Even at Germany’s IG Metall metal workers union the daily BILD Zeitung was put aside today to make room for the fancy Wall Street Journal. The paper claims to have talked to “a GM official,” who thinks that all hell is about to break loose at Opel in Germany.

In a nutshell:

• GM is looking at “horrendous” fourth quarter losses from Opel
• Patience at RenCen is running out
• The plants in Bochum, Germany, and Ellesmere Port, England, could get closed.

Said the nameless official:

“There is increasing frustration with Opel and a feeling that the cuts two years ago did not go nearly deep enough. If Opel is going to get fixed, it is going to get fixed now and cuts are going to be deep.”

GM spokesman Selim Bingol told the WSJ that “the official’s comments don’t represent the company’s official stance with the union.”

Germany’s Handelsblatt immediately was on the story and produced the scoop of the day: UAW’s Bob King becomes a member of the Opel Supervisory Board. Neither Handelsblatt in Germany nor the Detroit News in Detroit could get an official confirmation, but received no denial either. The DetN found “ source familiar with the situation” that said it’s true.

Now that’s a new and clever threat: Say ja to the firings, or we’ll sic the UAW on you.

Meanwhile a new enemy is targeting Opel: Hyundai. The Koreans want to gain market share in Germany mainly from Opel and from Ford, writes the Handelsblatt.

Sassenbach, BMW’s agency for Mini, had a killer idea: “Adopt a storm! When it hits, it will be all over the news! Free advertising! It costs only €299! How can you lose?” This (or words to that effect) is what the agency told the client.” Then, more than 100 people froze to death.

Germany’s meteorology institute allows the sponsorship of weather systems. The agency paid the €299, called a cold front “Cooper” and boasted on its website that naming the front after the open-air vehicle was a “wind- and weather-proof idea”. Then, the cold front went berserk.

According to the BBC, a freak winter storm deep-froze most of Europe, and “the freezing temperatures have led to at least 100 deaths, mainly in Poland and Ukraine. In Ukraine alone, nearly 950 people are being treated in hospital with hypothermia and frostbite. ”

BMW said it deeply regretted that the weather front had taken on “catastrophic proportions” and claimed so many lives.

Sassenbach quickly removed the page from its website, but the killer storm turned into a PR disaster. Newspapers as far away as Australia report that “Mini has taken a step too far in its attempt to be cool.” We wager that coldhearted BMW will put its business with Sassenbach on ice.

The line at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant will run a little faster. It will produce 35 cars instead of 31 per hour. That also produces new jobs. In an emailed statement, VWoA announced today that 200 new permanent jobs will be created at its Tennessee plant.

The increased production is needed to keep up with the demand. Volkswagen’s new car sales were up 23 percent for 2011, and a whopping 31 percent in December. The market grew 10 percent for the year, and 9 percent for December. The Passat, which is built in Chattanooga, is a brisk seller. “Each car that we make is sold on the spot,” says Volkswagen spokesman Guenther Scherelis. He did not want to speculate on January sales, which will be announced tomorrow.

This should create smiles all-around.  Ryan Rose, head of HR in Chattanooga, explains:

“These 200 new positions are all full-time Volkswagen jobs. We will use this opportunity to hire many of our current Aerotek contract employees. So, Aerotek will be recruiting to fill full-time contract production positions that will open up as a result. We will also be hiring additional supervisors and engineers – so there are a lot of opportunities.”

Aerotek provides contract employees to VW. The new full-time jobs will be integrated into Volkswagen’s current two-shift operation. Volkswagen gains experienced team-members, and new openings for contract workers are created. Who will be in-line for full-time jobs when the line will make a few more cars per hour down the road. ..

Currently, the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga employs more than 2,500 people, about 2,000 by Volkswagen, and an additional 500 by Aerotek. This number will now rise to 2,700.

It’s good that the UAW had hoisted the white flag and gave up on unionizing the South. The UAW already was not welcome in Chattanooga. With 200 new jobs created, the question would even more be:

“1,2,3,4 – what are we paying for?”

In other big news, Volkswagen now is doing something for it’s image when seen from above. Says Bloomberg:

“Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant will add a big, flat-mounted rooftop sign that can be seen from the air and is so large the plant’s chief executive said it will be visible online on Google Earth.”

 

To celebrate the arrival of the, well, in a way, new Type 991 911, the Porsche Museum Stuttgart launches a great 911 retro- and introspective.  On display from today until 20 May will be an overdose of 911. 

