Our country loves the Prius which became a green icon in the last few years. Since its introduction in November 2000, it has been sold at more than 16,000 units. The figure is low but keep in mind that it took almost nine years to reach the 500,000 milestone and almost ten years to reach the million mark. Growth is exponential. Toyota celebrated the tenth anniversary with a cake at the Motor Heritage Museum.
Mercedes have been in talks with a few carmakers for its future A-Class but all ended in. Daimler CEO has revealed in an article that Mercedes will build its own platform but will use engines built by BMW and PSA.
Zietsche said Daimler was in talks with Fiat but the planned solution brought more problems than really solved the cost problem. It is rumoured that Fiat small platform’s production cost is higher than Mercedes A-Class’. The talks with BMW didn’t get better and Mercedes finally decided to go on its own.
How will the German manufacturer cut cost? The future small Mercedes won’t be built in Germany anymore but in China or in the future Russian plant.
Mercedes has strong ambitions with the future A-Class as it wants to fight with the BMW Mini and the future Audi A1. Besides Ziestche has been caught seating in the Audi A1 at the last Tokyo Motor Show. The next-generation A-Class will be more coupé-biased while the B-Class derived from the C-Class will still be a small MPV. Along the two cars, there will be a small SUV set to compete with the future Mini Crossman.
Last week I wrote that the British International Motor Show wants to grow next year and European carmakers will likely make some big announcements. Unfortunately, Audi and BMW have decided to snob the show according to Autocar.
Both manufacturers join Volkswagen and Rolls Royce. For the Motor Show, this is a major blow as both car makers have a strong brand image. British won’t have the opportunity to see the future R8 Spider before 2009 unless they go to Paris Motor Show. This new blow raises the question of the opportunity of a the British International Motor Show.
Actually, the British Motor Show is too close to the Paris Motor Show. While the British show got less than 500,000 visitors, Paris welcomed 1.5 million visitors. The press coverage is also bigger in Paris where car makers unveil their latest creation expecting to make a big impact.
It is true that the 2006 British International Motor Show was a good opportunity for Opel/Vauxhall to unveil the latest Corsa, but disappointing sales of the outgoing models have pushed it at the bottom of the sales charts and everybody had forgotten it. It was a bet made by Vauxhall and it worked well. But British market is Opel’s largest market and Opel/Vauxhall has a special status in our country. Other car makers aren’t in the same situation and Paris is a much better location to tap into the European market.
Once again, the British International Motor Show will likely become a regional show that national press coverage will try to make us to forget and believe in a better future for British car aficionados.
Chang’an Automobile has unveiled the first Chinese hybrid car, the Jie Xun or CV11. Like all Chinese car makers, the announcement must be considered with precaution as it is quite often a great deal of effort leading to nothing much. Indeed, Chang’an hasn’t given any technical details yet.
Derived from the Landwind Fashion seen at the 2006 Paris Motor Show and sold in France at a cheap price, the CV11 is expected to be complaint with Euro 4 regulations and consumes 20% less than the normal version. Chang’an CEO Xu Liuping also said that the company will provide 10 hybrid Jie Xun to the Chinese Olympic games next year.
The hybrid Jie Xun is par of an ambitious plan imagined by Xu Liuping who wants the company to release 36 new models and 12 new engines within the next three years.
If the hybrid Jie Xun proves to be a real hybrid which can run in real conditions like the Toyota Prius does, China might become a hybrid vehicles leader in the future. At least this is what Chinese government wnats, but Chinese consumers are not ready to pay a higher price to buy an environmentally-friendly car. The Prius is a failure there and Honda plans to sell 400 hybrid Civc in 2008 while analysts think Honda’s figure to be too optimistic.
The Chang’an announcement appears to be more a will to get the good grace from the Chinese government which wants the country to be a clean country for the next Olympic games next year than a serious attempt to build a hybrid car.
Ford has released a teaser picture of the eagerly-awaited Focus RS version which will hit the showrooms in 2009. The teaser reveals a car with an aggressive look and strong ambitions.
The RS version has been rumoured for quite a long time and Ford finally confirmed the project. The car is expected to offer a bold design as teaser suggests with an aggressive front bumper with unusually large air intakes and large wheel arches. The press release also mentioned that the RS will be based on the current Focus ST model. Under the hood The nippy Focus hosts the Volvo-sourced 2.5-litre 5 cylinder petrol engine which has an output of 222bhp. It is said that the RS version will get at least 300bhp with the help of a twin-turbocharger architecture.
Technically, the RS might receive a special semi-active limited slip differential between the front wheels as the car won’t feature a four-wheel drive transmission. There will be upgraded springs and dampers, and bigger 19” wheels.
