News watch Jan 2010: today’s auto industry news

Wednesday 20 January 2010
• Rolls-Royce has appointed Torsten Mueller as chief exec from the end of March 2010. He is currently BMW's global product management boss and will replace Tom Purves who will retire after 25 years with the BMW Group (Rolls-Royce)
• Japan has bowed to pressure and extended its scrappage scheme to include American brand vehicles. Many had been barred from the scheme because they had different fuel economy standards (Automotive News, subscription required)
• New GM Europe CEO Nick Reilly has vowed that Opel and Vauxhall will become a global company. In a letter to 48,000 staff, he pledged: 'It is time for Opel/Vauxhall to be clear winners again and to be recognised as clear winners' (Automotive News, subscription required)
• Toyota's key battery supplier has secured a long-term supply of lithium in Argenina. Toyota Tsusho Corp, which is 22% owned by Toyota, has beaten Chinese competition to take a stake in a new lithium project there, which is expected to begin commercial production in 2012 (Wall Street Journal)

Tuesday 19 January 2010
• Shares in old GM – now known as Motors Liquidation Company – gained 3% in recent days, giving the company a market value of close to $500 million. Earlier in the summer they were worth 47 cents each, rising to 77 cents on Friday (Financial Times)
• Michigan has granted a Fiat subsidiary a $4.5 million state tax credit to expand a facility in Auburn Hills rather than take jobs out of the state (Detroit News)

Monday 18 January 2010
• American company Fisker Automotive has secured access to $115.3m (£70m) in private equity. The cash is crucial for Fisker to be granted access to a $528.7m (£332m) conditional loan from the U.S. Department of Energy which it will use to help develop the Karma, the company’s first plug-in hybrid. Fisker plans to put the Karma into production in 2012 (Fisker)
• Ford, Mazda, and Chinese company Chongqing Changan Automobile have decided to dissolve their three-way joint venture by 2012, according to reports. Mazda and Chongquing will now run a factory in Nanjing, while Chongquing and Ford will continue to run the rest of the joint venture's factories in China (Detroit Free Press)

Friday 15 January 2010
• Bosch is closing its South Wales plant with the loss of 900 jobs. Work building starter motors is being transferred to a Bosch facility in Hungary from 2011 (BBC News)
• The remainder of the UK's scrappage scheme will be run by quotas from the Government after it emerged that three quarters of the £400 million cashpile has already been spent. The Government will allocate the £2000 incentives to manufacturers based on brand popularity – and there's funding left for 82,000 new cars (Financial Times)
• Tata Motors' global sales leapt 84% in December 2009, the firm announced this morning (Tata)
• Opel managing director Hans Demant has been promoted to vice president of global intellectual property rights at GM. He is likely to be replaced by Nick Reilly, who's already GM Europe president (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)

Thursday 14 January 2010
• GM has ended Tiger Woods' deal to drive free Buicks as a brand ambassador (BBC News)
• Renault has been ordered by the French government to keep production in France rather than switch it to lower-cost Turkey. The French government holds a 15% stake in Renault and opposes a plan to shift production east for the next Clio due in 2013 (Financial Times)
• Volkswagen aims for 800,000 US sales by 2018 – up from 298,000 last year (Automotive News, subscription required)
• Luxembourg's Genii Capital said it has submitted a better offer for Saab; GM is expected to respond by the end of the week (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)

Wednesday 13 January 2010
• Audi's head of sales and marketing, Peter Schwarzenbauer, has said the German car manufacturer plans to sell over 80,000 A1s in the first full year of production. Figures are expected to rise after that as the five-door (Sportback) and other bodystyles are added. Schwarzenbauer also confirmed the A1 would have stop/start technology, brake energy recuperation, and an array of infotainment options (Audi)
• The Renault Megane has topped a chart for MOT failure rates, with 28.1% of French hatches not getting through the test. The Toyota Corolla had the lowest rate, at 11.2% (BBC)

Tuesday 12 January 2010
• Saab's slow demise continues to rumble on. Senior GM executives at the NAIAS were not confident that a buyer would step forward. GM is winding down the operation, although GM Europe chief Nick Reilly said today it was still considering bids for its Swedish division (Detroit News)
• Saab's entire management team including managing director Jan Ake Jonsson will be replaced immediately as part of the windown. Jonsson will remain with the company as an advisor during the wind-down; he has been MD since March 2005 and with Saab for 36 years (Automotive News, subscription required)
• Acting GM CEO Ed Whitacre told reporters at the NAIAS today: 'We're closing down Saab.' Vice chairman Bob Lutz added: 'The offers we've received so far in terms of risk and financing up-front have been just as good as winding it down.' But Lutz added that GM remains open to offers, although time is very limited
• Volkswagen AG announces an astonishing record sales year in troubled 2009. The group saw deliveries rise 1.1% to a record 6.29 million vehicles – placing it third in the global rankings, with a worldwide sales share of 11.4% (Volkswagen AG)

