Cratering China sales due to the islands row made Toyota revise its production targets. Worldwide production by the Toyota Group including Daihatsu and Hino “now looks likely to reach around 9.8 million units to 9.9 million units for the calendar year instead of the currently projected 10.05 million units,” The Nikkei [sub] says.
The Volkswagen Up! and Skoda Citigo are compact cars with a huge potential for emerging markets like India. As much as Indians love small cars, they are big fans of sedans too. Thus everyone wants to upgrade to a sedan as soon as possible. However, big sedans are priced quite high since they attract additional excise duty. In India, a car which is less than 4-meters in length and has a gasoline engine less than 1.2-litre capacity or diesel engine less than 1.5-litre capacity, is classified as a small car. Read More >
GM wants to double its $5 billion revolving credit line. However, the junk credit rated company does not want to pay junk credit interest for it. “We think we can get it priced as if we’re investment grade, which is kind of one of our goals going into 2013, to achieve investment grade,” GM CEO Dan Akerson told Bloomberg yesterday in Sao Paulo.
The first American automobile built as a joint venture in China could soon be built at a China joint venture again. Fiat plans to bring Jeep production back to the Middle Kingdom, Bloomberg says. Read More >
La Carrera Panamericana 2012 ran its third day yesterday, and we’ve got a report of a five-cars-over-a-cliff wreck during yesterday’s race segment ending in Querétaro. Read More >
Warning: Video NSFW in Sharia jurisdictions and parts of corporate America
Nissan plans a budget Leaf to be sold along the current version, Nissan’s Andy Palmer told the Financial Times. With the stripper model, Nissan hopes to extend the car’s reach beyond early adopters to “pragmatists.” Another problems remains unsolved: The car’s reach. Read More >
Union representatives at Ford’s Genk plant in Belgium have been summoned to an emergency meeting on early Wednesday morning. No reason has been given, but unions expect the worst, says Reuters: The closure of Ford’s Genk factory. Read More >
Hong Kong, and I speak from experience, is a great place to incorporate, to save taxes, and to throw a cloak of secrecy over financial operations which otherwise would be out in the open. In the case of GM, it is also a great place to save their Korean behinds. In December 2009, GM sold a 1% stake in its Shanghai-GM (SGM) joint venture to the Hong Kong part of its Chinese partner SAIC for the paltry sum of $85m. GM also put its India business into a Hong Kong based joint venture (HKJV). GM provided the India business, SAIC provided cash. As it turned out later, unearthed in Ed Niedermeyer’s seminal oeuvre about the mystery golden share, SAIC also underwrote a $400 million loan. In its darkest hour at the end of 2009, GM was kept afloat by the Chinese. Now, history seems to repeat itself in some convoluted way. Read More >
Chinese traffic jams are great equalizers: They slow down all cars (except black A6 with flashing lights and a police escort.) Our reader and commenter Daveinchina spotted this car with an odd paintjob on the Hukun Expressway in Songjiang, on the outskirts of Shanghai. Read More >
The great October surprise announcement of progress at GM’s Opel front is turning into an October letdown. What will be announced “this month, early next month” will be a joint purchasing agreement between GM and 7 percent partner PSA Peugeot Citroen, GM CEO Dan Akerson told Reuters ahead of the Sao Paulo Auto Show’s media preview. In the industry, the joint purchasing agreement is seen as a non-event.
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“When you do everything right but too late, you do it all wrong. Before reaching a dead end, PSA decided to forge a partnership with a manufacturer [General Motors] that I don’t consider to be among the industry’s leaders of the pack. Overall, I think there is a lack of ambition [when it comes to product] from the French manufacturers.”
Every once in a very blue moon, I’ll go to a mini-warehouse auction.
The realities of this low-down clearance process is completely unlike the miracles and glories that come with episodes of Storage Wars. You want junky third world quality furniture? Or memoirs of the 1980’s and 1990’s left behind by your neighbors from their very last estate sale before they finally moved to a condominium? The local storage auctions are the place to go. 80% to 90% pure junk.
This is where I recently found this wrecked 2002 Toyota Solara SE with 140k miles. For $375, it was all mine.
Should I…
Chinese products have dominated almost every industry – except of course the automobile industry. But this could easily change. Chinese made cars are improving at a rapid pace and could soon challenge more established car makers. The Chinese invasion will soon start in India, with General Motors launching the Sail hatchback. The Sail is the brainchild of GM’s joint venture with SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation), which is by far the largest Chinese car maker, and which also happens to be GM’s joint venture partner for India.
Retired Chrysler CEO and former Ford president Lee Iacocca has endorsed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Iacocca is a political independent with a record of endorsing both Republicans and Democrats for the United States’ highest elected office. In his endorsement statement, which was also published as an op-ed piece in the Detroit News, Iacocca stressed his and Romney’s experience in “turnarounds”, America’s need for leadership, and his opinion that the future of the country depends on the results of this particular presidential election.
Is Ford about to re-name the Lincoln brand? A Detroit News reporter asked Jim Farley that question point blank, and his answer was evasive.
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