The Porsche Museum is exhibiting all the 911 generations, from the “original 911” Ur-Elfer of 1963 to the new Type 991 of 2012, nicely set against a historically relevant backdrop. Think “Wirtschaftswunder” meets greed & Greece.

Likewise on display will be rare motor racing variants such as the Porsche 911 Carrera RS 2.7 “Safari” or the Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid. The show with the title “911 Identity” lets you admire secret design documents, still in their Leitz two ring binders. Speaking of secret, you can admire an original 991 Erlkönig in the flesh, and sit behind the wheel of a Porsche 911 Carrera. Porsche will hope that the contact is contagious.

Just don’t come on Monday: The Porsche Museum is open  Tuesday to Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eight euro for adults, children pay half.

Suddenly, everybody is in a big hurry: On February 14, the Supervisory Board Volkswagen’s supervisory board will convene to hear plans to acquire the remaining stake of Porsche’s sports car business, Der Spiegel [sub] reports. The deal is supposed to happen in a tax-efficient manner. It also drives plaintiffs mad.

According to Der Spiegel, Volkswagen will have to pay €3.9 billion ($5.1 billion) plus taxes for the  50.1 percent stake. Add to that a “low three-digit million” amount in taxes. There are people who don’t like that deal at all.

Those people are international funds that sued Porsche and Volkswagen for more than €5 billion. They felt duped after getting caught in a monster short squeeze. On the Porsche side, the suits are against Porsche SE, a holding company that owns Porsche AG.

“If Porsche gets ransacked, we need to react,” Munich lawyer Franz Braun told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. He is worried that Volkswagen makes off with the juiciest assets, leaving a hollowed-out holding behind. He wants to get a temporary injunction that stops the sale. Volkswagen told the paper that this is “lawyerly nonsense.” The holding will have plenty assets, Volkswagen argues. It gets billions from Volkswagen and keeps owning 50.7 percent of Volkswagen.

Volkswagen could officially swallow Porsche this year.

Stay tuned.

You think success in India hinges on cheap little cars? Audi thinks overpriced big cars can be good business also. If IBN’s sources are correctly informed, and if the Crores Rupees converter I found on the net is correctly programmed, Audio wants to sell 1 million dollar A8s to the Indians.

Of course it’s not any old A8. Audi plans to sell its A8 L Security model to India. This is an armored car that can withstand attacks from AK-47s and hand grenades, and therefore any haphazard terrorist attack.

At the car show in Delhi, Audi has received about “20 active enquiries” from government departments and businessmen in India, says the report. The Audi A8 L Security is purpose-built by Audi in Germany.

The market in India is wide open for German armor. The President of India travels in a Mercedes Benz S600 Pullman Guard. The Indian Prime Minister travels in a recently acquired armored BMW 7 Series. His Special Protection Group members escort him in BMW X5 Security Plus models.

The price of the Audi A8 L Security is estimated at around one million dollars, depending on extras and gadgets.

A source told IBN that Audi will not sell the car to regular customers, saying that “it will always be very selective sale. Audi is also eyeing defence, para-military and police forces in India.”

Just in case Audi wants to add a little light touch to its marketing, how about this for a jingle?

The stuff those crafty engineers in Stuttgart come up with to keep our eyes off the road.

And just in case you are stuck in traffic in [geolocate your position] …

Why don’ t you tell the world on Facebook and Twitter that you are stuck in traffic in [geolocate your position]?

(It is not true that mbrace 5.0 will automatically Twitter back: “Me too!  Stuck in  [geolocate your position]!!!” This one will require no driver interaction, absolutely hands-free.)

 When we talked about a four door version of Volkswagen’s hot-selling (in Europe, not available stateside) small car, the Up!, one commenter in particular equaled the car to a happy meal container and its owners to baby killers. A small car can be very safe – if its engineers know what they are doing. It just so happens that that little happy meal container is proof of it. It  was elected one of Europe’s safest cars.

Volkswagen’s Up! has been awarded five stars by Euro NCAP, the highest rating the independent European consumer protection organization can bestow.  Wait, it can do one better: Euro NCAP also gave the Up! the 2012 Advanced Award, for the UP!’s City Emergency Braking function. According to Euro NCAP, the Up! is the safest cars in its class.

