Trucks & Cars
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.
What Ferrari’s Glorious Results Tell Us About The World
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on What Ferrari’s Glorious Results Tell Us About The World
The announcement couldn’t have been more glorious in crisis-struck Italy: Ferrari booked records sales and profits in 2012. Dazzling in every aspect. Not a single cloud darkened the horizon. Except in Italy where sales collapsed. And in the rest of the world, where central-bank printer ink stained the records.
French Socialist Nightmare: ‘The State Cannot Do Everything’
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on French Socialist Nightmare: ‘The State Cannot Do Everything’
The Currency Wars: Now US Automakers Are Squealing
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Currency Wars: Now US Automakers Are Squealing
Japan’s LDP went all out last year to re-grab power. Its platform: print and borrow with utter abandon to create asset bubbles and inflation, and to demolish the yen. Phenomenally successful! So far. But now, US automakers are squealing; they want President Obama to fight back—though the US has been printing and borrowing with utter abandon for years.
Secret French Plan In the European War Of The Automakers
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Secret French Plan In the European War Of The Automakers
“Volkswagen has chosen to wipe out PSA,” said a source in President Hollande’s entourage. PSA Peugeot Citroën, Europe’s second largest automaker, is teetering. Volkswagen Group, Europe’s largest automaker, is an invincible giant—that wants to reduce overcapacity in Europe “on the backs of the French,” the source said. Hence a secret plan, a desperate, misbegotten, and taxpayer-funded deal.