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. (Read More…)

Porsche is not part of Formula 1, regular rumors to the contrary notwithstanding. This doesn’t keep Porsche from building and owning its own Formula 1 racecourse. In China. Atlanta and L.A. could be next. What for?

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? (Read More…)

In 2010, plans of a (by Porsche standards) low-priced cheap Porsche, a mid-engined, entry-level roadster based on the underpinnings of the Volkswagen BlueSport Concept were floated. The car was called a “modern-day 356 Speedster” by some.

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. (Read More…)

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: (Read More…)

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. (Read More…)

Bucolic Spartanburg, SC, will get a new boost when BMW drops $900 million on the plant to expand its capacity to 350,000 units per year. Spartanburg will become one of the world’s largest BMW plants. The BMW Group already invested USD 750 million in the expansion of the plant for production of the new BMW X3 between 2008 and 2010. Now, the plant is being expanded again to make room for the X4. (Read More…)

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. (Read More…)

When thinking about creating cost efficiencies, moving jobs to Asia usually comes to mind. GM has a different plan to bring profitability back to its hemorrhaging Opel unit. GM is considering bringing Chevrolet production from its Korean plants to Europe. In exchange for delivering jobs, GM expects concessions from the unions that would clear the way for a major cost-cutting operation necessary to stop the bleeding and to save the German patient from otherwise certain death. This is at the heart of a detailed report just filed by Reuters correspondents Christiaan Hetzner in Frankfurt and Ben Klayman in Detroit. (Read More…)

With 8.16 million cars delivered globally, sales of the Volkswagen group grew14.3 percent from 7.14 million in 2010. Volkswagen estimates that the global passenger car market grew only 5.1 percent, therefore, the Wolfsburg group expanded its global market share. With GM (due to report next month) expected to be in the low 9 million, and Toyota expected to be in the high 7 million, Volkswagen will end the year as the world’s #2 auto maker, behind GM and before Toyota. (Read More…)

It’s not that the cross-sharing of technologies between Renault-Nissan has been a well-kept secret. However, it is good to hear that loose alliances between unlikely partners work, while a marriages made in the automotive compatibility heaven (we are looking at you, Volkswagen & Suzuki) don’t even get to the consummation part.

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. (Read More…)