As a small car, you need to be a little smarter than a dumb tank that simply barges through. The City Emergency Braking function for instance is automatically activated at speeds between 5 and 30 km/ h, and it uses a laser sensor (integrated in the upper area of the windscreen) to scan a space up to 10 meters (33 feet) in front of the Up! According to Volkswagen, the Up! is the only car in its segment that can be equipped with a City Emergency Braking function.

The Porsche-Piëch clan, ca. 1942. Grandfather Ferdinand Porsche, brother Ernst Piëch, sister Louise Piëch and mother Louise Piëch-Porsche. Ferdinand Piëch (nicknamed "Burli") is sitting in the grass on the left.

Volkswagen does not own Porsche yet. For all intents and purposes, however, Porsche is part of Volkswagen. Volkswagen executives give orders from Porsche board seats. Porsche engineers need to consult Volkswagen Group R&D departments. Insular solutions at Porsche require a written permission from Wolfsburg.

“Actually, Piech and his minion, Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn, could leave it at that. The integration of both enterprises has progressed so far, that is does not make a difference whether Porsche morphs into a Volkswagen division, or remains legally independent.

Actually.”

So says Der Spiegel, which says the urge to merge has personal reasons. 74 year old Porsche patriarch Piech wants to join the companies that were started by his grandfather and namesake, Ferdinand Porsche.

In the way are international funds which sued Porsche for billions. Porsche made an offer of a few hundred million Euro, but the funds denied. With the lawsuits ongoing, the risk of buying a company that may have to fork over billions is seen as too high.

Now, Volkswagen’s legal department has developed a solution: Volkswagen could buy the remaining 50.1 percent of the Porsche AG and leave the Porsche Holding behind. The operative business is in the AG. Porsche has a corporate structure that makes a Russian doll look like simplicity. As long as Volkswagen will own “all of Porsche,” nobody will ask which Porsche.

Except the suing investment funds, perhaps.

After having been more or less luckless (Lupo, Fox ..)  in the minicar category, Volkswagen appears to have finally found a winner with its autocorrect-busting Up! In Germany, the two-door city car immediately took first place in its class. In December, the Up! sold nearly the same as the former class champs Renault Twingo and Toyota Aygo sold together (see table.) To make backseat drivers more comfortable, Volkswagen introduces a four-door version of the Up!

Sales Germany, Mini Segment, December And Full Year 2011

Internally, the car is known by its acronym NSF (New Small Family). In May a four letter door NSFW (New Small Family Wagen) will arrive at dealers in Germany. By early summer, four doors will open to all of Europe.

With the four-door up! Volkswagen introduces another data-point car reviewers will have to add to their check list: The “H- point.”

The “H- point” seems to be the new G-spot for small cars, even if Volkswagen describes it in clinical detachment as “the relevant vertex of the angle formed by the seat surface and the backrest.”

The H-point of the four-door up! is 378 mm in the rear, which – so Volkswagen tells us – “is higher than in front (306 mm).”

Let’s assume that’s good.

Do you live in the Boston, Hartford, New York, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, or San Francisco MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area)? Do you see yourself as an adventurer and explorer? In that case, BMW wants to talk to you. BMW has pegged adventurers and explorers as “front-runners of innovation and advocates for sustainability.” These are the people BMW wants to “recruit” for a “field trial” of its  Active E electric vehicles.

It will be a transformative experience. You will be turned into a green lab rat.

If you are amongst the 700 “Electronauts” chosen by BMW , the Munich-based company will allow you to lease its BMW ActiveE for $499 per month for 24 months with a down payment of $2,250. You can start the recruitment process at www.bmwusa.com/ActiveE.

But that’s not all. According to a BMW press release, you also must agree to provide “car- and driver-generated data and anecdotal feedback” which “will be collected by BMW to deepen its knowledge about the everyday use of EVs and to provide actionable insights into electric mobility in urban environments.”

Don’t do anything embarrassing in the Active E car, because “once the field trial commences, information collected from the Electronauts will be made available for all EV enthusiasts and media at www.BMWActivateTheFuture.com.”

As a test specimen, you can be proud that

“the learnings from the field trial will provide direct insight into electric mobility in advance of series production of BMW’s first purpose-built, mass-produced electric vehicles, the BMW i3 in 2013 and the i8 in 2014. Concepts of the i3 and i8, the first two vehicles from the new BMW i brand, made their official North American debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show on November 16 and 17, 2011.”

