Trucks & Cars

Goldman Goes Bonkers Over Tesla

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Goldman Goes Bonkers Over Tesla

Wall Street once again stands out as history’s most glorious, most efficient, sophisticated, prolific “gigafactory,” to use Tesla’s newfangled term, for the production of self-serving BS. Investors beware!

The Next Tire To Drop On The US Economy

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on The Next Tire To Drop On The US Economy

Auto sales in the US have been hopping for the last few years, and production has soared, and exuberance along with it, and there were even hopes that sales would soon be where they’d been before the crisis, before the bankruptcies, the plant closures, the bailouts.

China CLOBBERS The US In Auto Sales, Becomes GM’s Nirvana (Unless You Have To Breathe)

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on China CLOBBERS The US In Auto Sales, Becomes GM’s Nirvana (Unless You Have To Breathe)

The air in China can get so bad that the whole world talks about it. Though the government is taking the issue seriously and is doing a million things to get the fiasco under control, it remains unclear what exactly people will breathe ten years from now.

How Crazy Is The Auto Financing Frenzy?

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on How Crazy Is The Auto Financing Frenzy?

A “positive spiral effect?” Lenders are closing their eyes, sales are soaring, risks are piling up, auto loan balances jumped 15% in 12 months to an all-time high, and repossessions in the subprime segment more than doubled.

Young Woman in China Buy Maseratis

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Young Woman in China Buy Maseratis

In the US and Europe, 95% of the buyers are male. Average age is 55. What’s different in China?

Extortion Over Minimum Wage In Germany: BMW, Daimler, VW Threaten to Offshore Production

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Extortion Over Minimum Wage In Germany: BMW, Daimler, VW Threaten to Offshore Production

Germany has neither a minimum wage nor a government. Someday it might. If not, there will be new elections, and Chancellor Merkel might get pummeled because she’d be blamed for them. So she’s trying to form a coalition with the left-leaning SPD on whose list of campaign promises was a decent minimum wage.

American Boondoggle Meets Chinese Methods

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on American Boondoggle Meets Chinese Methods

BYD, the name of a Chinese electric vehicle and solar panel maker, stands for “Build Your Dream.” Maybe that’s what they’re trying to do in China. But here, they’re building a nightmare: broken promises, falsehoods, design flaws… all lushly funded by American taxpayers. And they paid Chinese workers in California $1.50 per hour to do it.

Supercars In The US, Japan, and China: How QE And Corruption Boosted Sales

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on Supercars In The US, Japan, and China: How QE And Corruption Boosted Sales

Supercar-makers Lamborghini, Ferrari, and Rolls-Royce are reacting to the forces whacking global markets for luxury products: a corruption crackdown in China, Abenomics in Japan, and the Fed’s money-printing in the US. The idea that sales in China, which is printing billionaires by the dozens, are crashing is a hard-to-swallow concept for the industry.

The Undead Corporate Welfare Programs For Automakers

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on The Undead Corporate Welfare Programs For Automakers

They’re at it again! Originally created by Congress in 2007, the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program provided low-cost government loans that were subsidized, and then in part eaten as we now know, by hapless and strung-out American taxpayers. In 2011, it was left behind as dead, but now the government wants to bring that zombie back.

At The Confluence of Free Money, Pent-Up Demand, And Reality

by Wolf Richter •  • Comments Off on At The Confluence of Free Money, Pent-Up Demand, And Reality

New vehicle sales have staged a phenomenal recovery from the financial crisis, when buyers went on strike. Sales below the replacement rate create a vacuum that wants to be filled. Pent-up demand. When it kicked in, sales jumped by over 10% annually. Exuberance took over the bludgeoned industry. But late February, something happened to that vacuum.