It used to be that you paid for your car keys.  If BMW gets its w ay, you will pay with your car keys. Automobilwoche [sub] reports  that BMW ist developing the “car key of the future.” Oddly enough, it won’t unlock revolutionary new features of the car. It will replace the credit card, a train ticket and a room key at the hotel. Say what? (Read More…)

Watching people “Snap” is very funny (when I was at school in the UK they were called “cuss matches”). I learnt some very funny insults. Some insults were so funny, I’ve been banned from reproducing them on TTAC (Ed – We’re a family website!). But nothing lifts the spirits more than watching 2 people going head-to-head, armed with the sharpest, finest “Yo mamma…” insults. But what happens when that element comes to the automotive world? Well…

Even though the luxury car market in India is very small, the players are taking it seriously. So seriously, they’re trying to bitch slap each other. The Hindustan Times reports that Mercedes-Benz and BMW are “trading verbal volleys at each other at every opportunity.” 2 Germans hurling insults at each other in the middle of India? Did someone put a load of magic mushrooms on my pizza? Pee in your curry? Gee, in Germany something like that would get you a “cut it out now!” phone call from the VDA, the “Verband der Automobilhersteller” (formerly “Verband Deutscher Autobomilhersteller”). But in India? (Read More…)

A friend of mine once tried to break the world record for the longest time standing on one foot. The record (at the time) was held by Arulanantham Suresh Joachim of Sri Lanka for standing on one foot for 76 hours and 40 minutes. My friend lasted 2 minutes, then collapsed in heap and wondered if he’d maybe broken a bone in his leg. Silly boy. If he wanted to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, all he had to do was buy a Volkswagen Passat. (Read More…)

With the aftereffects of the Abwrackprämie, that German cash for clunkers on steroids, slowly abating, Germany is slowly coming back to normal. In September, car sales were 17.8 percent below September 2009 (red line), but only 0.6 percent below September 2008  (blue line). For the first nine months, sales are 27.5 percent below prior year, but only 8.6 percent below the same period in 2008. (Read More…)

About a year ago, a mutual friend introduced me to Uwe Gemballa. He looked a bit like a pimp from central casting: bleached blond hair, a flashy watch,  gold chain. He tuned Porsches. He wanted to import Gemballas to China, and could I help him? Like many China deals, that deal never got off the ground. And as I read the news today, I think to myself: I’m glad it fizzled. Dodged that bullet. Literally. (Read More…)

Way, way, back, a German company called Volkswagen came to Brazil to develop this backwater market. Now, Brazil has overtaken Germany. According to Jato Dynamics consultancy, Brazil has confirmed its position as the fourth largest world market. (Read More…)

Now that Volkswagen is the de facto owner of Porsche, after Porsche’s audacious bid to take over Wolfsburg ended in utter defeat, one has to ask oneself: “Is Volkswagen going to embarrass Porsche any further?” The answer appears to be “yes”. Let me explain… (Read More…)

When I started as a budding (and driver’s license less) copywriter on the Volkswagen account in fall of 1973, they were just introducing a (for Volkswagen) highly unusual car. They called it the Passat. After that followed in rapid-fire fashion the Golf, the Scirocco, the Polo. They turned the company around. And kept me employed for more than 30 years. With the Golf being the volume Weltmeisterr, it is often forgotten that it was the Passat that started a new era at Volkswagen. And now, the car enters its 7^th generation. (Read More…)

A few weeks ago, one of our overabundance of resident Germans wrote about how Volkswagen wanted to marry the Italian bride, Signorina Alfa Romeo. The project was colloquially called “Italian dressing” (Those Germans and their crazy sense of humor(!)). But it was soon dismissed as a throwaway comment from a company hell-bent by taking over ze vorld. Well, now Piech himself is getting involved, and if Piech wants something … (Read More…)

Porsche just announced something highly unusual: Record full-year revenues from selling Porsches. No more option plays with attached sheet metal bending operation. Revenues rose 17.9 percent to a record €7.79b ($10.5b), and Porsche said it expects to see the positive trend continue in the current business year, reports Reuters.

And where do all these sales come from? Definitely not from Porsche’s core markets, the U.S.A. and Germany. (Read More…)

Recently, I’ve been watching a TV show called “Man Vs Food”. After watching the first season, I’ve learned 2 things: 1. There’s way too much food in the United States and 2. Getting greedy always causes problems. Setting a highly ambitious target only to figure out you’ve set the bar too high is embarrassing. But if you have a big enough stomach or a big enough ego, you can succeed. I suspect Martin Winterkorn has the latter. (Read More…)

Remember the 4 “dead brands” walking? Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and Saab? Seems like a long time ago. Who’d have thought Saab would be the last brand standing? Arguably, the one of the weakest brands of them all. At least Hummer and Saturn had genuine interest. But Saab found a Dutch white knight (a white knight with a 3 legged horse and a rusty sword), in Spyker and survived. It really started heads scratching as to how a damaged brand and a never profitable car maker could survive in an industry where size is king. But it seems the Dutch-Swedish venture may be getting some help from an unlikely source. (Read More…)

Where would the German car industry be without China? You guessed it: In deep Scheisse. China’s insatiable demand for German cars helped the German auto industry survive the crisis stronger than ever. Germany’s new car exports to China in the first six months of this year reached €4.4b ($6b). That’s 6.1 percent of its total car exports, says the China Business Times via Gasgoo. (Read More…)

If you are one of the richest car executives of the world, if you have “about twelve children. You never can tell for sure”, if those children are from four different women (I did not say wives), and if you are 73, you slowly start doing some estate planning.  That’s exactly what Ferdinand Piech, Emperor of Volkswagen and Porsche, did. His heirs are livid. (Read More…)

Germany doesn’t have an EV yet, but they already have a standard fort he EV plug. I would expect no less from my countrypersons. Before they do anything new, they first create a standard for it. Audi, BMW, Daimler, Porsche and Volkswagen have agreed to support a connector system for the charging of electric vehicles based on IEC standard 62196-2. The five German vendors invited utility providers and other OEMs to join the group. Given Volkswagen’s  monstrous market share in Europe, there won’t be much other choice for the juice. (Read More…)