DaimlerChrysler pulls out of Mitsubishi
After refusing to financially assist the
ailing Mitsubishi Company, DaimlerChrysler has really pulled
the plug by selling its entire 12.42 percent stake in the
Japanese carmaker. They were also so desirous of getting out
that the shares were sold at around 82 percent of the current
share price.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs has bought
the stake, so as an investment, they must consider Mitsubishi
to have a long term future, despite its current problems, and
was placing the shares with institutional investors around the
world, a financial source said.
DaimlerChrysler, the world’s
fifth-biggest carmaker, said that the Mitsu stock sale would
boost the 2005 financial figures by around USD 589 million.
And according to financial analysts, the sale made good
financial sense. “DaimlerChrysler showed good timing with
the sale,” said Michael Punzet, an analyst at Landesbank
Rheinland-Pfalz. “The money will help offset the financial
burden from its planned job cuts,” he added, referring to
the reduction of 8,500 staff at the premium Mercedes division
in high-cost Germany.
It is reported that this reduction, with
all the pay-offs and pensions will cost around USD 1.1
billion.
The sale follows DaimlerChrysler’s sale
last year of its stake in Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. and is
also selling its heavy diesel motor unit MTU Friedrichshafen.
Cash from all these sales will be used to top up pension
contributions, finance restructuring of its Smart minicar
business, invest in new models or channel money to investors
via steady or even sweeter dividends.
It seems it is not just America’s big car
makers that are in trouble. Europeans are also tightening
their belts. Most of the Brits have already gone to the wall,
other than AC Cars who are spending money to open a factory in
America!
The world is bracing itself for the Chinese
onslaught, and once China has built itself a reputation for
making quality cars cheaply (which will happen, believe me),
it will be “goodnight nurse” to all but the specialist
automakers in the world.
It’s time to buy a Chery QQ and put it on blocks and let
your grandchildren sell it for a fortune in 50 years time. The
oracle has spoken!
Citroen C3 in
melt-down
A lady in Europe has managed to do
what no test driver has ever done – melt a Citroen C3. She
rented the C3, planning to drive to the destination 250 km
away. She did not mention to the car hire firm that she only
drove automatics, and then drove the 250 kays in first gear
all the way. After all, you don’t shift the lever do you,
with an auto gearbox. The engine got so hot it melted the
sound proofing under the bonnet, and then the center of the
bonnet itself! Citroen when contacted declined to confirm
whether she was going to be offered a job as a design and
development driver!
Will Japan take over the
auto world?
Having said that China will be dominant
probably in around 20 years, will Japan take over in the
meantime? Over one year ago, I predicted that Japan would do
this. I clearly stated that Japan does not make the best cars
in the world. Japan does not make the fastest, the most
sporting, the largest or the most innovative cars in the world
either, but Japanese cars have something that puts them way in
front, in the mind of the motoring public. Customer
satisfaction.
Honda
Jazz
12 months ago, the figures from Europe were
very telling. From the customer satisfaction viewpoint the
best small car was the Honda Jazz. Lower-medium car was the
Toyota Corolla. The upper-medium bracket was the Toyota
Avensis. SUV went to Toyota’s RAV4. MPV section was won by
Mazda’s Premacy, while the only two European manufacturers
listed were the Peugeot 607 for the executive/luxury group and
Porsche with its 911 in the sports car category.
That should have been enough to make the
European car makers sit up, but even sitting bolt upright in
their seats, it was already too late. World number 1, General
Motors are in huge financial problems, and so is Ford.
Volkswagen, that incredible post-war success story, is also
going downwards, with its sales shrinking 4 percent.
DaimlerChrysler has seen its market share go down as well, and
BMW is having to tighten its belt.
By contrast, Japan (and Korea) are on the
way inexorably upwards. Toyota, Mazda, Honda and Hyundai all
showing positive growth in the past 12 months, with up to 30
percent increase in sales.
Needless to say the European automakers are
full of tales of woe, citing high wages, pension plans and
similar smokescreens. However, the man in the street who buys
a new car every three or four years is buying a Toyota or
other Japanese car because it is more reliable, not because it
is cheaper (which it is not, in many instances).
However, the European arms of the big
international firms are now finding that they are having to
scale down their operations, because of the downturn in
demand. On the other hand, the Japanese are increasing
production.
One year ago I wrote, “In world market
terms, GM is reputedly number 1, Ford is number 2 and Toyota
is number 3. But if you look at annual profits, I think you
will find Toyota is well ahead.” That was 12 months ago.
Toyota has already overtaken Ford, and the predictions are
that Toyota will build more cars than GM in 2006, to take the
top step on the podium. The Europeans and the Americans can
stop looking over their shoulders to check on the Japanese
onslaught. They’ve gone right past and are increasing their
lead.
