The world’s largest automotive supplier, Bosch, is investing big into the world’s largest car market, China. The company has 283,000 employees worldwide. 26,000 of them work in China. Soon, that n umber will nearly double to 50,000, reports Bosch’s hometown paper, the Stuttgarter Nachrichten. (Read More…)
Our daily run-down of delays, shut-downs, shortages, and postponements.
After a long weekend (Monday was Spring Equinox), Japan came back to work today. Most of the Japanese auto industry did not.
Japan’s largest automaker Toyota, and Japan’s third largest, Honda, won’t be making any cars this week. Japan’s auto production is paralyzed. (Read More…)
For days, I have been trying to get a clearer picture of what is really going on outside of the largely intact gates of the major Japanese carmakers. Nobody is talking. Most keep mum because they don’t know. Some don’t talk because they don’t want to.
Now there is a rare glimpse into the matter. It has been written by Kevin Krolicki with the help of two colleagues at Reuters. Kevin is the Detroit bureau chief of Reuters. He writes about cars a lot. Comes with the territory. Kevin and I share a common affliction: A Japanese wife. A week ago, Kevin found himself going against the stream of expats that were mobbing the planes out of Japan.
Two days after the quake, Kevin went from Detroit to Tokyo to help the team of Reuters reporters in Japan. (Read More…)
There are gallant, yet disturbing news coming from Japan’s automaker front. Japanese automakers unite to cope with the disaster. “Automakers have set up a joint headquarters for support measures and are sharing damage reports and other information,” reports The Nikkei [sub]. “They have a plan that aims to provide more effective support by dividing their forces by region and building teams on the fly. Staff from, say, Toyota may end up lending a hand to a parts maker that does business with, say, Nissan.” According to the Nikkei, Japan’s automakers also have come to a “silent understanding” to not to compete for who might be first to restart production. What is causing the sudden unity amongst former bitter rivals? (Read More…)
Amidst the rubble of earthquake and tsunami-racked Japan, a strange phenomenon: Three of the smallest local automakers suffered no interruption in production, while the very largest seemed to be hit the hardest. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan have all suffered some kind of production interruption since the quake hit, while Mazda, Suzuki and Mitsubishi remain untouched according to Automotive News [sub]. In a tragedy like this, some might be tempted to ascribe this division of suffering to some universal sense of justice, a cosmic leveling of Japan’s automotive playing field. But, as the map above proves, this twist of fate is purely geographic… Mazda, Mitsubishi and Suzuki happen to have all of their plants located well south of the affected area near Sendai. Besides, Subaru, one of Japan’s smallest automakers, closed five factories. There’s no making sense of a mess like this…
If you only get excited by the sausage of a car and not by the sausage making of a car factory, hop on to the next article, because this will utterly bore you. Everybody gone? Alright, talking to myself again. We’ve always said, not really in jest, that two industries profit the most from just in time manufacturing: The real estate industry and the trucking industry. Honda wants some of that money. (Read More…)
Today, none of the 50,000 workers employed at Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg plant have to punch in at work. The factory is waiting for parts. You may think that is their good or tough luck.
Not so, says Dan Sharkey, a Detroit lawyer who counts many auto suppliers as his clients. The shortages affect us all. Parts shortages are “”beyond a trend; it’s an epidemic,” Sharkey told Automotive News [sub]. These shortages are stopping assembly lines around the world, just when demand is beginning to pick up.
Here is a current snapshot, taken by Automotive News: (Read More…)
GM and its Korean battery partner LG Chem have signed licensing agreements with the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, giving the two firms access to Argonne’s proprietary lithium and manganese-rich metal oxide mix for use in lithium battery cell cathodes. The material will need “several years of testing” according to The General, but could extend battery life, increase charging voltages and storage, and make Li-ion cells safer. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu says GM’s agreement with the publicly-funded lab
gives General Motors the ability to use cutting-edge battery technology throughout its supply chain. The licensing of this technology will also spur the renewal of the American battery industry, creating hundreds of new jobs where they are needed most.
But that’s not quite the whole story. According to press releases, GM’s deal with Argonne allows the automaker to
to use Argonne’s patented composite cathode material to make advanced lithium-ion batteries
But LG Chem’s agreement allows the Korean firm
to make and use Argonne’s patented cathode material technology in lithium-ion battery cells
In short, a publicly-funded lab has licensed technology in a way that appears to deepen the (partially) government-owned automaker’s dependence on a foreign firm. Confused? So is the mainstream media. And so, to some extent, are we.
