News watch Sept 2012: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour

Monday 24 September 2012
• Volkswagen has dropped its appeal in the brand infrigement case against former partner Suzuki. The spat dates back to 2004, when VW contested an approval allowing Suzuki to brand a variant of its Swift supermini as 'Swift GTi'. The court ruled that the car could not be confused with Volkswagens's Polo GTI and Golf GTI products, the names of which are trademarked in some countries, including the home German market (Automotive News Europe)
• Daimler is expected to extend the contract of CEO Dieter Zetsche until 2016, according to a company insider. Zetsche, whose current contract is set to expire at the end of 2013, heads both the Daimler group and the core Mercedes-Benz business, and has made clear he has no interest in grooming a successor yet (Automotive News Europe)
• Two years ago this week, Lotus stunned the motoring world by announcing a brand new five-model range at the Paris motor show, priced to compete with Porsche and Ferrari. Now, with the plan scrapped and sacked boss Dany Bahar seeking £6m in unlawful dismissal claims, two other senior executives are taking the Norfolk automaker to an employment tribunal, claiming unfair dismissal, harassment, and sexual, religious, and racial discrimination. The ex-employees in question are reported to be former heads of legal and human resources, who worked for Lotus for six and 17 years respectively (FT)

Friday 21 September 2012
• Honda plans to increase global customers by 60% by 2017. It hopes to achieve this through the launch a new Civic Type R in 2015, alongside a compact SUV and new hybrid motors including a revision of its one-motor hybrid and two more powerful systems for its mid-sized vehicles (Just Auto)
• German car maker Opel are hoping to entice customers with a return guarantee if they're not happy with their purchase. Running under the name 'thrilled or just return it,' the offer is valid for 30 days or 1864 miles, and is only available in Germany. Could this be something UK dealerships might consider in the future? (Automotive News Europe)

Thursday 20 September 2012
•  Despite UK vehicle output falling 7% in August, the overall output for 2012 is up 11%. Volumes are traditionally low in August due to manufacturers choosing to undertake important maintenance during the holiday period, assures Paul Everitt, SMMT Chief Executive. Although 'continued weak demand in Europe is a concern,' significant new investment and strong demand is likely to ensure the UK continues on an upward trend (SMMT)
• China's Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) has appointed Nissan designer Martin Uhlarik as head of its European design centre. In addition, SAIC is also investing £1.5m to double the size of its Longbridge studio. Uhlarik's, former projects include the 2010 restyle of the Nissan Qashqai, as well as the NV200 concept (Automotive News Europe)

Wednesday 19 September 2012
• Porsche dismiss two investor law suits claiming 4.7m euros for alleged market manipulation. German and U.S. investors accuse the company of concealing a move in 2008 to acquire VW and of secretly amassing a majority stake in Europe's biggest carmaker (Automotive News Europe)
• Ford CEO Alan Mulally says Ford is 'committed to Europe' despite expecting a $1bn loss in the region at the end of this year. Ford plans to restructure to avoid further decrease in demand (automotive News Europe)

Tuesday 18 September 2012 
• Land Rover could add a smaller luxury SUV below the compact-sized Evoque, which has sold over 90,000 units since going on sale. Design director Gerry McGovern said 'certainly, I think we can go smaller,' when asked about future plans. Similarly, Audi has also considered the idea of a Q1 model to sit below the compact-sized Q3 (Automotive News Europe)
• Fiat will not close any of its six Italian factories despite a dismal domestic car market, claims CEO Sergio Marchionne. The company has recently invested €1.8bn on new manufacturing facilities (Automotive News Europe)

Monday 17 September 2012
• BMW is releasing a new all-wheel drive version of its 3-series saloon to make up for lost sales to Mercedes in the USA. BMW's North American market has become increasingly important 'because the home market of Europe is in a mess' says Michelle Kerbs of Edmunds.com. BMW hopes the all-wheel drive version of the 3-series will appeal to those who live in cold winter areas (Automotive News Europe)
• Anti-Japanese protests in China have put a dent in sales of Japanese cars in the world’s largest economy. Following protests and rallies over the weekend, dealerships selling Japanese brands were even directly attacked and set on fire. It’s another blow to Japanese sales following the output crash in the wake of the 2011 tsunami damage (Just-Auto)

