Today is the day when the Japanese majors announce domestic and global data for June and the half year. A little more than three months ago, a massive earthquake, followed by a devastating tsunami, paralyzed much of Japan’s infrastructure. It could not have come at a more inopportune time. The Japanese auto industry was already suffering from weak markets at home and abroad, paired with a rising yen that destroyed profits from exports.  Three months later, how big was the hit? (Read More…)

When I was a very young and very green copywriter, Dr. Carl Hahn, at the time CEO of Continental Tires and later CEO of Volkswagen, said in an agency brief: “We lose 10 Deutschmarks on every tire we sell.”

“Then we better stop advertising them,” said I.

Hahn gave me a pained look. The look was followed by real and massive pain in my left foot, because my Creative Director had kicked me viciously.

“Ouch!” I said.

“You’ve got that right,” said Hahn.

That little story crossed my mind when I read in The Nikkei [sub] that “Mitsubishi Motors Corp.’s electric vehicles and other eco-friendly offerings are expected to begin contributing to the firm’s bottom line in two years.” (Read More…)

Why was Honda as much hit as Toyota by the March11 earthquake and tsunami? Doesn’t Honda have the bulk of its production outside of Japan? How could Nissan avoid most of the damage, even with an engine factory close to Fukushima?

It was a bit like a roulette game, and it involved a lot of chips.  According to industry talk in Japan, Nissan had taken a large supply of ECU chips before the quake. Honda and Toyota were waiting for their just-in-time delivery.  Honda and Toyota received most of their engine controller chips from one chipmaker, Renesas. Two weeks after the catastrophe, we had pointed out that Renesas and its damaged fab near the epicenter would turn into a major bottleneck. What’s more, Honda had no idea. (Read More…)

Say what you want about the nannyfication of cars, about gadgets that disturb the intimate relationship between man and machine. But a lot of the drastic decline of fatalities on the road goes on account of cars made safer with little electronics brains. Now, the brains think of people not even in the car. (Read More…)

Thailand, with a low currency, strong local demand and many foreign trade agreements, turns more and more into the South-East-Asian auto hub. Business-in-Asia gave it the unfortunate title “Detroit of Asia.” Thailand’s auto industry is targeting production of 3 million vehicles annually by 2015, more than countries like Canada, France, even Mexico currently make. Toyota, Honda and Nissan already have a pretty tight grip on the country. Now, Nissan is taking it a notch up. (Read More…)

Yesterday, we talked about a new gasoline-powered Daihatsu car that gets 70 mpg (non-EPA). After The Nikkei [sub] broke that story, the phone rang in Tokyo and several other manufacturers said “watashi tachi mo!” (Us too!) And today, The Nikkei [sub] is out with the story that other manufacturers “are mounting a challenge by launching gasoline-powered models that can compete with hybrids on fuel economy.” Not only that, they severely beat the pricey hybrids on price. Buy the car, and you can start saving right away. (Read More…)

Doesn’t it bug you that you have to shell out loads of money in order to save gas? Here comes a fuel sipper that won’t suck your wallet dry. No fancy electronics, no heavy batteries, and it even so gets 30km per liter of gasoline (according to the JC08 standard,) which translates to a non-EPA, but nonetheless jaw-dropping 70 mpg. According to The Nikkei [sub], Toyota’s Kei car subsidiary Daihatsu “has developed technology that will enable it to offer the only [gasoline powered] car in the world” that gets these numbers without hybrid technology. (Read More…)

You may not care very much when U.S. News ranks the $84,060 Nissan GT-R “2 out of 8 Super Luxury Sports Cars.” The thought might cross your mind that with a paltry $84K price, it can hardly qualify as a Super Luxury Sports Car. But you will take note when Top Gear runs the car around its airport-cum-testtrack and … (Read More…)

„But if it’s attention you are after, no conversion beats Hello Kitty,“ says the announcer. And after a long pause: “ … even in Kyoto.”

No kitting.

“Right now, there is no specific joint development project going on with Volkswagen,” Suzuki Executive Vice President Yasuhito Harayama told reporters who came to Suzuki’s headquarters in Hamamatsu, Japan, to meet four executive vice presidents of Suzuki. Come to think of it, there had been no progress over the past 18 months in the much feted partnership between Suzuki and Volkswagen, Harayama said.

The man who just cut deep in the fraying strands of the tie-up between Volkswagen and Suzuki would have all reason to say everything is fine.  Harayama is a former bureaucrat at Japan’s economy and trade ministry who was hired by Suzuki two years ago. He is in charge of relations with Volkswagen. It is not in his interest to admit defeat.

According to comments made by Harayama to Ran Kim of Reuters, one of the sharpest reporters on the Japanese auto beat, relations between Wolfsburg and Hamamatsu turned into a deep freeze when Volkswagen tried to “wield influence over Suzuki’s management.”

“It was made very clear when we tied up with Volkswagen that we did not want to become consolidated, and that we would remain independent,” Harayama said.

Before anything will happen between Suzuki and Volkswagen, the deal needs to be renegotiated. (Read More…)

One of the pillars of public relations is „do good and tell the world about it.“

Not in Japan. Here, the rule  goes “do good and keep your mouth shut.” Hard-hit Japanese carmakers have been at the forefront of aid to tsunami-ravaged areas. Toyota for instance sent some 100 tractor-trailer loads of fuel, food and other necessities up north to Tohoku – in utter secrecy.  Honda said they donated 1,000 generators and 5,000 gas canisters, and never talked again about the bulk of the help.

None of the CEOs of large car companies are seen on TV shaking hands of dealers and donating cars to the cause. This leaves a void, and nature abhors a vacuum. Nature does, and Carlos Ghosn. (Read More…)

How does one test drive a car that is only available in India? In my case, easier done than said. I took the train from Yugawara three stations to Mishima. (Read More…)

Nissan and Mitsubishi are edging even closer. Now, they inked a production deal where Mitsubishi produces the Navara pickup trucks for Nissan at Mitsubishi’s plant in Thailand. Production will start “in fiscal 2012,” which starts on April 1, 2012. (Read More…)

“Producing in Japan will remain extremely difficult as long as the conditions don’t change,” said Akio Toyoda today, and appealed to the Japanese government to “level the playing field.” Toyota did some leveling of its own. In a big board meeting, Toyota leveled swaths of corporate structures. (Read More…)

On Tuesday, I will go to the Fuji racetrack in the hills halfway between Tokyo and Nagoya. I will test drive a Toyota that is not available in Japan, nor is it in the U.S. It is however available and quite a success in India. Can you guess which one it is?

When I pointed at the map, my wife mentioned that her father, bless his heart, has some real estate in Yugawara, and that she has the keys. Yugawara, famous for its hot springs and not much else, sits right smack in the middle of the area which has an 87 percent chance of getting hit by an earthquake with a magnitude of about 8 within the next 30 years.

I was reminded of that this morning. Instead of being woken up with kisses and a cup of coffee, the house kicked me in the butt. Earthquake. (Read More…)