Lotus stays loyal to Toyota
Toyota president Akio Toyoda, who has suffered abusive personal attacks and ongoing negative publicity following his company’s recall of millions of vehicles in recent months, must have been over the moon to hear that the famous British-based but Malaysian-owned sports car maker, Lotus, is going to continue to use Toyota power trains in the future.
This statement was made by Lotus CEO Dany Bahar, after handing the keys for a convertible Lotus Elise R to President Toyoda at a ceremony at the British embassy in Tokyo on September 17. This Elise was fitted with the last of the high performance 1,8-litre 2ZZ-GE engines to be produced. This power unit was used in the RunX RSi in South Africa, but has been phased out as it does not meet Euro V regulations.
Toyota’s relationship with Lotus stretches back more than 30 years and the Japanese company has been the supplier of engines and transmissions for many of these years. Bahar, who was formerly with Ferrari, said Lotus was committed to continue sourcing its drivelines exclusively from Toyota as ”there is no one superior to Toyota in terms of reliability.”
The Toyota president says he will use the Elise as a demo car to teach his executives what ‘fun-to-drive’ means!
Barloworld sells remainder of Subaru SA stake
Barloworld, the listed diversified industrial group, has sold its remaining 50 per cent shareholding in Subaru Southern Africa to Toyota Tsusho and its subsidiary Toyota Tsusho Africa for an undisclosed sum. Toyota Tsusho already owned 50 per cent of Subaru SA. (Toyota Motor Corporation has a 16,5 per cent share in Fuji Heavy Engineering that makes and sells Subaru’s).
Barloworld says Subaru cars were seen as niche products which did not form part of the company’s automotive selling and renting strategy.
A further example of the way in which Barloworld is realigning its automotive interests was the sale in July of its Scandinavian car rental interests for R1,1bn. (These interests included Budget and Avis franchises in Denmark, Norway and Sweden).
Petro SA talking to Sinopec
The national oil and gas company, PetroSA, has held “fruitful talks” with the Chinese oil group Sinopec and it was also speaking to other potential investors as it seeks partners for a planned US$10bn crude oil refinery in Coega with a daily capacity of 400 000 barrels. Petrol SA is evidently prepared to sell a stake of up to 30 per cent in the project, but the final size of the equity depends on the government.
M-B looking for deals with SA Defence
Mercedes-Benz SA is hoping to clinch major contracts with the Department of Defence to rejuvenate its logistical truck and armoured personnel carriers fleets, being the Vistula to replace the Samil trucks and the Sapula to replace the Ratel armoured troop carrier fleet. The sized of the orders are said to be in the region of 1 000 – 1 500 Vistulas and about 2 000 Sapulas, making them multi-billion rand deals.
M-B military business manager Dr. Harry Teifel says the company is looking to not only supply the Vistula, but also to maintain them for a period of 30 years. “It appears the DoD wants the two vehicles to use similar drivetrain components for a saving in replacement parts costs.
Should M-B secure the contract then the vehicles will be based on its Zetros and Actros models. M-B has 106 years’ experience in producing military vehciels and to date has supplied more than 150 000 units to 80 defence forces worldwide.
For this project it will pair with local defence firm Land Mobility Technologies (LMT) . This partnership has already supplied the Canadian armed forces with more than 80 armoured trucks in recent years. LMT is responsible for making the armoured cabs for the vehicles.
Toyota makeover
Toyota, the world’s automotive market leader, which has taken heavy criticism this year for its tardiness in announcing product recalls, is apparently going to start introducing many new or substantially redesigned models. But it seems this will occur only in late 2011 or in 2012.
By early 2012 it seems there will be all new versions of the Yaris, RAV4 and Camry, as well as the introduction of the FT-86 sports coupe that is a joint venture with Subaru. There will also be plug-in versions of the petrol-electric Prius sedan and possible introductions of a Prius coupe (similar to Honda’s CR-Z competitor) and even a Prius pick-up!
However, the top-selling Corolla appears to be on an extended lifecycle and a totally new model is expected only in 2014.
