years, we have been able to destroy that whole culture.” And bankrupt the company. Oops; I know, Bob had nothing to do with that. Read More >
Dang! Daimler thinks of “moving several key divisions from Berlin to its headquarters in Stuttgart to cut costs,” reports Bloomberg. There goes another source of inside intelligence: One just had to hang out at the bar of the Hyatt next to the Daimler Quartier at the Potsdamer Platz, and when there was absolutely no info to be written for TTAC, a few drinks later, we had some. The flip charts in the conference rooms of the Hyatt also were fertile grounds: They always forgot to remove their scribblings. Where will we get future sales strategies from now on? Ah, the good old times …. Read More >
While the world was watching Volvo going to Geely, Germany was playing artillery observer: Daimler’s Zetsche came under a barrage of criticism last weekend. Not because of the graft accusations. That counts as necessary evil, at least if done abroad. Zetsche committed a mortal sin: He’s losing money, again. After losing billions in 2009, Daimler is supposed to turn the corner this year. But it doesn’t look that way. Read More >
In June 2009, Fiat was handed 20 percent of a washed and rinsed Chrysler for no cash, and despite protests, the deal was rammed through. The UAW was given 55 percent, the U.S. and Canadian governments controlled 8 and 2 percent, respectively. Often overlooked, or forgotten, the deal came with an option for Fiat to raise its stake to 35 and eventually as high as 51 percent if it meets some rather vague financial and developmental goals, hashed out with the U.S. government.
Sergio Marchionne thinks the goals are met. He plans to increase Fiat’s holdings in Chrysler to 35 percent within two years, says Reuters. Read More >
If you think Volvo will stay chaste and out of the grips of the Chinese, abandon all hope. The Chinese are coming to take away your Svenska flikka away for good. Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping is on his tour of Europe. This weekend, he will arrive in Sweden. Read More >
Car researcher Edmunds sees an exceptionally strong March rebound in U.S. car sales. They expect new vehicle sales to come in 31 percent higher than March 2009. The most muscular comeback kid? Would you believe it, Edmunds expects sales of the already counted out Toyota to explode in March. They also see the Detroit 3 solidly overwhelmed by the furriners, Ford’s heroic efforts notwithstanding. Read More >
Media from Associated Press to The Business Standard of India are abuzz with reports that Fiat (the company) is planning to cut 5000 jobs and will be spinning off its car division this summer. The stock market seems to like the idea: Fiat’s shares rose 4.15 percent. Read More >
Malaysia is an economic boom-town, and a country of 28m people. Import duties on foreign cars can run as high as 300 percent. According to unconfirmed rumors, this is to protect the two local makers, Proton & Perodua.
Many foreign car makers have tried to get a chunk of that protected market. One of them is Volkswagen, which does a booming business next door in China. Read More >
While the autoblogosphere frets bout whether BMW drivers can tell which wheels drive their cars, the real news in the BMW-goes-FWD storyline is the impact that the sea change in brand strategy is expected to have on volume. Automotive News [sub] reports that BMW is developing a new family of modular gas and diesel engines, which are intended “primarily for BMW’s new front-wheel-drive architecture, but the powerplants also will be used in the automaker’s rear-wheel-drive cars,” according to CEO Norbert Reithofer. And the volume at which this new family of three, four and six-cylinder engines will be produced is one of the early indications of where BMW is going with its FWD expansion. Today, BMW sells just under 1.3m vehicles worldwide. That’s fewer cars than will be powered by this new family of engines alone, which Reithofer says will motivate 1.5m vehicles worldwide. Considering BMW’s goal is to sell 2m vehicles of all its brands by 2020, it’s clear that much of that growth will be made possible by new FWD-inclusive drivetrain technology. Read More >
The Detroit Free Press reports that Ford’s Alan Mulally made $12.8m last year, nearly double the $7.53m he made in 2008. Despite a considerable increase in Mulally’s overall compensation, his cash salary actually declined to $1.4m, from about $2m in 2008. In addition to the $12.85m he made in salary, bonuses and other compensation, Mulally banked a further $5.05m in stock options. Chairman Bill Ford Jr. continues to work without compensation, although he continues to accrue stock options worth $16.8m. Those options can not be exercised until the firm’s auto operations are profitable. And while Ford’s 2009 profits justify big executive payouts, federal pay czar Ken Feinberg has cut back on executive compensation at bailed-out automakers GM and Chrysler.
Saab is in full re-start mode. A few days ago, we reported that Saab is re-starting incentives. Now, they are re-starting production. Germany’s Automobilwoche [sub] reports that “after a one and a half month pause, Saab is building cars again.” Now under the ownership of the Dutch boutique maker Spyker. They even hired a new sales chief, Adrian Hallmark, formerly Executive Director Asia at Volkswagen AG and Executive Vice President at Volkswagen of America. According to Automobilwoche, Hallmark faces “a formidable task.” Read More >
Carlos Ghosn was in India on Tuesday, juggling a lot of eggs and covering a lot of bases. The official reason for his visit was the opening of the new Renault-Nissan plant in Chennai, but Ghosn’s arrival set off a flurry of R-N related news in the Indian press.
All eyes are on Harrison, NY, today. Technicians from Toyota and NHTSA will head to the NYC burbs and pour over a 2005 Toyota Prius that crashed into a stone wall in the tony bedroom town of Harrison. Its driver claimed the hybrid had sped up on its own. Toyota will read out the data recorded in the Prius computer. According to the Associated Press, Toyota techs will “use equipment to determine how many times the driver hit the brakes and gas. It used the same tools earlier this week to cast doubt on a California driver who claimed his Prius sped to 94 mph before a patrol officer helped him stop it.” Read More >
Time to break out the (tasteful) shibari pictures. “Nissan would seriously consider joining a comprehensive tie-up between Renault S.A. and Daimler AG if the alliance they are discussing happens,” says The Nikkei [sub]. With Renault and Nissan tied-up both at the hips and on top, such a move would make more than just sense. Read More >
The biggest storyline right now for America’s bailed-out automakers is how little they’ve been able to capitalize on Toyota’s stumbles. While Ford and Hyundai made hefty sales gains last month, both GM and Chrysler’s performances were distinctly unimproved by Toyota’s woes. And now that Toyota is launching major incentive packages to recover lost sales momentum, Detroit has no remaining incentive to not revert to the bad old practices of incentive dependence. With GM and Ford diving into the zero-percent war, Global Insight’s George Magliano tells Automotive News [sub]:
Incentives are going to be here into the third quarter. We’re not going to wean consumers off incentives any time soon. We’re stuck with it. They’re all jockeying for position… After clunkers everybody backed off incentives. Now they’re going to the whip again
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