Someone is really trying to shop around Opel. Or maybe it’s just a tactic to cow German unions into submission?  Two weeks ago, Volkswagen and the inevitable Chinese were floated as possible buyers. What other bogeymen could there be? Ah, yes, the Koreans! (Read More…)

Jacques Séguéla, a French photographer and founder of the advertising agency RSCG supposedly once said: “Don’t tell my mother I’m in advertising, she thinks I’m a pianist in a brothel”. It must have been an exclusive brothel. Photographers, especially for cars, are paid higher and are sought after more than exquisite courtesans. Fees of $1,000 per hour are not unheard of. What do they do for that much money? They make the cars look good. (Read More…)

Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota, Daihatsu, and Hino) is expected to land with a thud on place 3 in the global ranking of automakers in 2011. I came to this conclusion after several telephone calls and a flurry of emails. In the end, Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco gave it to me (as requested) in writing:

“When it comes to the current CALENDAR YEAR, on a consolidated basis (TMC, Daihatsu and Hino combined), TMC is now (as of June 10) forecasting production of 6.8 million units.”

The avalanche of telephone calls and emails was triggered by an article in The Nikkei [sub] today, that had left the opposite impression.  We’ll get to that article in a minute. First, the table: (Read More…)

A chicken could become as unreachable as caviar in many poor countries, warns a study of the OECD and the United Nations. Chicken is projected to rise in price by 30 percent in the next ten years – inflation adjusted. Other staple foods such as corn, sugar or cooking oil are seen rising in price by twenty percent. Why? On one side of the ledger is higher demand, mainly from China and India. On the other side: „Increasingly, the crop doesn’t end up in the pot, but as fuel in the tanks of cars,“ says the German magazine Der Spiegel. (Read More…)

The Volkswagen Group is hitting on all available cylinders, and there are many: For the first time in recorded Volkswagen history, VW delivered more than 3 million units in the first five months, 3.37 million, to be exact. Compared to the same period last year, that is an increase of +14.6 percent.  These gains are steady and continous. In May, VW sold 708,900 units worldwide, up 17.4 percent compared to May 2010.

Around the world, Volkswagen’s  January-May sales were as follows: (Read More…)

Workers, government, the press, all want a clear statement from GM: Is Opel up for sale, or not?

No clear statement is forthcoming, and frustration runs high. There never had been an official denial of the possible spin-off. The stress is so enormous that an alleged telephone call in which GM’s Dan Akerson supposedly told Opel’s Karl-Friedrich Stracke that purportedly GM is not in talks with a buyer for Opel, makes headlines around the world. Is that for real? (Read More…)

As you know, the Russian government offered foreign automakers a deal: Invest heavily into the Russian auto industry, and Mother Russia will let you import parts and components at negligible or zero duty rates. Present your plans no later than July 1. Here is Volkswagen’s answer: (Read More…)

Whenever I mention Daimler’s Über-Benz Maybach, even people in the know often remark: “Haven’t they stopped making them a while ago?” No, they have not. But they might. Or not. (Read More…)

100 years ago, just 25 years after the automobile was invented, a car reached the speed of 141.73 mph while the earth shook. The car could have done it a few years earlier. The pavement had to catch up first. The car was the Blitzen-Benz with a massive displacement. And this is its story. (Read More…)

Opel workers in Germany are getting increasingly frustrated and are banging the table. Rainer Einenkel, head of the works council in Bochum, today demanded that GM management in Detroit “immediately makes a clear and unambiguous statement, and to deny the plans of a sale without ifs and buts.” Rainel Einenkel writes on the website of the works council in Bochum that “ambiguous statements aren’t helpful, neither for the workers nor for our products.”

Yesterday, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel also demanded clarification from Detroit after the German newspaper Die Welt had written that China’s BAIC had made an offer for Opel. The paper said that GM’s board is tilting towards cutting Opel loose. On Thursday, Der Spiegel and Auto Bild had written that “GM is slowly wising up to the fact that the reasons that led to the planned Opel sale in 2009 have not changed.”  Media reports said that GM CEO Dan Akerson is getting impatient.

Now, it seems, there is impatience all around.

In the meantime, I finally tracked down my former Opel executive who always had been a dependable source. (Read More…)

While walking down memory lane to the dark days of diesel, I came across this gem in the archives of the Volkswagen History Department: The prototype of the first Golf Convertible. It was developed and produced by Karmann in Osnabrück. The company went bankrupt. Volkswagen bought Karmann, and inherited this find. (Read More…)

47.2 percent of all cars bought in Germany last month don’t run on gas. They run on diesel. It wasn’t always that way. A quarter century ago, a diesel car was unheard of in Europe. Well, not quite: The Mercedes diesels had a characteristic tractor sound. The diesel Mercedes was popular with taxi drivers because it was so sturdy, and with farmers. Farmers could buy low-tax diesel for their tractors. Allegedly, some found its way illegally into their diesel-Benz.

Success is not built on lawbreaking farmers and taxi drivers. What made the diesel driven car so popular?

It was the Volkswagen Golf D. And it didn’t make sense at all. (Read More…)

The other day, Daimler unveiled its third generation of the M-Klasse SUV, and it has big plans for it. When it’s available at dealers some time this fall, Daimler expects to sell boatloads of it to regain lost ground in the luxury race. There will be a three models, and there will be lots of pictures after the jump … (Read More…)

China’s BAIC, the car company that is for all intents and purposes owned by the city of Beijing, is after Opel. That’s what Germany’s Welt, a paper usually well connected with the current German government, heard “from sources inside the company.” (Read More…)

Day 2 of the Opel rumor mill, and it keeps on grinding. Is Opel up for sale or is it not? Opel, their works council and regional governments close to the labor unions dismissed yesterday’s reports of a possible sale of Opel by GM as pure speculation. Yesterday, Opel chief Karl-Friedrich Stracke sent a letter to all employees. Today, he called an all hands meeting in Rüsselsheim and appealed to his workforce to ignore the nasty rumors. What is missing: A clear denial from Detroit. Today, Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel demanded that GM should “provide clarity regarding the future of Opel,” writes Der Stern. And the magazine adds: “GM however continues to take cover.” (Read More…)