Don’t think that BMW gives their car just to any adventurer and explorer. BMW says that

“prospective lessees will complete a charging station consultation with BMW partner AeroVironment. The purpose of the consultation is to ensure that prospective Electronaut’s homes are capable of supporting an AeroVironment charging station and participants fully understand all aspects of maintaining and charging an electric vehicle before signing a lease.  Once the consultation is completed, the prospect’s information will be forwarded to their selected BMW ActiveE center to finish the lease process.”

Scary, no? Driving an EV with the charge indicator on empty is a high stress environment. BMW must be sure that you have the right stuff. You’ll understand.

Chinese are snapping up Porsches at an alarming rate. Chinese took the three-monkey-approach to the tepid overall car market in 2011 and bought  65 percent more Porsches than in the year before. There is a 120 km/h (75 mph) speed limit on China’s freeways. Where can the rapidly growing crowd of Chinese Porsche drivers experience what their machine really can do?

In 2013, Porsche wants to open its own private racecourse near Shanghai, says Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. It won’t be just any old track for pseudo racers. FIA will be called to certify the track as Formula 1 material. China currently has only one Formula 1 track – also near Shanghai. Shanghai has a population of over 22 million, it can take two tracks. If I would have been Porsche however, I would have put it elsewhere.

The German newspaper thinks that the track will be similar to Porsche’s track near Leipzig, Germany. The FIA-certified track was designed by German architect and racer Hermann Tilke. He also designed the current Shanghai F1 track. Despite its certification, the Leipzig track hasn’t seen a race since 2002, notes the German paper. The track is used for testing and to impress customers who can go home, saying: “I drove that Porsche on a Formula 1 track.“

Atlanta and L.A. could get similar tracks.

2011 Porsche Sales, Major Markets

In 2010, China had passed Germany as Porsche’s second-largest  market, at that time far behind the U.S. Last year, the ranking did not change, but China started to tailgate the U.S. Nobody expects sudden growth in the U.S., Porsche and the FAZ expect China to become Porsche’s largest market this year. It’s part of the family experience: China is by far the largest market of the Volkswagen Group.

On these pages, it was promptly called “a modern-day version of another Porsche Deadly Sin, the 914.”

Porsche decided to sin no more and ditched the roofless cheapo.

Last year, Porsche chief Matthias Müller continued to sing the praises of

“a legitimate successor to the Porsche 550 – namely a small mid-engine sports car. Actually I couldn’t imagine a better name for a small roadster like that than the 550.“

Now, the car is dead. At least for the foreseeable future. In an interview with Germany’s Wirstschaftswoche, Müller didn’t say that the car is dead, but as good as dead, quite dead, actually:

„Possibly it will take until a future generation of customers until a small roadster is a good fit with Porsche. “

Phew. That epiphany took a while. Porschephiles already had feared an across-the-board loss of Ueberholprestige, resale-value and babe-magnetism, inflicted by the puerile Porsche on the hallowed brand.

Müller is now thinking in the other direction: Bigger,  faster, pricier. Mumbled Müller:

 „Between a 911 GT2 for €250.000 and a €750.000  918 Spyder is a gap of half a million euro. Why shouldn’t we come up with a car for €300.000 to €400.000? That would be immediately accepted as a Porsche.”

Nods all around in the Porsche paddock, while wannabe Porsche owners pull out Miata catalogs.

Do you live in or near a Cuban community? Drive a Mercedes? Noooooo! Leave it in the garage. Put a tarp over it.

The Cuban community hates Mercedes and Daimler Chairman Dieter Zetsche, despite his Cuban-sized mustache. Casus belli: At a presentation at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Zetsche praised the virtues of car sharing. Car sharing?

Zetsche said:

 “Some colleagues still think that car-sharing borders on communism, but if this is a revolution, then ‘viva la revolucion!’.”

As he said it, a wide-format picture of Che Guevara popped up behind the Daimler Chairman. Che’s trademark beret was decorated with Daimler’s three-pointed star trademark. It had replaced the usual red star.

The audience laughed politely. The Cuban community got its colorful knickers in a twist. Several people in Miami told the Miami Herald that they will boycott Mercedes.
The Huffington Post weighed-in on the matter and, huffy as always, called the matter “The Crass Marketing of a Sadistic Racist.”

The same writer continued in a right-wing blog that Che Guevara “was a psychopath whose sadistic lust for blood was not easily quenched. He killed for pleasure.”