Though an objectively awesome car by any (non-environmental) metric (review forthcoming, I promise) some Corvette ZR1 owners are plagued with a strange brake vibration. Which, thanks to the Corvette Forum, is available for all and sundry to see. But let’s dig a little deeper: bearing in mind the customer involved is a personal friend, and his paraphrased comments are as follows.
It’s been a tough 2010 for Saab, which is trying to survive on a $40k sedan, a bunch of holdover models and the promise of a Cadillac SRX clone (coming Spring 2011). Sure there are plans for future cars, but no money to develop them. Meanwhile Saab’s US sales are down 44 percent through November of this year, with only 4,371 units moved (3,721 of which were 9-3s). So with the Swedish government probably wondering why it helped keep the struggling automaker alive, it’s funding a transmission development program staffed by Saab engineers. Bloomberg reports:
Saab and Fouriertransform AB, the Swedish government’s venture-capital firm, will staff the company with about 50 engineers from Saab’s powertrain division… The venture, which will be formed at the start of 2011, will develop transmission systems, such as gearboxes, for Saab and other carmakers
Saab is already jointly developing electric AWD systems and drivetrains in a venture with the supplier American Axle, making the deal with Fouriertransform its second JV in the supplier realm. Analysts hail the move as “a move in the right direction,” and given the brand’s recent history of selling new cars (or lack thereof), it’s hard to disagree. These supplier-side deals are the most pragmatic moves Saab has made since being booted from the GM empire.
One of the major losers in the recent “Carpocalypse” was the supplier sector, which lost hundreds of business to bankruptcy as OEMs clamped down on costs and the government refused to stop the bleeding with an effective bailout. Relationships have re-stabilized over recent months,as both the surviving suppliers and OEMs have swung back to the black, but profits aren’t enough to stop the oldest management profit-inflating move in the book: putting the screws on suppliers. Since the US market doesn’t appear on-track to regain its old 16m annual sales level, suppliers and OEMs can’t simply grow together.
It’s been some time since since we had a “Trade War Watch” on mounting trade tensions in the auto industry, and thank goodness for that. In this economic climate of cuts, currency swings and bankruptcies, what we need are things which will make the situation worse, right? In May I reported about how the EU put a 20.6 percent tariff on aluminium wheels from China. The EU did this in response to complaints from domestic manufacturers. Naturally, this left a sour taste in China’s mouth. Well, over 5 months later, you’d think that the EU would have calmed down and this nasty business would be swept under the carpet, right? Erm, not quite….
Just weeks ago, Amp Electric Vehicles CEO Steve Burns told the New York Times
G.M. doesn’t know if we are friend or foe… They’re trying to figure it out.
What The General was trying to figure out was whether allowing Amp to sell $50k electrified versions of its Chevrolet Equinox is a good or bad thing. After all, if BMW can charge $800 per month for EV-anxious consumers to test its disappointing MINI E, why shouldn’t GM get in on the early adopter-scalping game? Two weeks ago, GM spokesfolks said
We’re pro-E.V., and it’s a good thing that there others out there moving the electric vehicle market forward.
Today, Amp is announcing that it has signed an agreement with “a major OEM” to electrify one of its SUVs… within 60 days, no less. Though the press release doesn’t specify which OEM is sponsoring the project, the fact that AMP exclusively electrifies GM products and hires former GM consultants should speak for itself. And with Tesla prepping an EV RAV-4 for Toyota, would it be shocking to find out that GM is playing the me-too game by commissioning an EV Equinox? On the other hand, maybe we should take the “SUV” label seriously and consider the possibility that Amp is electrifying a full-size GM ute? Either way, the trend towards rapid outsourced development of EVs is seriously starting to take hold…
Edmund’ Bill Visnic takes on the latest Harbour report, which finds North American auto plants running at an average of 58 percent capacity (even Europe, the global whipping boy for intractable auto overcapacity operates at an average 81 percent). Despite the recent downsizings across North America, the Harbour Report still estimates that 3.5m units of annual overcapacity remains in the US and Canadian auto manufacturing footprint, equivalent to 14 unneeded assembly plants. A rise in sales levels to the previous 15-16m mark could help the situation according to the report, but increased plant flexibility will be the factor that automakers can actually control. Even so, if 15-16m annual units don’t come soon, North America could be looking at more plant closures and job losses.
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