#Korea

Pretty much most of the world’s large automakers plan a commercial launch of fuel cell vehicles in 2015, Hyundai even earlier. One of the hot spots could be Scandinavia. At the end of a month-long hydrogen-powered tour through Europe, Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Hyundai signed an agreement to jointly promote fuel cell vehicles in Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark.

Less than a year ago, the Tokyo automotive press corps was summoned to Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main Japanese islands to visit a Nissan plant. Nobody knew why, until Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn had one of his trademark impromptu outbursts. He called the exchange rate “abnormal,” several times, until everybody got it. He threatened several times that Nissan and most of the Japanese industry would pack up and leave, and delivered an ultimatum: “If six months down the road we are still in this situation, then this will provoke a rethinking of our industrial strategy.”

Nissan joins Hyundai and Kia in exporting cars to the U.S. Nissan will make the Rogue SUV at a plant of Alliance partner Renault Samsung Motor. This according to similar reports by Reuters and the Nikkei [sub], both without quoting official sources.

At home, GM is at peace with the unions, benefits of having the UAW as a major shareholder. Abroad, GM Europe has been in a low intensity conflict with the European unions that oppose cuts at Opel. Now, a labor conflict flares up in an unexpected part of the world: Korea.

Korea’s Samsung, better known for flat panel TVs, Galaxy smart phones and other gadgetry, wants its name removed from cars produced by Renault in Korea. “We want to take our brand ‘Samsung’ out of Renault Samsung since we don’t have anything to do with the car sales,” a Samsung executive told The Korea Herald.

Nothing doing, replied a Renault spokesman:

Despite an explicit suggestion from Opel’s own CEO that Chevrolet cars could be built in European Opel plants, GM Korea has shut the door on such an idea.

BMW turns more and more into the world’s purveyor of engines. If recent talks are successful, BMW motors could power Hyundai cars. This according to a report in Germany’s industry publication Automobil Produktion.

The magazine reports that Chung Eui-Sun, Vice-Chairman of Hyundai Motor Company and only son of und Hyundai CEO Chung Mong-Koo, has been in Munich to start the talks.

Is this another “ senseless provocation” by “imperialist American dogs“, or do Koreans really want to buy the Chevrolet Corvette?

Major carmakers around the world had their eyes on Hyundai’s growing muscle for a while. In the business, you call that benchmarking. Now, the benchmarking sensors sound alarm: Hyundai announced yesterday that its February global sales jumped 28 percent from a year earlier.

Toyota plans to more than double its exports to South Korea to 20,700 vehicles this year, says The Nikkei [sub]. The cars come from places that used to be import nations for Toyota: The U.S. and Europe. After announcing plans to export U.S.-built cars to South Korea, Toyota now is looking to bringing made-in-Europe cars back to Asia.

Hyundai may really, honestly launch its own luxury brand. In a way, at least, perhaps

For years, Hyundai has been going back and forth over on question: Luxury brand or not? Imitate Infiniti? Do it like Lexus? A la Acura? This conundrum produced millions of Google hits, but otherwise led to nothing. Hyundai may finally cave in and do it. Hyundai’s U.S. sales chief Dave Zuchowski told Automotive News [sub] that such a move could be in the offing. Why? Customers are well ahead of Hyundai and already created a new brand called “Genesis.”

Said Zuchowski:

Automakers in the U.S., Europe, and Japan are getting increasingly worried about the Korean Twins, Hyundai and Kia. Both had already outpaced the U.S. and European market last year. Today, Kia announced aggressive plans for both regions.

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.

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.