While Forbes snickered about “That famous German humor,” Automotive News [sub] opined:

“In fact, the Guevara image was far from the most offensive prop used by Mercedes during the program.

Before Zetsche arrived on stage, Mercedes simulated a series of text messages on the stage screen that used expletives and made reference to late-night partying.”

That, of course, won’t stand out as something noteworthy in Miami’s Cuban exile community.
Daimler apologized for the Guevara reference, but not for the colorful language.
The speechwriter who had the glorious idea is probably looking for new employment.

Are you the King of Spain, the Sultan of Brunai, Jay-Z, or the Russian oil billionaire Roman Abramovich? Check your mailbox. Volkswagen’s Bentley has sent you mail. Bentley wants to grieve with you over the passing of your beloved Maybach brand, and then, in a tasteful way, hopes will be expressed that your next car will be a Bentley.

In November, Daimler announced that it will bury Maybach (for an eulogy fittingly written by Jack Baruth, click here). This allegedly caused tears amongst the über-rich. Bentley Chief Executive Wolfgang Dürheimer told Reuters at the Detroit auto show that he already heard from some sad Maybach owners: “The comments I’m receiving aren’t very positive – they feel left alone.”

Well, it’s lonely at the top. To set themselves off from the riff-raff, current Maybach owners are unlikely to replace their $372,500 Maybach 57S with a Mercedes S350 Bluetec: $91,300 – never mind that the two look like twins. They are.

The thinking goes that Bentleys and Rollers are closer to the hearts of the clientele. A Bentley Mulsanne ($290,000 MSRP, excluding tax, title, license and destination charge) will look like a bargain compared to the lowest-priced Maybach, the 57.  If you have money to burn (like the royalty in that video,) Bentley has a shop that caters to the strangest tastes, at a hefty surcharge.

Then, why send letters? At around 200 Maybachs sold in 2011, seeking an audience with the grieving owner would probably be more efficient. Bring Kleenex and brochures.

Last year, the BMW plant in Spartanburg produced 276,065 vehicles for more than 130 markets around the world,  an increase of 73 percent over the previous year.

Much to the delight of SC governor Nikki Haley, BMW’s total investment in South Carolina will grow to approximately $6 billion.

Little known factoid: More than 70 percent of the vehicles produced in Spartanburg (192,813) were exported, making the BMW Group the largest automotive exporter to the non-NAFTA countries.

When we heard from Reuters about GM’s possible plan to shift production from its South Korean former Daewoo plants to Europe, we didn’t think that would be highly appreciated in South Korea.  After duly reporting that there could be a deal afoot to mollify the German and European steelworkers union with jobs taken away from South Korea, we opined: Let’s see what the militant South Korean unions have to say about that.”

We did not have to wait long. The unions in South Korea already threaten war, and when they say war, they mean war.

In an update to their detailed and well-researched article, the Reuters reporters write:

Moves to shift production could ignite protests from a militant labour union at GM Korea, which launched its first strike in three years last year.  Choi Jong-hak, a spokesman for GM Korea’s labor union, warned the union would “wage a war” if GM shifts output to Europe.

He said GM had already been shifting some production from South Korea to emerging markets with cheaper labour, causing “serious job insecurity.”

The plan is spearheaded by GM vice chairman and chairman of Opel’s supervisory board Steve Girsky. Reuters says Girsky has “close ties to GM’s largest union.” That is putting it mildly. Girsky  worked as an adviser to the UAW during the pre-bankruptcy times and was the UAW’s man on the GM board. He should know the unions better. He could ask his joint venture partners at China’s SAIC. When SAIC pulled out of Ssanyong, literally all hell broke loose.

Says Reuters:

“One idea would be shifting production of the high-volume Chevy Cruze small car to Gliwice, Poland, and then swapping production from that Opel plant to others in Western Europe, according to the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing union strategy.”

“Another part of the proposal under discussion would bring output of the seven-passenger Chevy Orlando crossover to the Bochum, Germany, plant, the sources said. Bochum has long been considered the Opel plant most likely to be closed.”

According to the report, the two parties appear to be close to agreement. A lot of the information from Germany originated from “people close to the leadership of German union IG Metall,” as the report says.

