Audi it seems was plagued by Wrecks, Suspension troubles, and Engine faults. Audi has proved to be a Pioneer since 1998 with the announcement of a LMP entry and it has taken 2 Teams to beat them, their own Audi Factory backed Bentley Team & Peugeot. Congratulations to the Total Peugeot Teams for a well deserved Victory.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
End of an Era....Peugeot defeats Audi with 1-2 Finish...
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Audi Inks deal with Sanyo for lithium-ion battery packs
On the heels of the VW announcement that feasible electric cars are years away, Audi's CEO Rupert Stadler confirms that they too believe EVs are years away from becoming affordable, mainstream vehicles.
Last week, Audi held an annual meeting in Germany. They discussed future product plans and spoke about alternative energy vehicle coming from the company in the next few years. What Audi did confirm is that their first hybrid the Q5 SUV is coming to market, but Stadler only stated to expect it in the "near future".
Audi has been on and off in regards to there hybrid program. The Q5 hybrid was originally slated for production in late 2010, but now that may have changed as Audi will no longer confirm the date.
The company is not counting EVs out. They recently signed a collaboration deal with battery maker Sanyo and are reportedly working towards a possible EV. But with the company stating that EV profitability could be a decade away, we don't expect Audi or VW to bring one to market in the "near future", our best guess is sometime in the "far future".
Source: Audi Press Release
Sunday, May 17, 2009
“War has erupted again between Volkswagen and Porsche”
Volkswagen AG, Europe’s largest automaker, called off talks with Porsche SE about a combination less than two weeks after the sports-car manufacturer’s controlling families agreed to pursue a merger.
“There is currently no atmosphere for constructive talks,” Christine Ritz, a spokeswoman at Volkswagen, said yesterday in a telephone interview. In a statement, Porsche said that while a meeting scheduled for today had been canceled, negotiations will resume. It didn’t give details.
The Porsche and Piech families, which together control half of Porsche, agreed May 6 to create an “integrated” carmaker that would put Porsche alongside VW brands including Skoda and Audi. Within a week, VW Supervisory Board Chairman Ferdinand Piech said that Stuttgart, Germany-based Porsche must first trim its 9 billion euros ($12 billion) in net debt before a merger, and that Chief Executive Officer Wendelin Wiedeking and Chief Financial Officer Holger Haerter were partly responsible.
“War has erupted again between Volkswagen and Porsche,” said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Dudenhoeffer was head of marketing strategy and research at Porsche from 1987 to 1990. “Piech is behind that.”
Porsche owns about 51 percent of Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen, whose automotive division had 10.7 billion euros in net cash as of March 31. The maker of the 911 sports car had been accumulating Volkswagen shares since 2005 to protect ties to its largest supplier.
First Strike
Porsche Supervisory Board Chairman Wolfgang Porsche was struggling to raise financing to boost the stake to 75 percent and had been at loggerheads with Piech about how to unite the carmakers. The May 6 agreement between the families effectively put on hold Porsche’s plan to further bolster its stake in Volkswagen by acquiring VW shares.
The Porsche family is upset over Piech’s remarks and is concerned that they may hurt the value of the carmaker, Der Spiegel said on its Web site. When asked whether Volkswagen would pay 11 billion euros for Porsche AG, the operating unit of Porsche SE, Piech said that amount is “definitely a few billion too high,” according to the magazine.
Porsche workers will hold their first-ever strike today to protest the merger plan, Focus magazine reported. On May 7, a day after the initial pact, Porsche fell the most in at least 13 years on the Frankfurt exchange.
The stock has fallen 21 percent this year, cutting Porsche’s market value to 7.2 billion euros. Volkswagen has declined 12 percent, valuing the carmaker at 69.6 billion euros.
Blocking Minority
“It’s completely open when talks can continue,” VW’s Ritz said. “We are under no time pressure at all.”
Porsche spokesman Albrecht Bamler said the situation may become clearer tomorrow. He declined to elaborate.
