English Press / Presse anglaise

The odds are stacked against a successful GM-Peugeot partnership, with other alliances between rival carmakers failing after culture clashes

Honda is expanding the role of North America COO Tetsuo Iwamura -- making him the automaker's second-highest global executive and marking the first time such a position has been based in the United States.

In 1988 Bryan DeBoer was fresh out of college with a degree in computer science and no plans to work in the auto industry. But his dad, Lithia Motors founder Sid DeBoer, needed someone who could work with spreadsheets to organize data at Lithia.

Ford is pouring $3.8 billion into its global pension plan this year and will invest its plan assets more heavily in bonds, as the automaker moves more aggressively to minimize its pension risks in a shaky market.

General Motors CEO Dan Akerson and his wife, Karin, will donate $1 million today to start a Habitat for Humanity initiative called Leaders to ReBuild Detroit.

Ford boosted annual compensation for board members by 25 percent and will pay 29 percent more to Edsel Ford II, its founder's great-grandson, for his work as a director and consultant.

A crash-test dummy designed to resemble a 10-year-old child has been added to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's family of test dummies to evaluate child safety seats and boosters made for children weighing more than 65 pounds.

General Motors said today it has named Jon Lauckner vice chairman and chief technology officer, effective April 1. He will replace Tom Stephens who retires on that date.

Lithia Motors said today its fourth-quarter net income surged four-fold, let by a 41 percent rise in new vehicle revenue. Net income for the fourth quarter was $18.7 million, or 71 cents per share, compared with $4.

Mazda said today it was looking to raise up to 162.8 billion yen ($2 billion) in its second public share offering in 2-1/2 years, underscoring the Japanese automaker's vulnerability to the stubbornly strong yen.

The carmakers are in advanced talks about an alliance that would see them join forces to build cars and components on the continent

Daimler has reduced the compensation of CEO Dieter Zetsche, despite posting record profit in 2011. Zetsche's reward for 2011 is currently calculated at 8.65 million euros ($11.

The Land Rover Freelander has been in the Chinese market for a number of years already but it hasn’t racked up the sales chart in the same way that the Audi Q5, BMW X3 and Mercedes GLK did, in fact the Freelander seems to have just about been forgotten. The likely culprit for less than brilliant sales was the high price, originally the Freelander came in at around 500,000rmb for the bottom of the line diesel model, and there we said that dirty D-Word. Chinese car consumers are not as fanatical about the black fuel as their European counterparts, in fact it is a major turn off due to the chronic diesel shortages and the banning of diesel vehicles from certain cities.

For 2012/13 Land Rover have put their thinking caps on, they lowered the price of the base 2.2 Turbo Diesel model to a more palatable 390,000rmb and introduced the 2.0T gasoline engine from the strong selling Evoque into the Freelander. However, as the Evoque is such a strong seller Land Rover dealers are asking for more money for the model, at one point Chinese media reported that the Evoque had gone up in price by 180,000rmb on top of its 620,000rmb starting price, which makes the Freelander look like a solid option.

Geely announced earlier today that it has inked a deal with Egyptian automotive company, GB Auto, to set up a CKD factory in Egypt and will target the North African markets in the coming months.

GB Auto and Geely will produce and distribute Geely cars in high growth markets across North Africa, the project will start with the launch of two Geely models in Egypt in the second quarter of 2012. Although relatively unknown outside of Egypt, GB Auto is one of the leading automotive assembler and distributor in Egypt with a 31.7% of market share in Egypt, GB Auto has previous experience in bringing and producing Hyundai vehicles into Egypt as well as big name commercial vehicles such as Volvo and Mitsubishi vehicles.

The first vehicles to see Egyptian roads are the Panda and Panda Crossover, the Emgrand EC7 sedan will be made available in the third quarter of 2012. CKD production will begin in the same third quarter, with the EC7 being the first product to be produced in Egypt both companies have said they will be CKD products shipped over from China and assembled in Egypt with the companies aiming to localize as much content as possible, initial production is set to be at 30,000 units per year with models being sent to other North African markets as well.

“This new relationship with Geely is one of several partnerships we will announce this year that will see GB Auto introduce new brands and new products to both existing and expansion markets,” said GB Auto Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Raouf Ghabbour. “Going forward, our emphasis will be on both making the best possible use of our recently expanded passenger car assembly capacity in Egypt and on completing our product lineup in our home market as well as in our target expansion markets.”

Geely is pushing for a major export sales push in 2012 to offset slowing sales in its domestic Chinese market, 2011 export sales reached 38,000 units for Geely, miniscule when compared to other active Chinese car exporters but Geely did show an increase of 76% in export sales over 2010. Geely’s Panda, EC8, and EC7-RV are some of the companies more popular models sold in export markets.

The Lexus ES250 will launch at the same time at the Beijing and New York Auto Shows, however it seems that the ES250 is eager to appear on the internet ahead of its multiple auto show airings and has leaked its own way out.

The ES250 has undergone major changes both internally and externally, the new face is of course courtesy of the ES250′s bigger cousin, the GS range, and mimics the ‘X’ style grill quite well, the dashboard has undergone the biggest changes from the older model. As the cars name plate suggests, under the hood a 2.5L V6 engine is doing its duty sending power to the rear wheels. A cream interior has been introduced for 2012/13 with, the ES is having a greater focus on business luxury but with the 2.5 V6 giving relatively frugal operating costs. How much will it cost when it launches in April in China? We can guess around the 400,000rmb and rising area which should give the car strong competition against the BMW 5-series and other German branded mid sized cars.

Last week we brought you the exterior and a brief low down on what BYD are planning to bring to the market later this year in the form of a next generation F3 which has more tech, more ‘design’ and more room in the back, and better quality, but we didn’t get a chance to show you the interior because we didn’t get any interior pictures.

The F3 Su Rui has had a major update on the interior and is arguably one of the best looking interior from a Chinese car manufacturer, previous example of car interiors have been catering towards the lower end of the segment and plastics have always been a bottom of the rung thought for Chinese manufacturers, however from these renders it looks like the Su Rui’s interior has been wheel thought out in terms of style and placement.

The F3 Su Rui will probably be called the F3 Sharp in English and could hit export markets in early 2013, in the meantime the F3 will launch in China in June this year with a Beijing Auto Show unveiling scheduled for April.

Bentley China are having a restructure of their Chinese market activities, the German owned brand cleared sales of over 1800 units to the Chinese market, which includes the Greater China areas of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, in 2011 and is on track to boost its sales once again in 2012. Bentley’s China activities are run by the Hong Kong distributor, Da Chang, who initially took over running of mainland activities, but with sales rapidly increasing VW has directly taken over the operation of Bentley China for 2012

Da Chang are not completely out of the picture yet, they have been compensated with several dealerships in the China market which will add an extra 5 dealers giving them 9 in total, making them the biggest Bentley dealership group in the Chinese market.

To oversee the Chinese market Bentley has recruited German national, Till Scheer, to become Regional Director for the Greater China market. Scheer is no stranger to the China market, he has worked for VW in Hong Kong where he was responsible for VW and Bugatti brands, previously he worked for Fiat and Renault. Till will be responsible for overeeing growth at Bentley China and will monitor network expansion and also customer service issues.

Car dealer gains earnings boost from reduced finance costs while management target double-digit growth in used cars this year

Ford will take the wraps off the Tourneo Custom concept next month at the Geneva auto show, a styling exercise that shows the design direction for the redesigned Ford Transit.

Ford will take the wraps off the Tourneo Custom concept next month at the Geneva auto show, a styling exercise that shows the design direction for the redesigned Ford Transit.