While America Slept. Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Toyota asking workers to forego pay: In an unusual move, Toyota has begun negotiating with labor to treat some of the 11 additional days during which the company plans to suspend domestic operations as vacation days without pay, the Nikkei (sub) writes. Toyota aims to close all 12 of its domestic factories for six more days than planned in February and for five additional days in March. Extra factory closure days used to be treated as paid days off. Toyota seeks to stop this practice from next month to cut costs. Toyota hopes to reach an agreement with labor this month. The unions already balk.

Germany looks like bottoming out: Germany’s car buyers bought 6.6 percent less in last December than in the prior year. This is nowhere near the disaster called America. Germany’s November sales had been down 18 percent. Germany closes out the year 2008 with a minus of just 1.8 percent, Automobilwoche (sub) reports. Still, “Germany notched up yet another post-reunification low for the year, with just 3.09 million vehicles registered throughout 2008,” Reuters writes. The big loser is Toyota with a loss of 27 percent for the year. Volkswagen sold 5.7 percent more than in 2007 and raised its market share to 19.9 percent. Opel lost 9.5 percent of sales, Porsche 8.2. The Smart gained 5.7 percent. Amazingly, SUVs gained 3 percent for the year, the high price of gas be damned. The share of diesel powered cars dropped 3.6 percent to now 44.1 percent.

GM increases dealer network in Japan. In Japan? GM is attempting to profit from the high yen and import more cars to Japan. GM is expanding its dealership network in a bid to lift Japanese passenger car sales, which dipped 8 percent on the year to just 2,600 vehicles in 2008, the Nikkei (sub) reports. GM had 73 dealerships in Japan in 2005. It had reduced that to 47 as of November after withdrawing from an ill fated attempt to sell German-made Opels in Japan. Now they think they need more dealers for the shrinking Japanese market.

Honda axes Argentinean plant: Honda has decided to delay the launch of a passenger car plant in Argentina by six months or more from the originally scheduled second half of this year as demand drops in South America, the Nikkei (sub) writes. The plant was slated to produce 30,000 subcompact cars a year, equivalent to about 7 percent of the entire Argentine passenger car market.

Taiwan‘s Yulon partners with China’s Geely: Taiwan’s Yulon, which just has been abandoned by its partner GM, is looking for another partner. They may have found one in mainland China. Yulon plans to team up with Geely Automobile to build budget cars priced below $10K, Gasgoo writes. The cars would be assembled at Yulon’s Sanyi plant in Taiwan. Geely sold an estimated 200,000 new cars last year, which was nearly equivalent to the total number of new cars sold in Taiwan during the same period.

Subsidy raises French market from the dead: France gives $1350 to each citizen who scraps an old car and buys a new, greener one. This was a shot in the arm of French car sales. In December, every third buyer dumped his or her old clunker and collected the government money. In December, Peugeot sold 20 percent more cars than in the month before. The subsidy makes a new car cheaper than a three year old used one, reports das Autohaus.

PSA interested in India: Peugeot Citroen is charting a quiet re-entry into India, India’s Economic Times reports. Peugeot Citroen is among the few global automobile companies that do not have a full-scale presence in India yet. PSA is interested in buying components as well as setting up a production base in India.

Lotus blossoms own hybrid: UK’s Lotus, which builds the plug-in for Tesla and has supplied cars for projects including the Dodge EV, and the Ecotricity, will debut a hybrid concept car at the Geneva Motor Show in March, says UK’s Channel 4 News. They say, the car is “capable of up to 400 miles on a single tank of petrol.”