The 72-year-old Piech is a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who founded the sports-car manufacturer and was Volkswagen’s first leader when the carmaker was set up under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in the 1930s. In addition to leading the supervisory board at Volkswagen, where he was CEO for nine years until becoming chairman in 2002, Piech is a member of Porsche’s board.
Any agreement between Porsche and VW will require approval by Volkswagen’s home state of Lower Saxony, which has a right to veto decisions through its 20 percent stake in VW. The automakers, worker representatives and Lower Saxony officials will decide on the new group’s structure over a four-week period, Porsche SE said May 8.
“Piech wants to form Volkswagen according to his own ideas and he also wants to give Porsche and CEO Wendelin Wiedeking the boot,” Dudenhoeffer said.
Source - Bloomberg
Thursday, April 23, 2009
"Porsche is running into financial trouble...."
Porsche Automobil Holding SE (PAH3.XE) said Thursday it has no plans to sell its sportscar operations to Volkswagen AG (VOW.XE), dismissing a media report published earlier Thursday.
"We resolutely dismiss the speculation, which is currently being leaked on purpose," a spokesman for Porsche said.
The Financial Times reported earlier Thursday that Volkswagen could take over Porsche's sports car unit, citing people close to the situation. The move would turn the tables on Porsche, which boosted its Volkswagen stake to a majority holding in January.
At Thursday's shareholder meeting, Volkswagen Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn is facing questions on Porsche's future role at VW after analysts voiced concerns that Porsche is running into financial trouble, squeezed by mounting net debt of EUR9 billion after raising its VW stake to 51%.
The closely-held firm has repeatedly denied that it faces financial difficulties.
Porsche, Piech Families Said to Sell Car Assets to VW
The Porsche and Piech families plan to sell their main car assets to Volkswagen AG under a plan that would tighten Porsche SE’s grip on Europe’s biggest automaker, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The families, which control at least 51 percent of Wolfsburg, Germany-based VW, intend to sell the Austrian Porsche Holding GmbH unit and the Porsche AG automotive division to VW in return for cash and VW shares, said the people, who declined to be identified because the plan is confidential. As part of the transaction, Porsche SE will issue new shares, a portion of which may be sold to external investors, they said. The plan is backed by VW, the people said.
The asset sale would allow Porsche SE to achieve its aim for greater control of VW, Europe’s largest carmaker, while preserving cash and giving it funds to repay debt, three people familiar with the situation said this month. Porsche, based in Stuttgart, Germany, is struggling to raise the financing needed to reach its goal of obtaining 75 percent of VW, they said.
“One driving motivation is that Volkswagen, being the largest volume producer in the European space, has tremendous cost efficiency that could be married to Porsche’s discipline and lean production capacity,” Stephen Pope, chief global strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald in London, said by telephone.
Frank Gaube, a spokesman for Porsche, and Michael Brendel, a VW spokesman, declined to comment.
Shares Jump
Porsche jumped as much as 3.99 euros, or 8.1 percent, to 53 euros and traded at 51.88 euros as of 2:01 p.m. in Frankfurt, giving the company a market value of 9.05 billion euros. Volkswagen dropped 8.03 euros, or 3.4 percent, to 230.46 euros.
A transaction would result in the creation of a major automotive holding company spanning cars, trucks and luxury vehicles, the people said earlier this month.
The Porsche and Piech families together control half of Porsche SE. Porsche AG is the operating unit that’s the maker of the 911 sports car and competes with Bayerische Motoren Werke AG. Austrian Porsche Holding is Porsche’s eastern European distribution division.
Porsche has accumulated Volkswagen stock since 2005 to protect ties to its largest supplier. Volkswagen provides Porsche with parts and the companies cooperate in building sport-utility vehicles. Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn said today that he is “confident” that deepening ties with Porsche will let the companies increase profitability and market share.
‘Enormous Potential’
“We’re both capable of forming the center of strength in international carmaking,” Winterkorn said at VW’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hamburg. “This alliance has enormous potential in technological and economic terms.”
Shrinking European and U.S. car markets have prompted Volkswagen to scale back production, reduce employee hours and eliminate its temporary workforce to stem declines in profit. The carmaker, which reported a 74 percent drop in first-quarter net income yesterday, will be profitable this year, Winterkorn said, reiterating an earlier forecast.