Monday 11 January 2010
• All our reporting effort is going into the North American International Auto Show 2010. Check out our industry news from Detroit via the homepage

Friday 8 January 2010
• GM announces it has appointed closure specialists AlixPartners to supervise the orderly wind down of Saab. But it will continue to study the clutch of new bids submitted last night (GM)
• GM Europe president Nick Reilly warns Opel and Vauxhall staff that job cuts are looming; GME has already committed to axing around 8300 staff from the 50,000 it employs in Europe as part of a €3.3bn cost-cutting exercise (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)
• F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has joined forces with Lexembourg-based private investment firm Genii Capital to bid for Saab. The deadline passed at 10.00pm GMT last night; Spyker has also submitted a renewed bid (BBC News)
• Ecclestone told the Bloomberg news agency: 'It's a good brand that has probably been neglected by the current owners.'
• The GM board will meet today to discuss the latest bids for its Swedish arm

Thursday 7 January 2010
• Two anonymous Swedish groups are secretly preparing last-minute deals backing a management buy-out of Saab, Swedish business newspaper Dagens Industri reports today. It quoted industry secretary Joran Hagglund who said both bids could be ready for GM's deadline later today. 'The problem is that none of them can show that they have financing in place,' he warned. He also ruled out a further bid from Koenigsegg (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)
• Saab's interim CEO and chairman Ed Whitacre said last night that none of the potential bidders for Saab had applied with the necessary funding. 'It's real easy,' he said. 'Just show up with the money and you can have it, and nobody's showing up with the money'
• GM's current deadline for bids on Saab is the close of business today; Spyker is expected to offer a renewed bid, in addition to the proposed Swedish offers, but Whitacre warned last night that he would proceed with the orderly closure of Saab once the deadline was passed
• UK new car sales might have crept up in the second half of 2009, new SMMT year-end figures out today reveal, but there is pain ahead, warns the BBC. It warns of 'a vacuum, with fewer potential buyers in the market' as the scrappage scheme ends in February 2010. And those companies that made hay during the scheme have the furthest to fall (BBC News)
• GM will reinstate at least 100 dealers that it scrapped during last year's emergency bankruptcy restructuring, says chairman Ed Whitacre (Automotive News, subscription required)
• Indian car maker Mahindra & Mahindra plans to export a new electric mini truck to Europe and the US, following Tata's lead by seeking exports in the West. The Maxximo will sell for around $6000 in its home market (Financial Times)
• Volkswagen said today that it sold 37% more cars in mainland China and Hong Kong in 2009 – 1.4 million cars. It's now clearly a very important chunk of its global business (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)

Wednesday 6 January 2010
• Swedish government ministers will meet GM chiefs next week to discuss Saab's future, Sweden's national news agency reports. Spyker Cars, which is reportedly the only bidder for Saab, says GM has set a new 7 January deadline for bids on Saab (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)
• The UK's 2009 annual sales figures are due out tomorrow. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders hints that total registrations will beat the 1.92 million forecast, although they are not expected to exceed 2008's 2.13m (SMMT)
• America's sales figures are due soon, too. After the worst year since 1970 for the US industry, some analysts expect an uplift, after strong December 2009 sales. The more bullish analysts predict up to 13 million sales, still way below the market's peak of 17.4m at the start of the last decade (Detroit News)
• The Wall Street Journal reports that US sales rose around 15% in December – pointing to a gradual recovery in 2010 (WSJ.com)
• Fiat plans to unveil its small car in India in 2012, reveals Rajeev Kapoor, president and CEO of Fiat India Automobiles. Indian car sales are set to grow 16% in 2010 to around 1.4 million vehicles, after posting double-digit growth throughout 2009 (Automotive News Europe, subscription required)

Tuesday 5 January 2010
• Spyker is reportedly the only bidder in town for Saab, reports AN. Financing remains the main obstacle for the deal, and GM apparently has rebuffed one Russian finance partner that Spyker had lined up (Automotive News, subscription required)
• The US scrapped more cars in 2009 than it bought new ones, according to a new report by the Earth Policy Institute. It claims 14 million cars were scrapped, while just 10m new ones were registered (Automotive News, subscription required)

Monday 4 January 2010
• A Californian businessman who was until 2009 one of Nissan's biggest US dealers, is suing the car maker for alleged fraud. Superior Automotive boss Michael Kahn alleges in a $250m lawsuit that he was forced to close seven garages after Nissan 'precipitously' axed financing (Financial Times)

By Tim Pollard