Honda has announced it has increased its sales by 36.4% in China in November over the same period last year. This is good news for the Japanese car maker as Chinese market recorded a good month too.
Honda sales reached 46,226 cars and for the first eleven months of this year, it delivered 378,602 vehicles. Another December month like November and Honda will sell more cars than expected this year. Indeed, it planned to sell 400,000 vehicles.
Honda owns two joint ventures in China, one with Guangzhou Automobile Group and another venture with Dongfeng Motor. The former recorded a 23.4% increase to 32,400 vehicles while the latter recorded a strong 81.3% increase to 13,826 units. The larger increase recorded by the Dongfeng venture as Honda controls 55% of the joint venture. Honda is the only automotive joint-venture in China that has a majority of non-Chinese ownership.
Source: Reuters
While October was a good month, sales have been sluggish in November especially in Germany which badly impacted the whole European statistics. Overall the European market recorded 1,25 million vehicles, a 1.1% decrease over the same period last year.
German market has been gloomy for month because of a tax increase in January and has decreased by -12.9% in November. Large markets which performed well like France with a 7.2% increase, United Kingdom with a 2.2% increase and Italy with a 1% increase haven’t had enough weight against the German market’s trend. Romania recorded an impressive 27% jump to 29,230 vehicles while Poland’s sales have increased by 15% to 24,546 units.
Among the car makers the winners are Dacia with a 63% increase followed by Mini with +54%. Nissan recorded a strong 18% increase. BMW’s sales have increased by 10.9% to 60,600 vehicles. Renault recorded a 5.1% increase, followed by Fiat with a 4% increase and Citroen with +2.7%. The biggest loser is Opel which recorded a 6.8% decrease. Peugeot is close behind Opel with -5.9% and Ford’s deliveries have decreased by 2.4%.
In an interview Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has said that the future Alfa Romeo will share its platform with another car maker to cut cost. Fiat is in talks with several manufacturers and a decision will be taken in next January.
Due to go on sale in late 2009, the future 169 was originally thought to be based on the Maserati Quattroporte’s platform, but high manufacturing costs likely obliged the company’s executive to reconsider an alternative. As Marchionne has already said in a previous interview, Fait was interested in Jaguar and Land Rover for their American dealer network but also for the Jaguar platforms. Indeed, the platforms would have enabled the 169 to get a rear-wheel drive platform with front longitudinal engines while sharing costs. But Fiat’s situation prevent it to enter the bid.
However as a adviser to Tata which is likely to win the bid, the Italian group might be in a very good position to get the Jaguar’s platform and the future 169 might be derived from the XF saloon.
Source image: alfasport
It is not recommended to be a gas guzzler at this moment. The XC90 might become a new victim of global warming as it is rumoured that Volvo cancelled the next-generation.
According to the Swedish magazine Auto Motor & Sport, Volvo has decided to axe the next-generation due to costs generated by new emission regulations and new environmentally-concerned customers. The XC90 is not a huge gas guzzler but its petrol engines are from being economical and Volvo would be obliged to develop new environmentally-friendly units in order to satisfy demand. Unfortunately, Volvo and its parent company Ford can’t afford such an engine. Another way would be to focus on losing weight but higher prices for lightweight components compromise the profitability. Added to the fact that marketing forecasts expect the SUV segment to be gloomy in the future, the XC90 is condemned to disappear as it doesn’t have much to offer to counter-attack.
For Volvo, this is bad news. Indeed, the XC90 is a best seller in the US, the largest market for the Swedish carmaker.
At the last Los Angeles Motor Show, Porsche had announced that its engineers were working hard on a hybrid Cayenne, a top priority for the German car maker. Since then, the company has changed its mind and and sounds rather sceptical.
First the market doesn’t look so promising as first surveys have revealed that only 5% of Porsche customers were ready to buy a hybrid Cayenne. “The most optimistic forecast still only calls for a market share of 5 percent” said Porsche’s head of distribution, Klaus Bering in a recent interview given to Automobilwoche.
Secondly, Porsche’s progress on the hybrid system aren’t as good as it claimed it was at the last Los Angeles Motor Show. Indeed, executive said that the Cayenne Hybrid was able to run at 75mph on battery but it is rumoured that the hybrid model can only top 50mph. Moreover, Porsche is seriously concerned by the cost generated by the technology. The company is not sure about the potential profitability and not everybody is ready to lose money on hybrid cars like Toyota did. Unlike the Japanese giant, Porsche doesn’t need to build a brand image which is among the strongest in the world. In other words, the Cayenne Hybrid is still considered but its production version won’t be available before the next-generation due to appear in 2010.