Porsche to bring smaller SUV
Porsche, which has had great sales success with its Cayenne SUV, evidently intends offering a smaller SUV model, possibly to be known as the Cajun. It would be based on the Audi Q5 platform, just as the Cayenne’s roots can be traced back to the VW Touareg and Audi Q7.
Saab to use BMW engines
Swedish car maker Saab, which is now owned by the Dutch Spyker company, has signed a deal to buy engines and other major components from BMW. Initially it will be turbocharged petrol engines (as used in the MINI) for the new Saab 9-3, but the arrangement could be extended to include BMW diesel engines and even the use of the MINI Countryman platform for the 9-2 premium entry level car.
The Saab 9-2 will hark back to the iconic tear-drop shaped Saab 92 produced between 1949 and 1956, powered by a three-cylinder two-stroke engine similar to that used by DKW at that time.
Ford to cut nameplates
Ford is to cut the number of nameplates used for its various ranges of cars and derivatives to possibly as few as 20. When former Boeing CEO Alan Mulally took over the then-ailing global car company in 2006 there were 97 nameplates.
First the number was reduced by selling off Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo and the latest brand to be axed is Mercury, while more resources will be used to upscale the Lincoln brand which will remain in the Ford stable.
As part of its ‘One Ford’ programme to slash the number and complexity of global derivatives of each specific model, the latest Fiesta has only 10 variants worldwide and about 65 per cent of its components are standard on all models.
Mahindra gets SsangYong
Mahindra & Mahindra, India’s leading manufacturer of utility vehicles, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the SsangYong Motor Company of South Korea to acquire a majority stake in the latter after a due diligence process.
SsangYong, which has been struggling financially for some time, has built in excess of 1.3-million vehicles since 1990, while Mahindra is a $1,7bn Indian multinational that employs more than 100 000 people worldwide.
Mahindra says it will “nurture SsangYong in global markets while preserving its Korean heritage” It is intended that SsangYong will continue to operate independently with Korean management, while Mahindra will leverage off its partner’s strong competencies in research, development and technology.
Mazda recall
A total of 2 240 Mazda5 minivans and 660 Mazda3 cars produced in 2007 and 2008 and sold locally are being recalled for repairs due to the possibility of power steering problems. It appears that rust in a high pressure pipe could end up in the hydraulic pump and cause the system to shut down, with a loss of power assistance.
Mazda initially recalled more than 200 000 vehicles in the US for this problem and the number jumped to more than 500 000 vehicles as the recall was extended to Europe, Australia and Africa.
Interestingly, although this problem surfaced in Japan last year, no alerts were raised in the US until now, but there has been no hysterical outburst by the US authorities as occurred with global leader Toyota’s belated recalls earlier this year.
Skills boost from Goodyear
SA is giving unemployed learners the opportunity to gain new skills and vital work experience by mentoring groups of learners and trade apprentices from Eastern Cape educational institutions at its factory in Port Elizabeth. This is a joint venture with other business partners and MERSETA.
Alfa in the VW sights: The Volkswagen Group is apparently so keen to overtake global automotive leader Toyota sooner rather than later that it is reputed to be even looking at taking over the troubled Alfa Romeo business from Fiat, which is now tied up with Chrysler. However, it appears as though Fiat is not prepared to sell but VW seems prepared to wait to see if the Fiat/Alfa/Chrysler partnership works or ends up as a fire sale.
Hungry Joule
The controversial South African Joule electric car project has the begging bowl out again. It has already reputedly received R200m from various government departments and now it is evidently looking for a further R6bn to take the project to a breakeven point, according Optimal Energy CEO Kobus Meiring. He is apparently now looking for “some line of funding from national government.”
The second Joule prototype is evidently undergoing tests currently, but the production start up has now reportedly moved from 2012 to 2014. Pricing for the Joule at today’s economics is in the region of R235 000 to R278 000.
No more dodgy imports
SA is to deal with the problem of so-called illegal “grey imports” or “Dubais” entering the country illegally. They are destined mainly for surrounding countries, but lax control measures are allowing some of them to be registered and driven on SA roads.
Minister of trade and industry Rob Davies, says his department has done some serious work on this flouting of customs laws and claims they are “ready to crack the whip” if such cars are identified on SA’s roads.
