Toyota and BMW will announce a closer alliance as early as Friday, The Nikkei [sub] and Tokyo scuttlebutt say.  According to the Nikkei, the two will share Toyota’s hybrid and fuel cell technology. BMW will try seeking scale effects for its CFRP technology. TTAC will feature a closer look into Toyota’s carbon fiber capabilities once we have finished our own research. (Read More…)

Tomorrow, Thursday, the management of Opel will present an allegedly comprehensive turnaround plan to its supervisory board, Reuters reports. If GM stockholders expect a big bang to lift their holdings, they will most likely be disappointed. The plan is expected to deliver less and that later. However, it looks like Opel might share pain and plants with PSA Peugeot Citroen. (Read More…)

While other carmakers are treading water or worse, BMW’s global sales were up 9.1 percent for the first five months of the year, mostly on strong gains in China. That party is about to end, claims Citi Investment Research and downgraded BMW AG  from “buy” to “neutral,” Reuters reports.

In the euphemistic world of stock analysts, a “neutral” usually means a sell. (Read More…)

Five years ago, former and now disgraced Porsche chief Wendelin Wiedeking started the Porsche SE. It was a holding company, destined to hold the shares of Volkswagen after a successful takeover. Porsche cars are made by Porsche AG.  The takeover never happened. Volkswagen bought nearly 50 percent of Porsche AG, and wants the rest ASAP.  What will become of Porsche SE?

If the shareholders agree – and the shareholder meeting is today –  Porsche SE will become a trading house, selling rare earths, building solar farms, and offering car sharing services, Germany’s ARD says. (Read More…)

Today, Germany’s Spiegel Magazin reports what we suspected since last December: “BMW and Toyota edge closer.”  Both, says the magazine, will “enter a close partnership that transcends the projects that were agreed in the past.” (Read More…)

Last Saturday, Opel CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke wanted to address the workers at Opel’s Bochum plant. All he addressed was 2,000 backs as the workers got up and left. (Read More…)

Up until last month. the German car market was oblivious to the European carnage that had started in Mediterranean countries. and then slowly crawled north. In May. the car consumption disease arrived inside of Germany’s borders. (Read More…)

In the late 70’s, Volkswagen had plans to take over truck maker MAN and to sell a whole range of commercial vehicles, from light vans to heavy trucks under the MAN brand. MAN was never taken over, much to the relief of Volkswagen’s commercial vehicle division in Hannover that feared for its independence. Some 35 years later, the plan is close to become reality. (Read More…)

The UAW can write off organizing Volkswagen’s U.S. plant in Chattanooga. The effort has been damned by German unions. Volkswagen’s works council will explain to Chattanooga workers that there is no pressure from German unions for them to join the United Auto Workers union. With Reuters taking notes, Volkswagen works council chief Bernd Osterloh offered the most lukewarm support he can afford to give as a union brother: (Read More…)

A day before GM officially announced that the Astra production will be moved to Ellesmere Port, a move that is widely believed to seal the fate of Opel’s Bochum plant, we said that the decision won’t go down well in Germany, and that it will be very tough working with a doomed workforce. The workforce is already getting restive. (Read More…)

Opel chief Karl-Friedrich Stracke was asked to tell his workers unambiguously whether the Opel plant in Bochum will be closed or remain open. Today, Stracke met with workers in Bochum. He told them that no decision has been made – yet. (Read More…)

In the first chapter, we watched how BMW’s in-house motorsports department morphed into a separate company, that soon made its own cars. 16 years later ….

In 1988, the BMW M5 saw its second generation. The straight-six was pumped up to 3.8 liters, its power rose to 340 hp. (Read More…)

Allegedly, there is rampant overcapacity in Europe. Not so at BMW. “The BMW plants are busting at the seams,” writes Germany’s Handelsblatt. BMW is looking into building new factories abroad. Possible locations are Central Europe. Or rather Mexico, writes the paper. (Read More…)

Each year around this time, owners of – what is the German equivalent to rice racer? Reichs Racer? – overengined hatches congregate around the Wörthersee in Austria for the annual GTI Meeting. This is the 31^st year it will take place, the roads will be packed, beer and gasoline will flow in equally monstrous quantities, and the bucolic lake will boil. Also as usual, Volkswagen will send some special specimens to entertain the devotees. Here they are. (Read More…)

What was highly probable yesterday is definite: GM will shift production of the Astra compact from Germany to Ellesmere Port, England. Workers at the UK plant agreed nearly to a man and a woman (approval rate 94 percent) to a deal with GM that keeps Ellesmere Port open and that spells the near certain doom of Opel’s plant in Bochum.

Workers agreed to a four-year deal that freezes wages for two years, and that allows only moderate rises of around 3 percent for the following two years, Reuters heard from a source. The source also said: (Read More…)