Friday 14 September 2012
• Ford union bosses cannot guarantee the future of the Genk plant in Belgium, after Ford's Europan managers targetted the factory for possible closure in the face of mounting losses. Ford, which expects to make a $1billion loss in Europe in 2012, could close the Genk plant despite strong oppostion from unions - the plant currently builds the Galaxy, S-max and Mondeo models (Automotive News Europe)
• Typically, as other brands suffer, VW only grows stronger. Reports today say the Volkswagen Group's global sales rose by 18.9% in August, thanks to growth in China and the United States offsetting sliding sales in Europe. VW said deliveries for its brands, which now include newly integrated Porsche, increased to 719,500 in August from the year before. This raises the eight-month total by 10.2% to 5.91 million (ANE)

Thursday 13 September 2012
• To answer the strong growth of the Chinese market, Porsche has opened a new base for Porsche Consulting in Shanghai. The centre, which provides support to current and future clients in China and other countries in the Far East, follows on from similar establishments in Italy, Brazil, and the US (Porsche AG)
• Renault-Nissan CEO Charles Ghosn doesn't see any light at the end of the tunnel for the European car industry, though a total meltdown is very unlikely. Nissan is 'preparing for many mediocre years' in Europe, Ghosn said. But while Europe faces overcapacity, the region 'will not see any kind of Armageddon' he added. With demand for new cars in Europe set to fall by another million units in 2013, the sad truth for the non-premium manufacturers is things will likely get worse before they get better. That's especally bad news for Opel; last week financial services firm Morgan Stanley advised Opel's GM owners to cut the failing European brand loose before it caused deeper problems for the wider GM machine (Automotive News Europe)

Wednesday 12 September 2012
• BMW's seven-year stay at the top of the premium car sales chart may be about to come to an end, as Audi relentlessly chases down the Bavarian marque. Audi cut BMW's lead in 2012 luxury car sales to 2110 vehicles in August, with sales already up 13% for the year up to 2012. In the same period, BMW has experienced sales growth, but only 7.8% (Automotive News Europe)
• Russian new car sales climbed 15% in August 2012 versus August 2011, with 258,761 vehicles sold. It's the second record month for the Russian market on the spin, after a 14% boom in July (Automotive News Europe)

Tuesday 11 September 2012
• China is proving a sales haven for Volkswagen, even though (as News Watch reported on Friday) the Eurozone crisis has caused VW to cut its annual sales target. VAG chairman Ferdinand Piech said the company's sales in China will grow at least 9% in 2013 after expanding a projected 10 percent or more this year, as more consumers buy their first cars. By 2018 Volkswagen will be building 4 millon cars in China to meet the demand there (Automotive News Europe)
• August has been another strong month from Porsche sales with the company reporting a 20.8% increase in deliveries versus the same month last year. A total of 10,912 models were delivered to customers in August: 1559 were 911 models, dwarfed by the 6331 Cayennes shifted (Porsche AG)

Monday 10 September 2012
• Porsche says it expects to sell 75,000 examples of its Macan compact SUV in its first full year of production. Initial forecasts put the Macan sales total for 2013 around 30,000 units fewer than the new estimate, showing how demand for premium SUVs is almost immune to woes elsewhere in the car industry (Automotive News Europe)
• There's big redundancies ahead for Renault's South Korean plants, with around 15% of the workface facing 'voluntary retirement' to stem losses. Renault Samsung said about 800 workers out of a total 5500, will leave the company under the program - it's centred around the Busan factory in South Korea, which has an annual production capacity of 300,000 vehicles (Automotive News Europe)