Porsche Chief Executive Officer Wendelin Wiedeking has said Volkswagen offers a “gold mine” of saving potential that the carmaker can tap to boost profits and that there will be no “sacred cows” at VW.
Volkswagen and Porsche already work together to build sport-utility vehicles and Porsche has tapped VW to assemble its Panamera four-person sedan. The companies also cooperate on SUVs such as Touareg, Cayenne and Audi’s Q7.
Volkswagen’s ties to Porsche go back to the company’s creation under the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Ferdinand Porsche, the grandfather of Volkswagen’s current chairman Ferdinand Piech, was the company’s first leader. Ferdinand Piech’s father, Anton Piech, married Porsche’s daughter and became Volkswagen’s director. The extended Porsche- Piech family controls all of the sports-car maker’s voting shares.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Audi Celebrates Best Month Ever in China
Year-on-year sales growth of seven percent in March
Audi A4L makes a very successful start on the market
Audi will unveil the new generation Audi Q7 at the “Auto Shanghai 2009” show
AUDI AG achieved its best monthly results yet for the Chinese market in March 2009. Including Hong Kong, 11,848 vehicles were sold – a seven-percent increase over March 2008. This record performance is due in particular to the long-wheelbase version of the Audi A4, produced exclusively for the Chinese market and available since January 2009.
“We are pleased with this healthy growth in China, our second home market,” says Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG. “These successful sales figures make us confident about the rest of the year.”
Volkswagen First-Quarter Sales Fall 11% on U.S., Audi Declines
Shrinking European and U.S. car markets have prompted Volkswagen and other automakers to scale back production and eliminate temporary jobs. With vehicle deliveries projected to drop 10 percent this year from 2008’s record of 6.23 million because of the recession, Volkswagen is bracing for a first- quarter loss.
The sales drop was held back by gains in countries where governments are offering incentives for car purchases, and the introduction of new models will allow Volkswagen to “perform significantly better than the competition in 2009,” Detlef Wittig, the company’s sales chief, said in the statement.
Declines in European car-industry sales, including deliveries by PSA Peugeot Citroen, the region’s second-biggest automaker, and Fiat SpA, Italy’s biggest, slowed to 9 percent in March, the smallest drop in six months, as incentives encouraged trade-ins, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said yesterday.
Volkswagen-brand sales fell to 876,000 cars and SUVs, the company said today. Global deliveries at the Audi luxury division fell 11 percent in March to 90,400 vehicles, the unit said on April 6. Group figures also include the Skoda, Seat, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini car divisions, the commercial- vehicles unit and, as of March, Scania AB trucks.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Slump Reaches New Rich
The new millionaires of Asia and the Middle East have curbed spending, executives from companies including Rolls and Ferrari said in interviews at the Geneva Motor Show this week, torpedoing a market they’d counted on to spur growth after the banking crisis eroded orders in Europe and the U.S.
Rolls-Royce, the U.K.-based top-end brand of Germany’s BMW, says demand is falling fastest in the once high-growth locations of China and Dubai. Volkswagen AG’s Italian Lamborghini division said yesterday that China has turned into a tough market after previously supporting sales.
Lamborghini’s worldwide deliveries rose 1 percent in 2008 to a record 2,430 vehicles, supported by sales in China and other emerging markets. That won’t be the case this year, Stephan Winkelmann, the division’s chief executive officer, said yesterday in an interview at the Geneva show.
More @ Bloomberg
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Not much to report sorry....
With Audi closing plants and Eastern Europes failing Economy, Indias sudden halt to its rising middleclass, things aren't going to look well for the next 1.5 years for the Auto section. VW will of course announce production halts along with BMW, the rest of the VAG will follow. It seems though that Bugatti and Lambo seem to be doing ok (go figure all the hedgers who ran our 401ks off a cliff with derivitaives invested with creditdefault swaps made out ok). But hey it'll all get better by 2010....I hope, there's a Black RS4 somewhere with my name on it....even if it makes me look like a cock.
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