Electric hybrids - the new
way to go?
There is a man, dressed in long robes,
holding a sign saying, “The end is nigh” parading up and
down outside all the world’s major automakers. Well, if
he’s not there, you would imagine that he is, because all of
a sudden, they are all jumping on the bandwagon of ecology,
save the planet and oil supplies are dwindling. The petrol
engine is on its way out.
“Vehicles powered by gasoline engines
linked to electric motors are the new wave, with latest
efforts putting these hybrids into mainstream vehicles.”
That was the leader for an article in the America auto press
in 2003. Increasingly, Americans are willing to give
gas-electric hybrid vehicles a try, according to J.D. Power
and Associates, who said that the desire for the technology
that mates a gasoline engine to an electric motor for a more
fuel-efficient power plant rose from 20 percent to 29 percent
in the five years 1997 to 2002 and that is still rising.
Moon
Buggy
While the Japanese, Honda and Toyota in
particular, are at the forefront, Germany is also there with
DaimlerChrysler. Their concept vehicle is called the F500
Mind, the big four-door fastback being billed as a mobile
research laboratory housing technological advancements that
are expected to filter though into standard Mercedes-Benz
models in coming years, including an advanced hybrid drive
system that uses both diesel power and yes, electric
propulsion.
Listening to the big automakers, you would
think that this is all something new, this gasoline and
electric motor concept, but of course, it is not.
The first hybrid, according to my research,
was built in 1902 by the son of an Austrian tinsmith. His name
was Ferdinand Porsche – yes the same Porsche who designed
vehicles for Daimler, Auto Union, made the Beetle and finally
gave birth to the line-up of some of the greatest sportscars
ever seen, the cars bearing his own name – the Porsches. It
is now time to go back in history, and the tale of Dr. Porsche
and his involvement in the hybrid movement.
Ferdinand Porsche was born in 1875 in
Mattersdorf, a village close to Reichenberg, in what was then
North Bohemia. In 1898, he joined Jacob Lohner’s automobile
company. This was Austria’s first production car company but
Lohner believed in electric cars and Porsche designed a car
which had an electric motor fitted to each front wheel hub.
This was radical stuff and the Lohner-Porsche was exhibited in
the Paris Exposition of 1900 and attracted international
attention. This was, however, still an electric car, powered
by heavy lead-acid batteries. The hub motors had been designed
by Ferdinand Porsche, who was just 25 years old at the time.
His employer, Jacob Lohner, boasted to the press, “He is
very young, but he is a man with a big career before him. You
will hear of him again.” And how prophetic was that? The
same basic motor design was used to power the Apollo buggy
which American astronauts drove on the moon 69 years later.
Porsche was a sporting fanatic and spent
many hours at the drawing board to see where he could refine
the design and in 1902 fitted one of his electric hub motors
to each wheel, producing the world’s first four wheel drive
vehicle.
Porsche then looked at the weight problem
with the lead-acid batteries and worked out that what he
needed was a lightweight generator to provide the electric
current, rather than batteries, so he harnessed Daimler’s
and Panhard’s internal combustion engines to power the
generators for the wheel-mounted electric motors in a new
technology that he called ‘System Mixt.’ The system might
have been ‘mixed’ but the results were not. More speed
records were won by his 4WD hybrid race car, European acclaim
followed, and in 1905 Porsche won the Poetting Prize as
Austria’s most outstanding automotive designer.
One of his designs was the ‘Landwehr’,
a train designed for the road. The leading car, or engine, was
powered by a Daimler gasoline engine of 100 horsepower, linked
to an electrical generator. In keeping with his proven race
car approach, all four wheels were equipped with an electric
motor. This progressive design became even more ahead of its
time when Porsche decided that all of the cars should be
equipped with the same four wheel drive system, with the
electrical power supplied by the engine car through long
cables. During the First World War, these trains traveled on
difficult terrain to supply the army, and could also be fitted
with special tires in order to ride on normal railroad tracks.
The next hybrid was the C Train. It was a
purely military concept and was equipped with an 81 ton gun
and four cars, each with eight wheel electric hub drives,
following the concept of the Landwehr train. The total weight
with cargo was in excess of 150 tons. That was some hybrid!
Dr. Porsche also saw that pure electric
vehicles were not the way to go over 100 years ago and built
the hybrids. It is a pity that the automakers did not look
into history a little more!
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week I asked what was the common
component in the 1923 Fadag, Lindcar and Swaze vehicles? It
was the German ZF-Soden pre-selector gearbox.
So to this week. Who drove 24 hours at
Bonneville and on the last lap shaved his chin, so that he
could get out looking presentable?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be
the first correct answer to email [email protected]
Good luck!
