Boys Gone Wild In Brazilian Car-Naval
In the world of automobiles, it appears that China isn’t the only fruit ripe for the plucking. Brazil is buzzing. They’re weathering the current economic fragility very well, and companies are looking to invest in there. Down in Brazil, economically speaking, it’s car-naval time!
PSA will invest 1.4b reais (about $780m) to develop and make new vehicles and engines and increase output in Brazil. PSA CEO Philippe Varin came out with the usual “we are the world” spiel: “Latin America and Brazil in particular are essential to our goal of becoming an increasingly global group, and so in planning our future in the continent, we’ve set aside funds to implement a solid product plan for our brands in Brazil.” PSA is the fifth biggest player there, with a 5 percent market share. According to Automotive World, PSA launched a third shift at their factory in Porto Real and took on 700 extra staff to cope with growing demand. So it shouldn’t be that surprising that PSA is focusing a lot on Brazil.
Not only is PSA having a Brazilian, so is Fiat. They’re expanding their Brazilian subsidiary by hiring an extra 1000 workers to ramp up production and increasing production by 6.5 percent. Fiat also invested 3b reais in Brazil, but in a different way.
Don’t think it’s just Europeans who want a piece of that bolo. GM also has announced an investment of 1.4b reais ($778m) in their 2 factories in Brazil. This money will be used to develop cars specific to our Portuguese speaking friends. However, if you’re suspecting that this is North American taxpayers’ money hard at work south of the border, then GM is quick to squash that S.O.B. of an idea. They said that the investment is self financed “with cash generated by Brazilian operations during recent years.” Got that?!
It looks like Brazil is shaping up to be the China of the Southern Hemisphere. Mind you, if TTAC wants me to relocate to Brazil as a correspondent there, I’m already packed with the proper outfits.
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Hello Mr. Djn, Yeah, such comments were and, to a degree, still are common. You see, this kind of comment is a very Brazilian thing to do. We as a people have this characteristic of putting us and anything Brazilian down. Pride is reserved for football (soccer), the only area which we feel we own. Now as to the cars before the 90s, and due to the fact the imports were largely forbidden and the market belonged to the so-called Oldcomers or Big 4 (VW, Ford, GM and Fiat) the cars BTW congrats on your great taste as you picked some of the best. After the market opened up in the 90s things improved dramatically. New companies came in, the Oldcomers modernized and built new cars and plants. Nowadays even the most pessimistic Brazilian knows things are much improved. And the comment that nothing Brazilian or made in Brazil is worthless is falling by the wayside. So yeah, in ways that comment was justified. Nowadays its largely not. But as a cultural thing, it still goes on.
thanks for the great insight for all the gringos. You forgot to mention that it snowed once in Santa Catarina. That's the other Brazilian neurosis. All civilized countries have snow (thanks to Jose Wilker, Bye Bye Brasil). Also, as I recall, the insane costs of a new car is largely due to taxes on the domestics and import tariffs on the imported. Brazil is had a huge statist government since Getulio.