Friday 7 September 2012
• Land Rover has invested £370m in its UK factories as it gears up for producton of th new Range Rover. The cash injection, which safeguards over 1000 jobs, comes ahead of a busy time for JLR, with the arrival of the new Rangie, plus the Jaguar F-type sports car, and XF Sportbrake estate (Jagaur Land Rover)
• Even Volkswagen isn't immune to the effects of the Eurozone crisis, it appears. German sources are reporting VW has cut its annual sales projection by 300,000 units, with 250,000 of those lost sales in Europe alone. VW refused to comment on the latest reports but a spokesman reassured investors the company was still doing extremely well, given the unfavourable economic climate. VW Group vehicle sales were up 9.1% to 5.19 million in the first seven months of 2012, mostly thanks to growth in non-European markets (Automotive News Europe)
• Ford CEO Alan Mullaly has been speaking about overcapacity and Ford's immediate future at the company's 'Go Further' event in Amsterdam, which showcased the facelifted Fiesta and new Mondeo models. "Europe had a lot of issues in the past and people did a lot of things to subsidize the industry," Mulally said in an interview. "But you've got to size to the real demand so you can profitably grow. People are realizing we all need to deal with that reality." Despite the capacity to build up to 18m vehicles in Europe per year, sales are at their lowest for 17 years. It is estimated only 14m units are actually being turned out by European factories thanks to the current crisis. Ford is projecting losses of around $1bn in Europe by the close of 2012 (Automotive News Europe)

Thursday 6 September 2012
• Honda is investing £267m into production of new models at its Swindon UK plant. Covering the new CR-V and Civic, the cash injection will also create 500 new jobs and take production towards 250,000 units per year (Honda)
• New car registrations in the UK rose by 0.1% in August 2012, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. The market has increased 3.3% to 1,260,997 units from January to August, up more than 40,000 units on 2011. It's good news ahead of the traditionally busy period when the new '62-plate' numberplate comes into effect this month (SMMT)

Wednesday 5 September 2012
• Figures from the US show that the resurgence of the Stateside car market continues apace - good news for the Obama administration, ahead of this year's presidential election. New car and truck sales in August increased 19.9% over the same period in 2011, a total of 1,285,202 vehicles. However, the bounce-back effect of Japanese manfacturers reaching full capacity again following last year's tsunami meant the market share for America's 'Big Three' fell substantially. Ford sales were up 12.6 % to 196,749, but market share dropped to 15.3% from 16.3%. GM's market share fell 1.7% to 18.4%, and Chrysler's fell from 12.1% to 11.6%, despite sales records for the Sonic, Cruze, and Volt Models (DetNews)

Tuesday 4 September 2012
• New Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) reports that the company has sucessfully acquired most of Saab's assests, but will not be allowed to use the company's griffin logo on any new products. NEVS, which plans to sell a zero-emission version of the 9-3, hopes to introduce its first new car within 18 months, and although the griffin logo will be absent, it will be badged with the Saab name (Autmotive News Europe)
• With the economy likely to be the major factor in the 2012 US presidential election, debate is already well underway on the 2009 auto industry bailout. David Plouffe, senior advisor to the Obama White House, has made a statement arguing the US auto industry would have ceased to exist had 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney been in office. Mr Romney's campaign refuted the claim, with Mr Romney stating he would have offered aid to GM and Chrysler, but only after they had gone bankrupt (DetNews)

Monday 3 September 2012
• European car makers may have to bite the bullet and make swathing cuts and factory closures in the wake of the recession, three years after their American counterparts did the same, according to reports. Although still not up to pre-crisis level, bailed-out Chrysler and GM are already posting healthy profits of around $7.6bn, while European car makers continue to struggle in the sluggish European sales climate (Automotive News Europe)
• Emphasizing just how dire the European market status is, French car sales dipped by 11.4% in August 2012 versus the same period in 2011. The slump, which hit French automakers PSA and Renault hard with drops of 10.6% and 20.6% respectively, has been bucked by Korean automakers Kia and Hyundai. The traditionally budget brands saw rises of 18.7% and 31.4% respectively. (Automotive News Europe)
• At least there's better news for Renault's cheap-and-cheerful sub-brand, Dacia. Buoyed by sales of the Duster SUV, the Romanian/Moroccan-built marque posted a 21.1% sales rise in August (Automotive News Europe)
• There's bad news if you're a US reader excited about Alfa Romeo's return to the North American market. Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne is set to unveil a new timetable for Alfa's American return on 30 October 2012. Previously, it was understood that the 4C sports car would spearhead the US revival, landing in late 2012, with the bulk of sales beginning with a crossover model in mid-2013 (Automotive News Europe)

By Ollie Kew, Rory Smith