GM’s Opel will cease building cars at its German Opel plant. After 2016, no complete cars will roll off the lines at the 50 year old plant. Opel will keep a logistics hub in Bochum. The plant will continue making yet undefined components, Opel’s interim boss Thomas Sedran told German media today. (Read More…)
Opel is bleeding money and has to save at all costs. Opel hoped to share development of the next generation Insignia with PSA, but that was called off before it was even announced. According to German media reports, Opel engineers quickly developed a more cost effective solution: A head transplant. (Read More…)
Opel’s cutsey Adam city car will be offered as a privateer rally car for competition in the R2 class (which is fairly close to stock, albeit with some substantial changes like a sequential gearbox). The R2 will be the first tier in a multi-stage rally car program and Opel has apparently committed to rallying through 2016. Hopefully they last longer than Mini.
GM wants to thin out its South Korean workforce while shifting production to Europe’s higher-wage locations. Korean unions already see it as a declaration of war. (Read More…)
GM CEO Dan Akerson re-affirmed his committment to Opel while speaking at company headquarters in Ruesselsheim, Germany.
GM’s German union chief wants the company to move production of the Mokka baby SUV (aka our Buick Encore) from South Korea to Europe. The reason? Because it would help with overcapacity in Europe.
Ah, those French! With their alliance with GM on les rocks, PSA is casting about for a new partner, just in case “the co-operation with GM and Opel should fail,” writes Germany’s Manager Magazin. PSA and Tata already had first talks, the usually well connected German business magazine says. (Read More…)
A while ago, I chatted with an industry executive who had “done time” (his words) at GM. I asked him how that was, and he said: “There is always that talk about the current Big Deal that will bring the company back to its former glory. When that Big Deal fizzles, it’s on to the next Big Deal.” A formerly Big Deal is fizzling in Europe.
As we reported yesterday, General Motors and PSA have put the brakes on a broader alliance. Allegedly after PSA accepted financial assistance from the French government, as Reuters says, which broke the story. GM’s stock price immediately changed course southwards, because the consequences can be enormous.. (Read More…)
General Motors and PSA have put the brakes on talks regarding a broader alliance after PSA accepted financial assistance from the French government to help its ailing financial situation.
Opel’s German unions want a deal with management before Christmas, Opel works council Chairman Wolfgang Schaefer-Klug told Reuters in an interview. Here the cliff notes: (Read More…)
GM told Reuters that it won’t build the next-generation Chevrolet Cruze in South Korea. Reuters says this is “raising the possibility that GM might shift the assembly to Europe to help boost efficiency at its money-losing unit there.” (Read More…)
After a rash of interim-CEOs, Opel may have found a more permanent one. It’s the former Volkswagen manager Karl-Thomas Neumann. The successful recruitment was first published by Financial Times Deutschland, the report was quickly confirmed by wire services and major German newspapers. (Read More…)
Fans of HBO’s hit show The Wire will remember The New Day Co-Op, a coalition of Baltimore heroin dealers who band together in part to get better deals on their drug supply and remain strong against law enforcement and rival gangsters. Half a world a way, a similar proposal was floated by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne, but never came to pass.
We have documented how GM and Opel have a hard time separating themselves from the Bochum plant, something that is urgently necessary to address Opel’s dangerous overcapacity. The date to close the plant is being kicked more and more down the road and well past the use-by date of the current and some future Opel CEOs. Currently, it looks like Bochum and gaping wounds will stay open through 2017. Or maybe longer … (Read More…)
Unions reached a last minute deal with Opel: Plant closures and layoffs are off the table through 2016. This according to information given by works council chief Walter Einenkel to the usually reliable Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. (Read More…)
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