I’ve been warned before by the B&B not to read too much into the forward-looking statements in SEC filings, especially the ones where companies ruminate over all the things that could still go wrong with their struggling firms. These legal disclosures of worst-case-scenarios often reflect unlikely scenarios and can be downright misleading, so we held off from diving too deep into Tesla’s IPO S-1 filing [complete document here]. Others around the web have jumped in without compunction, and this week has yielded a steady drip of troubling revelations. It’s a wild and woolly collection of issues, but given that people are going to be asked to invest in this nightmare of a company, it’s only fair that we give the grievances an airing.
With BMW feeling very small in a big fish’s pond, you’d think that BMW would be scrambling to make friends with bigger fish in order to survive. Well you’d be right. Canadian Business report that BMW have reaffirmed their co-operation with Peugeot-Citroen in order to develop an engine which will help both parties meet Europe’s “EU 6” emission standards, whereby a car’s nitrogen oxide level cannot be more than 80mg/km. In a joint statement, BMW and Peugeot-Citroen said they want to build a four cylinder petrol engine to meet this standard, which is due in 2014. The current engine can be found in some MINI models, Peugeot’s 207 & 308 and Citroen’s C3 Picasso, while a new generation would likely help power BMW’s forthcoming sub-1-Series models.
BMW is playing some PR roulette at the DC Auto Show [via Autoblog Green] with a “study” ostensibly proving that people who lease an electric MINI are “delighted” with the car. As if self-selection weren’t already an issue in a study of people who voluntarily spend $850 per month on a small hatchback, the 57 respondents (out of 450 MINI E guinea pigs) were (you guessed it) self-selected. Why the University of California Davis allows its name to appear on this blatant PR fabrication is difficult to fathom. Especially considering the MINI E rollout was a disaster, the product was compromised, and there are plenty of MINI E critics out there.
With a brand new BMW 3 Series in development, BMW has updated the current-generation coupe and convertible. Or has it? Say what you want about the Bangle era, in those days a mid-cycle refresh was a mid-cycle refresh.
More than a year ago, TTAC reported top-level attempts of a cooperation between BMW and Daimler. At the time, we didn’t give the cooperation big odds. Our educated prediction: As much as the heads of the automakers may desire mutual aid, middle management and especially the engineers will torpedo any tête-à-tête. “If you think South Korea and North Korea have communication problems, then you should be in a meeting between Daimler and BMW engineers,” was our analysis (based on input of people who have been in those meetings.) And we wrote: “Currently, Daimler and BMW don’t share much more than common pain.”
Supposedly, they kept talking. They could agree to joint purchasing of parts, but even that didn’t progress beyond less than lofty goals. Projects which promised savings of hundreds of millions, such as the joint production of transmissions and engines, went absolutely nowhere.
Now, Der Spiegel reports that all talks about possible jointness between Daimler and BMW have been called off. “There are no new meetings,” said a top manager to Der Spiegel. “There is nothing to talk about.” (Read More…)
I used to be a major hooligan, taking cloverleaf offramps every morning at speed in my E46 3 Series with tires squealing and occasional stability control intervention. I also enjoyed revving the German machinery to about 3500 rpms and dropping the clutch for a warp speed launch. After 20 or so launches like that with the car, nothing broke, fell off, or otherwise malfunctioned. It’s like the car was made for that kind of abuse. (Read More…)
BMW is rapidly becoming the Swiss Army Knife of automobile brands. Elegant and well-trained coupes, estates and sedans? Check. Interested in CUVs of both respectable and questionable utility? They got you covered. Though the X6 and 5-series Gran Tourismo are answers to a question nobody asked, the smaller, racier 750i Sport treads dangerously into well established 5-series territory. And while the 5-er and 7-er’s pasts are more than a little intertwined, should history repeat itself?
Sajeev, In their December 2009 issue, Car and Driver has a great article about how extended warranties — such as those offered by U.S. Fidelis and others — are largely scams that deceive customers, don’t really cover the cost of repairs at all, and don’t give refunds at cancellation.
My parents own a 2002 BMW X5 4.4. They bought it from Carmax and have the extended warranty from that dealership. It’s a fantastic car, but it’s had some very costly repairs — thankfully, those have been covered in full or at least in part by Carmax’s warranty. The thing is, that warranty expires this month and can’t be renewed.
