Category: Industry News

American car makers to stop building large pick-up models

Due to a big sales slump in November, Chrysler, Ford and GM have announced they will stop producing temporarily the large pick-ups in order to avoid having a whole stock of them.
Indeed, in November, large pick-up sales have decreased by 8.3% while the overall market has slowed down by 3%. GM has 5 months stock of the Silverado model while Dodge has 4 months stock of the Ram model.
GM will stop production in the three factories where the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra are being built in next January. Chrysler will stop the Warren and Fenton factories from just before Christmas to end of January and in its Mexican plant during the first two weeks of January.
Ford hasn’t announced yet when it will stop the production lines. Perhaps the American car maker is still thinking about as the news might threat the launch of the new F150 model at the next Detroit Motor Show.
December 10, 2007
Mercedes-Benz to produce its own turbochargers

With 600,000 turbocharged engines to be built this year, an increase by 20% over the same period last year, Mercedes-Benz dependency on turbocharger becomes a strategic problem, especially when 50% of them are provided by one company, IHI. The German car maker has decided to stop outsourcing the turbocharger production in order to save cost but also control the manufacturing process.
In a interview with Automotive News Europe, Mercedes’ passenger-car engines and powertrains Chief Leopold Mikulic said Mercedes would soon become the third largest turbocharger producer in Europe. It is not said where the turbochargers will be built but Mercedes will collaborate with an Italian company for the production.
December 4, 2007
Bertone fills for bankruptcy protection

Italian coachbuilders are in the doldrums. After Pininfarini, which is looking for more manufacturing contracts, Bertone announced that it was asking for a ‘concardo preventivo’ equivalent to a bankruptcy protection and the Italian government to pay its 1,300 employees.
Like Pininfarina, Bertone suffers from a unpredictable and highly volatile manufacturing business and to date, Bertone has no contract despite having the capacity to build up to 70,000 cars a year. It’s not that Bertone rested on laurels, but some planned contracts collapsed: TVR, Fiat refusing to build the Suagnà…
Nevertheless, Bertone have some hopes with Massimo Di Risio, owner of a large dealer network in Italy. Indeed, the Italian CEO plans to sell its own small SUV on the Italian market. Designed in Italy, the SUV will have its platform and body built in China by Gonow. The car will be imported in Italy where it will receive a Fiat Multijet engine. Bertone is in the running for the job of producing 12,000 units per year while it needs to build 30,000 cars to break even. Let’s hope the future will be better for the coachbuilder.
November 30, 2007
VW Group to develop four new platforms

In an interview given to Automotive News Europe, VW brand board member for development, Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg revealed that Volkswagen group will release four new platforms in the coming years in order to achieve the 2018 target. With those new platforms, the German carmaker expects to reduce its cost by 40% thanks to components shared between the platforms and development times by one year.
The most important platform will be the MQB which will underpin up to 6 million vehicles every year. The platform will be flexible enough to equip a large range of vehicles from small cars to upper-premium models. According to some insiders, the MQB platform will be used as in many as 20 different models.
The second platform, dubbed MHB, will be featured by the new VW’s rear-engine models, which will be sold over the world as a low cost model. Once again, one does expect to see the platform underpinning a few million vehicles. At the opposite of the range, the luxury models will have their own platform already used by the Audi A4 and A5. Dubbed MLB, it features a longitudinally mounted engine for front-drive and all-wheel-drive transmissions. The next A6 and A8 models will use the MLB platform. The future Phaeton and Bentley models will likely use the same underpinnings.
Finally, a fourth platform will be devoted to sports cars and will be used by the future Lamborghini models and the Audi R8.
With this new platform range, Volkswagen plans to increase sales from 5.7 million vehicles in 2006 to 10 million cars in 2018.
November 27, 2007
Japanese market grows for the first time in 28 months

The Japanese market has recorded its first growth for the first time in 28 months. Do not expect this to be a new trend, however. As the Jada director Takeshi Fushimi explained, the good figures are due to the recent launch of new models and to more open days. A total of 269,221 vehicles were sold, representing a 2% increase over the same period last year.
Among the Japanese carmakers, Mitsubishi is the winner. Thanks to the new Lancer and new Galant Fortis, it recorded a strong 17.9% growth with 6,195 vehicles sold. Toyota ranks second with a 7.9% increase. The new Corolla Rumion may have helped to sell 136,135 vehicles. Mazda records an encouraging growth of 4.9% with 14,397 cars. The successful Demio might also help to explain the positive sales figure and the expected Mazda 6 is set to confirm the trend. Subaru also saw its sales increasing by 4.9% with 4,515 vehicles.
The biggest slump is for Daihatsu which recorded an impressive -43.6% with only 748 cars. Lexus also saw its sales decrease by 33.3% to 2,781 vehicles. The new Samurai sales approach does not seem to be improving sales. Despite the newly launched Fit, Honda has recorded a 6.3% drop with 30,346 vehicles. Nissan recorded an unfortunate 0.1% drop in sales.
November 8, 2007
French Automobile Market rose by 1.1 % in August