There is not much time left. GM wants to have a clear strategy for Opel by the end of March, Reuters learned. GM CEO Dan Akerson is getting increasingly disgusted by the flow of red. Plans to take Opel bankrupt appear to be off the table, at l;east for now and until needed in the game of carrot & stick.

On Tuesday, Akerson told Reuters in Detroit:

“In Europe, I don’t think they have a Chapter 11 option. I know it’s not the same set-up as here. That being said, we’re working hard in Europe. We’re going to try to scale our production with the market opportunity.”

In 2011, GM exported approximately 250,000 vehicles from South Korea to Europe. If the deal goes through, jobs instead of cars will be exported to Europe. Let’s see what the militant South Korean unions have to say about that.

Most of the growth is coming from the Asia / Pacific region, where sales grew 19.8 percent to 2.56 million units. In China, Volkswagen delivered 2.25 million vehicles (+17.2 percent.)  Just like GM,  Volkswagen has more than one quarter of its global sales in China.

Global Sales Main Volkswagen Brands (Millions)

Volkswagen is the first of the Top Three to publish full numbers for 2011. Toyota should publish in the last week of this month, GM sometime in February, along with the quarterly and full year results.

Renault-Nissan announced today in Detroit that its Decherd, Tenn., plant will build Mercedes-Benz 4-cylinder engines for Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz starting in 2014.

Read this sentence carefully.

Nissan will build engines designed by Mercedes Benz. The engines will be used in Infiniti cars. And they will be used by Mercedes-Benz. It is the first time that Merc. engines will be built in the NAFTA. That first happens in a Nissan plant. That’s more than a marriage, that’s an orgy between two. Well, three.

Production will begin in 2014, with installed capacity of 250,000 units per year once full ramp–up is achieved.

Mercedes will be using the engines starting in 2014 in C-Class cars, built at Daimler’s vehicle plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

The complete project announced last September amazingly is still on track:

• Joint smart/Twingo architecture still underpins cars launched by Renault and Daimler in the first quarter of 2014. Two-seater smart vehicles will be produced at Daimler’s plant in Hambach, France, and four-seater smart and Renault production are slated for Renault’s plant in Novo Mesto, Slovenia.
• A new entry-level city van for Mercedes-Benz is on schedule with launch planned late 2012. The Mercedes van will be made at Renault’s plant in Maubeuge, France.
• The cross-supply of power trains intensifies.  The Alliance is supplying Daimler with compact three-cylinder gasoline engines to be used in smart and Twingo vehicles and four-cylinder diesel engines to be used in the jointly developed light commercial vehicle and in Mercedes-Benz’s compact cars. Daimler will supply Nissan and Infiniti with four- and six-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines and automatic transmissions.
• Infiniti plans to base a premium compact vehicle on the Mercedes compact-car architecture, starting in 2014.
• Daimler will provide batteries from its production facility in Kamenz, Germany, and Renault-Nissan will provide electric motors for the use in the jointly developed EV versions of the smart and Twingo. Those are expected in 2014.

Why are Volkswagen and Porsche living together, but are not married? Because VW is worried about the outstanding lawsuits brought against Porsche by irate investors. Now suddenly Volkswagen lost that protection. Lawsuits are piling up right in front of Volkswagen’s own doorstep. At the court in Braunchweig, 20 miles away from Wolfsburg, billion dollar lawsuits are snowballing at an alarming rate.

An hour ago, Reuters reported that claims against Porsche and Volkswagen filed at the Braunschweig court have reached 1.8 billion euros ($2.3 billion).

A few minutes ago, the German finance wire BoerseGo reported that another €2 billion ($2.55) billion lawsuit was filed in Stuttgart, also against Porsche and Volkswagen. The German magazine Witschaftswoche says that in the meantime, there are more than 70 litigants.

Adding a just amended lawsuit for another €351 million ($448 million,) BoerseGo now reports that the lawsuits are standing at “approximately €4 billion” (approximately €5.1 billion.) That as of this morning.

To make the matter even more juicier, arbitration proceedings have been initiated against Christian Wulff, President of Germany. The President (a figurehead in Germany, the power is with the Chancellor) was Premier of Lower Saxony while it happened, and as such he sat on the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen. He is also being sued for €1.89 billion. Which he does not have.

Here is what Reuters says about the grounds for the pricey lawsuits:

“Massive demands for damages have been brought by enraged investors who took wrong-way bets on a decline in VW shares in 2008. They claim they were misled by the sportscar maker about how many shares in VW it held at the time, leading to a “short squeeze” that turbo-charged VW shares.