The ‘rents are thinking of getting an extended warranty for the Bimmer, but after reading that C&D story I’m pretty convinced they would be throwing their money away. My question: are there ANY extended warranties out there that they can use? What can they do to help avoid the full cost of repairs?
Buying a new/different car isn’t really an option right now, because they want to keep the X5 as long as they can. The car has about 80,000 miles on it and still runs well, except for the occasional hiccup, but those can be pretty pricey on a BMW.
If you or the best and brightest have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
If you hear a loud screeching noise coming from the Stuttgart area, that’ll probably be Dieter Zetsche berating his Asian management team. The Economic Times of India reported that the Mercedes-Benz marque has lost its leadership of the luxury car segment in India to BMW after nearly ten years on top. Daimler also posted a 10.43% decline in sales in India, as volume fell to 3,247 units (if that doesn’t seem like much, consider that Mercedes also trails BMW in China by about 60k units to about 90k). And just like that, out come the excuses: “We are behind BMW in 2009 because of limited availability of our E-Class car … I don’t want to focus on leadership. We want to have a profitable growth,” Mercedes Benz India Managing Director and CEO Wilfried Aulbur told reporters. “We see a very strong growth in 2009 and it will be a blockbuster year for us. We are very bullish and we expect, it will be a high double-digit growth.” (Read More…)
Starting January 1, 2010, Chinese buyers will get the rare chance to buy a genuine, Made-in-München (or Regensburg) BMW 3 Series at the price of a Made-in-Shenyang BMW 3 Series, while the Chinese BMW/Brilliance joint venture updates its production facilities.
BMW Brilliance will import BMW 3 Series in large quantities starting January 1, 2010. The BMW venture in China will stop manufacturing the series temporarily to upgrade its production line, Gasgoo reports. (Read More…)
It’s a strange world. Europeans are changing their already small cars for tiny ones. Manufacturers fall over themselves building ever smaller and cheaper cars. In the USA, small cars are suddenly big. Ford’s analyst George Pipas says that this year, small cars accounted for 21 percent of all U.S. vehicle sales. By 2013, Pipas predicts that compact cars, subcompact cars and crossover vehicles built off small car platforms will account for 36 percent of total new vehicle sales in the United States. Car executives that still have a job bemoan the times where big cars meant big profits.
A new frugality is rampant on the globe. Makers of luxo-barges, such as BMW and Mercedes are in big doo-doo. (Read More…)
When Rolls Royce’s PR folks told Autobild that the Phantom Coupe was the sportier model in the lineup, they probably didn’t expect the German magazine to treat it like a GTI or Type R. But they did. The result? Er quietscht, er qualmt, er quält sich (or, as Google Translate hilariously puts it, “he squeaks, he smokes, he torments himself”), say the Germans, before concluding that “there is a little bit of BMW in this Rolls-Royce after all.” And in the proud tradition of German car reviewing, comparing any car to a German car is as high as the praise gets.
As regularly mentioned on Piston Slap, the LS-X engines are the best in the world for their compact size, low weight, simplicity, reliability, cost and ability to make more power with simple bolt-ons. So I wanted to share my project to TTAC’s readers: we put a ’99 LS-1 and T56 into our BMW E30. Everything works, A/C, cruise control, etc. Seriously.
It’s a sleeper, except for the “357i” numbers on the trunk (nice of BMW to make a “735” that we could cut apart) and our “E30-LS1” license plate!! Only those ‘in the know’ get it.
We published a “How-To” CD, which documents how to build the E30-LS1. It contains pictures from the build, Catia drawings, wiring, fuel system, driveshaft mods, engine mounts, radiator system, A/C, HydroBoost, etc. I also have more pictures here.
Nissan’s UK plant could lose the production contract for Nissan’s Leaf EV, thanks to the London 2012 Olympics’ committee. Production of the Leaf at Nissan UK’s Sunderland plant would almost certainly have been confirmed, sources tell Autocar, had the Olympics picked Nissan’s bid, creating instant demand for some 2,000 Leafs. Because they chose BMW to sponsor the 2012 Games, production of the Leaf in the UK is no longer a sure thing. Though Sunderland is still said to be in the running as the European Leaf production site, Nissan have plants in Portugal and Spain that are bidding for the job. And after the London Olympic committee’s implication that Nissan’s bid lost because they couldn’t rely on its EVs, Nissan seems ready to make all of England pay for the insult.
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