Chine

This November, Volkswagen's offensive in the electrical vehicle resulted in an impressive series of announcements and statements by the group's top executives, who seem to want to convince everyone that the inevitable move towards battery-powered electric vehicles is underway and that Volkswagen is the most ready of all manufacturers to lead this change.

 

There is undoubtedly a "Coué method" dimension here that leads managers, afraid of the risks they take, to want to convince themselves, their teams and customers that the battery-powered EV is the right choice.
Above all, there is obviously a very political will to impose a global standard and to create competitive rules of the game for the automotive industry, which will be all the easier for Volkswagen to respect as they will have been largely designed around its convictions and proposals.

 

One of the signs of this political work was given when Angela Merkel, at the beginning of the month, honoured the invitation of the group's leaders to attend the launch of the ID3 assemby plant at the Zwickau plant in eastern Saxony.

This November, we receive the financial results of Japanese automakers for the first half of their fiscal year, which ends at the end of March. Awaiting of Nissan, which will only be made public this week, we can look at those of Toyota and Honda, which already reveal the unequal exposure of Japanese carmakers to the decline in global demand that is now taking shape.

 

From this point of view, Toyota impresses by posting increasing volumes, sales and results.
Toyota sold 4.64 million vehicles from April to September, 220,000 more than last year. Its turnover increased by 600 billion yen (almost 5 billion euros), i.e. by 4%, and its operating income by 140 billion yen (1.16 billion euros, +11%). Its operating margin was 8.6% of turnover for the first half of the previous year, compared to 9.2% for the first six months of 2020.

 

The season of financial results is on this February and most of the world's major automakers are indicating, one after the other, that 2019, as we reckon the years to come, will disappoint shareholders.

 

Only a handful of automakers, such as FCA or GM, have succeeded in improving their results over the year 2018.
FCA nevertheless expects a less promising 2019 financial year. GM has already undertaken a plan to maintain its profit rate in the United States in November, cutting 11,000 jobs. Most of the car manufacturers, like Daimler or Ford, have already seen their results drop in 2018. Ford hopes to do better in 2019 thanks to a fairly drastic restructuring plan for all its activities.
Daimler announced this week that achieving a margin target in the 8 to 10% bracket could not be expected until 2021.

 

La semaine passée aura été marquée dans l’automobile par la présentation au Mondial de Paris de la K-ZE (à prononcer "kaïzi") par Carlos Ghosn lundi 1er et par le vote du Parlement Européen mercredi 3 de dispositions qui fixent un cap de réduction des émissions sur la période 2021-2030 à – 40% avec un jalon intermédiaire à – 20% en 2025 et définissent des quotas d’immatriculations de véhicules à faible émission (moins de 50gr de CO2 au km) de 20% puis de 35%. 

 

Comme l’an dernier (1), PSA a tenté d’indiquer que ce qui est bon pour PSA l’est pour la France en soulignant sa position exportatrice nette renforcée cette année  par l’exportation de véhicules de marque Opel désormais assemblés en France.  Le communiqué publié vendredi est ainsi libellé (2) :

"Le Groupe PSA est le premier constructeur automobile en termes de contribution à la balance commerciale de la France, avec un excédent de 5,54 milliards  d’euros, dont 200 millions d’euros générés par la fabrication de véhicules Opel sur le site de Sochaux.

Les 5 usines d’assemblage de véhicules ont produit 1,1 million de véhicules, en augmentation de 12,9% par rapport à 2016 et représentant plus d’un tiers de la production mondiale de véhicules du Groupe."