Former Saab Chairman Victor Muller “will be called in to answer questions related to a Swedish inquiry into alleged tax offenses at the bankrupt carmaker,” Sweden’s  Economic Crime Authority told Reuters. (Read More…)

PSA Peugeot Citroen told Reuters it is not true that it is low on cash, and that it needs  to ask shareholders for an infusion. France’s La Tribune says that Peugeot is looking at a capital raise after burning through 2.5 billion euros ($3.23 billion) of cash in the past year.
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The much debated Volkswagen Law most likely will remain much debated for a while, says Automobilwoche [sub]. The matter is pending  at the European Court of Justice, and no decision has been rendered, however, “an influential expert witness” (Automobilwoche) rendered the opinion that the current situation is within the law. (Read More…)

There is more chaff ejected from GM’s media department than from an airplane under missile attack. Sifting through the chaff, one finds a message that is the same as it was for decades: Things will be great real soon now, promise. Leave it to Fortune to present three questions GM should ask and answer (don’t hold your breath) : (Read More…)

The fact that GM creates 6,000 jobs in China and will invest $11 billion in China until 2016 (and $16 billion in America)  gets all the headlines.  What falls under the table is the fact that someone else invests $76 billion each year straight into more than a million Americans.  It’s the Japanese auto industry. (Read More…)

After the March 11 monster earthquake and tsunami wiped out large parts of Japan, headlines focused on the near-meltdown of Fukushima. Recently, I learned that there was a strong likelihood of a worldwide economic meltdown, caused by a microchip factory 80 miles south of Fukushima. Here is the story of how the crisis was contained. (Read More…)

According to media reports, Volkswagen workers received a hefty, inflation-busting pay rise today, giving the impression that VW workers are being especially coddled. Not true. Metal workers in  all of Germany received a 5.6 percent raise in May (3.4 percent more from July on, followed by 2.2 percent starting in May 2014, to be exact.) Volkswagen workers received more or less the same. (Read More…)

The EU is very stingy when it comes to financial support for its automakers, and it prohibits most monetary assistance given by EU states to their industries. Of course, there are exceptions, and one such exception makes possible a $516 million loan to Renault. (Read More…)

Each  year, 24/7 Wall Street predicts which brands will disappear next year. It does so to dubious success. Of the 10 brands predicted to disappear in 2012, eight are still alive (more or less.) Only Saab is gone (some say it is not), and Sony Ericsson is now Sony. Of the 10 brands predicted to disappear in 2014, two are car brands, one is a buff book. (Read More…)

Better Place “filed a motion in an Israeli court to wind up the company, bringing an end to a venture whose battery charging network had aimed to boost electric car sales,” Reuters says. (Read More…)

South Africa’s main auto union threatened to “halt production” at a Volkswagen after union members were fired, Reuters says. (Read More…)

Henrik Fisker paired up with Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li to get his company back. Fisker is a co-founder of severely troubled Fisker Automotive. Li and Fisker are trying to buy the U.S. government loan to Fisker at a big discount. Henrik Fisker was ousted in March. (Read More…)

Says Reuters:

“Italian Industry Minister Flavio Zanonato said he asked automaker Fiat to stay in Italy after its planned merger with Chrysler, which has led labor unions to fear it plans to move its headquarters to the United States.”

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German launch catalog for the Polo

Where did the names of Volkswagen’s Passat, Golf, Scirocco, Polo come from? What is their meaning? For four decades, it was shrouded in mystery. Forty years later, a famous former Volkswagen CEO, Dr. Carl Hahn, and his illustrious former sales chief, “WP” Schmidt, help TTAC get to the bottom of an unsolved question,

Some of the worst performers in the truth department are the gossip press and the automotive media. A good deal there simply is fantasy. Knowing well that no-one will complain or check, bogus new product plans are being published.  The large-scale availability of cheap 3D rendering software (here is how it’s done) and of WordPress turns this disease into a pandemic.

Most of these lies come and go. Some stay and turn into history. A dark chapter of automotive history falsification is about the names of the new generation of cars that, in the early 1970s, rescued Volkswagen from the brink and that helped turn VW into the powerhouse it is today: Passat, Golf, Scirocco, Polo.

There is so munch nonsense written about those names, that we had to go to the very top, and ask the people who decided these names 40 years ago. (Read More…)