The European car market – if taken together, the world’s second largest behind China and before the U.S. – continues its slow drift to the bottom. Sales in May were down by 8.7 percent in the EU. This is the eighth month in a row that sales are in minus territory. Five months into the year, the market is down 7.7 percent. (Read More…)
Starting in 2014, cars will require an autobrake system, such as Volvo’s CitySafety technology, to achieve a five-star rating on the NCAP crash test.
Euro NCAP secretary general Michiel van Ratingen told AutoExpress that he expected all new cars sold in Europe to have such a system by 2017. Van Ratingen is hoping to halve the number of deaths resulting from auto accidents by 2020. Lane departure warning systems are also expected to be evaluated in the coming years – with the hopes that the new generation of safety systems will follow in the footsteps of stability control systems and become standard across the board. Hooray.
Brussels has bad news for Fiat and PSA, and by extension for Chrysler and GM. There will be no EU assistance for an orchestrated and painless capacity shedding, Financial Times Deutschland says. A report of an expert group puts European overcapacities at 25 to 30 percent. Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has been publicly lobbying for government support, PSA pressured the French government. As predicted here months ago, a lobby of German carmakers torpedoed any support from Brussels and is for Darwinian solutions instead. With carmakers at odds, European governments are happy that they don’t have to act. After all, there are more pressing problems in Europe. (Read More…)
Yesterday, we brought you the bad news about European auto sales in April. You are a gearhead, you don’t care about market share and percentiles, you care about cars! Here is how cars fared in Europe in April. Are you safely buckled-up? (Read More…)
Listening to the news from Europe, one thinks that there is chaos in the streets of Europe. Not yet. But Europeans are clearing room for chaos by buying fewer cars. 1,017,912 new passenger cars were registered in the EU, or 6.9 percent less than in the same month of 2011. Four months into the year, new registrations in the EU were 7.5 percent lower than a year earlier, the European manufacturers association ACEA reports. (Read More…)
Yesterday, Volkswagen sent out a gushing report, saying that group deliveries rose 6 percent in April and 8.6 percent January to April. Something smells in Wolfsburg. Let’s take a look. (Read More…)
Volkswagen’s CEO warned its shareholders of a “very demanding year,” what with the European debt crisis depressing auto markets and growth in growth markets slowing. What is growing is risks, said Winterkorn at VW’s annual general meeting. Oddly enough, it is Volkswagen’s competitors who should be very worried. (Read More…)
European car sales are getting it on the chin. Sale in the EU were down the sixth consecutive month, with a decline of 7.0 percent compared to March last year, ACEA says. March is prime selling season in Europe, and customers refuse to buy. March registrations have not been at this level since 1998. January to March, car sales in Europe are down 7.7 percent. (Read More…)
Record new car sales are not the news one does expect from Europe. But those are the news from Germany.
One by one, German automakers – with the notable exception of Opel – are reporting unheard-of numbers. Let’s have a look. (Read More…)
GM’s new partner PSA increasingly reminds of pre-carmageddon Ford: Europe’s number 2 finds itself short on cash and way too long on capacity. Other than Ford that had mortgaged everything, PSA takes more radical steps. After putting is own headquarters building up for sale, PSA is ready to sign over parts of its Aulnay car plant to renters. (Read More…)
In the last couple of weeks we have traveled to Georgia (the country, not the state,) Myanmar, Bolivia and the entire world! The success of our exploration of the Top 100 best-selling models in the world last week made me think you might be interested in a similar type of article about Europe…
However, if the whole of Europe is too much for you to handle today, that’s fine because I have sales info for 160 countries for you to visit in my blog, all one by one. So don’t be shy and click away!
Back to your Grand Tour of Europe.
A year ago nearly to the day, I was investigating the connection between Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and Fiat. With an American-led intervention in Libya underway, Reuters had reported that a Wikileaked State Department document revealed that the Libyan Government owned a two-percent stake in the automaker Fiat as recently as 2006. When I contacted Fiat’s international media relations department for comment, I received this response:
Dear Mr Niedermeyer,
Further to your email, I would mention that the Reuters report you refer to is incorrect. As too are other similar mentions that have appeared recently in the media concerning the LIA’s holdings in Fiat.
The LIA sold all of its 14% shareholding in Fiat SpA in 1986 – ten years after its initial stake was bought. It no longer has a stake in Fiat SpA.
I trust that this clarifies the matter.
It didn’t, actually. In fact the matter remained as clear as mud to me until just now, when I saw Reuters’ report that Italian police have seized $1.46 billion worth of Gaddafi assets, including “stakes in… carmaker Fiat,” under orders from the International Criminal Court.
(Read More…)
The “made for China” Buick Encore won’t be the last gawky micro-crossover put out by General Motors. In addition to the Encore and the Opel Mokka, it looks like Chevrolet will join the party too – perhaps what should have happened right from the start.
Volkswagen received a legal black eye from its estranged Japanese partner Suzuki. Volkswagen had taken a silly trademark fight all the way to the General Court of the European Union, and lost today, Reuters says. This is unrelated to the divorce proceedings between Volkswagen and Suzuki, but it definitely comes at an inopportune time. (Read More…)
You already have the bad news about February car sales in Europe. How did individual cars fare? JATO Dynamics provides us with a list of Europe’s Top Ten in February. With two exceptions, they are all down, some are way down. One exception creates great happiness in a suburb of Detroit. (Read More…)
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