After a spectacular recovery of the French automobile market in July thanks to a 21% increase, the month of August stabilised with 139,640 registrations recorded. This 1.1% more than the previous year over the same period.
However a detailed analysis of the statistics shows a slightly different situation. The passenger car market fell by 2.4% with 111,260 registrations compared to August 2006 while the market for light commercial vehicles rose by a spectacular 17.1% with 28,380 registrations. August is generally not a very active market due to the holiday period.
For the first eight months of 2007, the new passenger car registrations reached 1,375,208 cars. This is 0.6% less than last year compared to the same period. With 307 447 registrations recorded from January to August 2007, the market for light commercial vehicles increased by 5.4 %.
French carmakers have lost their majority market share to imported brands with only 46% of market share. However on the first eight months, they still save the face with a 52% market share. Renault Group increased its sales by 2% thanks to Dacia. The sales jumped from 1,031 in August 2006 to 2,407 in August 2007 while Renault fell by 4%. On the other hand, PSA fell sharply by 13.4%. Peugeot sales decreased by 13.4% with 29,600 registrations. Citroën recorded the biggest fall with -17.3%.
Among the imported brands, BMW is the biggest winner. It progressed by 34.3%.
September 5, 2007
Car of the Year 2008 selection

The Car of the Year contest is a bit of a joke. Every year a group of 58 car journalists from 22 different countries meet together to select the best car of the year. Every year, German journalists tend to favour German cars, French the French cars. The vote makes a little more sense in countries where the automotive industry is not a national industry. However, if we add the fact that sometimes carmakers try to cheat by providing the ‘experts’ with slightly improved cars, the contest becomes even more of a joke. At the end the winning carmaker has the right to put a shiny sticker on the car, adding an extra selling point to the new model.
Despite the contest’s weaknesses, we still like it because it allows us car enthusiasts to argue, discuss and fight over the best car of the year.
Here is the list of the thirty selected cars. Later the list will be reduced to seven contestants and in January the committee will reveal the lucky winner.
Audi A5/S5
BMW X5
Chrysler Sebring
C-Crosser/Outlander/4007
Daihatsu Materia
Dodge Nitro
Fiat 500
Fiat Bravo
Ford Mondeo
Honda CR-V
Hyundai i30
Jeep Patriot
Jeep Wrangler
Kia cee’d
Land Rover Freelander
Lexus LS460/600h
Mazda2
Mazda CX-7
Mercedes C-Class
Nissan Qashqai
Nissan X-Trail
Opel/Vauxhall Antara
Peugeot 308
Renault Laguna
Renault Twingo
SsangYong Actyon
Skoda Fabia
Smart Fortwo
Subaru Impreza
Toyota Auris/Corolla
Volkswagen Tiguan
Volvo V70/XC70
September 4, 2007
560 orders for Tesla

Tesla Motors has received 560 orders since it went on sale. If we consider the £49,000/€73,000/$100,000 price tag, this is a very good news.
For anyone who has been living in a cave for the last few years, the Tesla car is the first full electric sports car. It runs the 0-60mph in 4 seconds like a real supercar and can reach 130mph.
Beyond the total number of orders, the interesting news is the trend. In June, the American start up had received 464 orders. In less than one month, the company sold 96 cars. If they keep up this pace the Lotus plant, based in Norfolk, will not be able to satisfy demand. It has the capacity to produce only 800 Tesla per year.
The first cars will be delivered in September. The first 100 units will become a special edition called Signature as a way to thank the very early customers.
July 28, 2007
BMW wins ambiguous victory in court battle over the letter ‘M’

BMW and Nissan are at war over the use of the ‘M’ badge. The disagreement started in the nineties when Nissan decided to use the letter M for models sold on the American market under its luxury brand Infinity. BMW was extremely unimpressed by the idea. The German carmaker has been using the letter M to distinguish its high performance models from the standard models since 1979. Nissan people certainly have a lot of nerve. The carmaker even released a sport package called M6, which for BMW is a powerful sports coupé. This was too much for BMW, which decided to sue the Japanese carmaker.
After a ruling in Canada which obliges Nissan to stop using the offending letter and give compensation to BMW to cover damages, it was the British courts’ turn to pass judgement. As in all other previous rulings, the British court found Nissan guilty of creating confusion through their use of the letter M. This is one point for BMW. But the court also ruled that consumers were clever enough to tell the difference between a BMW M and an Infinity M. This is one point for Nissan. Nissan cannot use the M badge anymore but BMW can say farewell to any compensation.
Both carmakers intend to appeal.
July 25, 2007
First Phantom Drophead Coupés leave Rolls-Royce factory

The five first Phantom Drophead Coupés left the company’s head office last Friday. Despite the £260,000/$407,000/€370,000 price tag, all five customers chose the optional steel bonnet and the rear teak deck.
The bonnet is machine brushed before being hand finished to ensure a uniform grain throughout. The deck is made up of separate solid teak slats, hand sanded and waxed. Of course, customers also had the option to personalise the car’s interior with wood veneer and leather choices.
July 24, 2007