#Discounts

Sergio Marchionne accuses Volkswagen of exploiting the European crisis to gain market share by offering aggressive discounts, the New York Times writes. “It’s a bloodbath of pricing and it’s a bloodbath on margins,” the Fiat and Chrysler CEO told the paper.

The Chinese stock market is way down. Real estate speculation had reached its zenith a while ago, and prices are on a downward trajectory. So are prices of luxury cars. Now is the time to get great deals on a BMW, or a “Benz,” as they call a Mercedes in China. Dealers are killing each other with discounts to move the high-end metal. Says China Daily:

Why does Warren Buffett have a headache? For quite a while, China’s BYD had been nothing but a miracle. Now, the Buffett-backed wunderkind turns outcast. To move their cars, BYD slashes prices down to the bone.

Ford Europe will swallow a tried and trued antidote against flagging car sales: Heavy discounting. Yesterday, Ford had announced – in a rather roundabout way – that their European sales had dropped a breathtaking 17 percent in April. Putting cash on the hood is no surprising move. Wouldn’t there be another detail.

Lavish cash on the hood of Japanese cars may help their U.S. sales (or soften the fall in Toyota’s case). The largess also “will put pressure on earnings,” says The Nikkei [sub].

Toyota, Nissan, Honda raised sales incentives in February to an average of 2,221 dollars per vehicle, up 11 percent from January.