#Germany

Despite a tough situation at home, the Volkswagen Group continues to power ahead in the global markets. Volkswagen increased its global sales by 14.6 percent in October. For the year, Volkswagen delivered 7.5 million units worldwide, up 10.2 percent. In China, Volkswagen is nipping at GM’s heels, but does not seem to be able to overtake the General.

GM CEO Dan Akerson re-affirmed his committment to Opel while speaking at company headquarters in Ruesselsheim, Germany.

An experiment conducted in London shows that the new MINI is the world’s strongest babe-magnet. This 2012 MINI attracted 28 very skinny and flexible ladies.

By way of one of its usual trademark flowery press releases, BMW says it is developing a new two-man bobsled for use by Team USA in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

Ah, those French! With their alliance with GM on les rocks, PSA is casting about for a new partner, just in case “the co-operation with GM and Opel should fail,” writes Germany’s Manager Magazin. PSA and Tata already had first talks, the usually well connected German business magazine says.

Porsche announced a stellar October, with sales up 24.1 percent to 11,688 units, and with a total of 116,050 units delivered for the year, an increase of 15.6 percent over last. Porsche even has a nice table, which we hope will set an example for all automakers. All this didn’t keep them from slamming the brakes. Porsche will cancel weekend shifts at its headquarter factory in Zuffenhausen from January, where it has been running eight extra shifts on Saturdays since September to clear orders for the revamped 911 model, Reuters says.

At the auto show in Los Angeles, next to Stuttgart basically home turf for Porsche, the company will have a small surprise for a big country: Porsche will unveil a “new compact sports car” at the show. Mum’s the word.

What do you get when you add two doors to a 6-Series coupé? Last year the answer was: a 7-Series. Of course that was last year, now BMW has an all-new answer: the Gran Coupe. Of course, calling your latest sexy sedan a “coupé” is nothing new ( Mercedes has done it since 2004), what is new is the process by which this “coupé” arrived. Normally manufacturers introduce a new sedan, then within a year they delete two doors, lop off some trunk, give it a sporty grille and launch it as a coupé and convertible. The 6-Series Gran Coupe (GC) on the other hand is what happens when you take a an expensive coupé and add doors. In BMW speak, this process created a four-door coupé. Confused yet? Allow me to explain: apparently all you have to do to create a coupé is remove the sashes from the windows. (This means that Subaru buyers have driven coupés all these years and didn’t know it.) Can the sexy 6-Series beat Mercedes at their own CLS game? Let’s find out.

GM told Reuters that it won’t build the next-generation Chevrolet Cruze in South Korea. Reuters says this is “raising the possibility that GM might shift the assembly to Europe to help boost efficiency at its money-losing unit there.”

Here is one car company that didn’t profit from Japan’s losses in China: Mercedes sales in China were down 3.9 percent to about 15,900 units in October, Reuters says. Daimler blamed the “very strong” sales of October 2011.

Germany’s new car market was up 0.5 percent in October. What looked like bucking the European downtrend was quickly discounted by market observers who noted that October had two more working days than October last year. Taking this into account, Germany is down with the rest of Europe. Meanwhile, sales in France dropped 7.8 percent, and those in Spain are down a gutwrenching 21.7 percent.

After a rash of interim-CEOs, Opel may have found a more permanent one. It’s the former Volkswagen manager Karl-Thomas Neumann. The successful recruitment was first published by Financial Times Deutschland, the report was quickly confirmed by wire services and major German newspapers.

We have documented how GM and Opel have a hard time separating themselves from the Bochum plant, something that is urgently necessary to address Opel’s dangerous overcapacity. The date to close the plant is being kicked more and more down the road and well past the use-by date of the current and some future Opel CEOs. Currently, it looks like Bochum and gaping wounds will stay open through 2017. Or maybe longer …

Yesterday, a car developed (mostly) for and (mostly) in China was presented at a gala event in Wolfsburg. Volkswagen celebrated the new Santana, and Volkswagen’s lucky entry into the Chinese market some 30 years ago. That’s also how long the old Santana lasted. It was time to replace it, and the time was yesterday.

Unions reached a last minute deal with Opel: Plant closures and layoffs are off the table through 2016. This according to information given by works council chief Walter Einenkel to the usually reliable Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.