When Porsche revealed it controlled 74.1 percent of VW’s voting stock in October 2008, shares of Volkswagen topped 1,000 euros apiece, having more than quadrupled within just days.

Incredulous investors who had bet on an imminent end to the surge saw VW briefly become the world’s biggest company by market value.”

Lawsuits in the U.S. that followed a similar line of reasoning so far failed. Bringing suit in Germany is the right venue, but it can be much riskier and costlier. In Germany, those who bring suit, have to front hefty court costs. Those who lose, pay the whole court costs, plus the other side’s legal expenses.  My calculator says that bringing a €4 million lawsuit can mean exposure of around half a million Euro. The calculator goes on strike at 4 billion.

Which may be €8 billion when the day ends. Someone is attaching big checks to legal papers.

AN does not buy into that one. AN thinks the more likely explanation is a playground showdown, where two boys compare their didis:

 “Show me yours!”

“No, you show me yours first!”

Each company wanted to see the other’s sales numbers first, so that it would know how high its figures would have to be to grab the U.S. luxury-market crown from the other.

By the time the numbers came out, I was wondering whether that would be the end of the gamesmanship. Might the No. 2 brand “discover” some extra numbers that put it ahead? As in “Oops, we forgot to count Connecticut.”

The puerile processing of sales data will cast a dark cloud over the title “biggest luxury carmaker in the U.S.” Which is a self-defeating title anyway. You become the king of the luxury hill by making the most luxurious cars, not by selling the highest quantity. This year, the counting brouhaha made the title utterly worthless.

Usually, all automakers in the U.S. market report together on the same day of the month. This time it’s different. The world does not know exactly how many cars Americans bought in December and therefore for the year, because Daimler and BMW had not handed in their numbers.

BMW and Mercedes had been in a year-long battle for the luxury crown, a title that oddly enough only has cachet in the otherwise monarchy-averse U.S.A. where kings are used to measure beds and burgers. With annual sales in the quarter million territory, both players would be Mazda-sized, would it not be for the (sometimes doubtful) “luxury” title.

Toyota had conceded defeat early in the day by reporting a total of 198,552 units for its Lexus brand, which takes the third place on the podium. Both Daimler and BMW must be busy counting hanging chads and calling every dealer in the country to account for stragglers.

Yesterday, editors the world over (yours truly included) had been nervously drumming their desks while they stared at the empty spaces in the Daimler and BMW entries. At 9 pm, Automotive News [sub] gave up waiting, and estimated the sales. AN gives Mercedes a slight edge with 261,573 units sold for the year, BMW were given 247,773 units. Both received a finger-wagging from AN:

“Daimler AG and BMW Group still hadn’t reported December results, as their Mercedes and BMW brands remained locked in a battle to become the best-selling luxury brand in the United States.”

Translation: Don’t hold up the proceedings. Let’s hope they will hand in their homework today.

Porsche forgot to include pictures or other technical data in its email. As a placeholder, we will show you the 911 Carrera Cabrio  Porsche had announced last November.

While announcing the stateside arrival of the strip tease artist, Porsche sets daring goals for the U.S. market. “USA sold 29,023 Cayennes, Panameras, 911s, Boxsters and Caymans to US customers,” says the press release. And this year? Prepare to be blown away:

“In the New Year 2012, the Zuffenhausen company anticipates selling more than 30,000 vehicles in the United States.”

Wow. I bet this took guts.

Germans bought 244,501 cars in December, which brought German sales for the year 2011 to 3.17 million units, up 8.8 percent compared to 2010. According to data released by the German Kraftfahrtbundesamt, the German love affair with oil burners continues unabated: 47.1 percent of all newly registered cars run on diesel. In all of 2011, Germans bought 2,154 EVs and 12,622 hybrids.

Nearly two thirds of cars registered 2011 (64.7 percent) are German brands. The government agency (and everybody else in Germany) counts Opel and Ford as a German brand. Porsche (+15.0 percent) and Ford (+16.5 percent) had the strongest growth amongst domestic brands. With a growth of 11.9 percent, Volkswagen further solidified its overpowering lead. Amongst the import brands, Hyundai gained market share with +16.9 percent. Volvo (+31.4 percent) and Lancia (+60.2 percent) were the biggest gainers amongst the import brands. Detailed data can be downloaded here.