Toyota and BYD join forces in electric vehicles
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Toyota and BYD join forces in electric vehicles
- The Japanese Toyota group and the Chinese BYD group have joined forces to develop 100% electric vehicles (BEV) for the Chinese market. These future models, which will be launched from 2025 onwards, will be sold in China under the Toyota brand. With this partnership, Toyota aims to develop affordable electric vehicles for the Chinese market, the world's leading market for electric vehicles. Toyota is indeed far behind its competitors in the field of electric cars, since it has focused for the past twenty years on hybrid cars. BYD is the leader in 100% electric cars in China (the world's largest electric vehicle market) and is neck and neck with Tesla worldwide.
- The cooperation with BYD is part of Toyota's strategy to achieve half of its global sales with electrified vehicles (electric and hybrid) by 2025, five years earlier than initially planned.
- But to cope with this acceleration, Toyota needs more batteries than expected, pushing it to look beyond its supplier Panasonic, to secure its supplies. This is why Toyota has signed an agreement with CATL, which will be its second battery supplier.
- These measures are part of a context of strong growth in the market for zero-emission vehicles. Although this market is still only a niche, stricter emission regulations in larger markets should gradually convert drivers of 100% internal combustion engine vehicles in the coming decades. For Toyota, it is also a response to the quotas imposed by the Chinese government.
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BMW has already transferred part of the Mini production to the Netherlands
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BMW has already transferred part of the Mini production to the Netherlands
- The BMW group has threatened to transfer the entire production of the Mini from the British plant in Cowley (Oxford) to the Dutch plant in Born if negotiations between Europe and Great Britain on Brexit did not result in an agreement.
- Inovev observes that the German manufacturer has in fact already transferred part of the Mini from Cowley to Born some time ago. Indeed, as early as 2014, when the third generation of the Mini was launched (the first two generations were from 2001 and 2006), part of its production was transferred to the Born plant: 17.5% of the volume of Mini excluding Mini Countryman. This percentage rose to 29% in 2015, 30% in 2017 and 33% in 2018.
- One third of the Mini cars are now manufactured at the Nedcar site in Born, in addition to the Countryman cars that are produced in their entirety. In fact, the Born site produced a volume of 172,307 Mini and Mini Countryman in 2018, while the Cowley site (historic site of the former Morris brand) produced 189,676 units.
- If BMW decided to close the Cowley plant following a Brexit without an agreement, it would probably be difficult to transfer nearly 190,000 Mini to Born, as the Dutch plant would then have to produce more than 350,000 cars per year, which is impossible. The most likely scenario therefore remains a transfer to the plant that BMW is building in Debrecen, Hungary.
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続きを読む... BMW has already transferred part of the Mini production to the Netherlands
Inovev forecasts 75,000 new Audi Q3 Sportback per year
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Inovev forecasts 75,000 new Audi Q3 Sportback per year
- Audi (Volkswagen Group's premium division) unveiled the coupé version of the SUV Q3. This new C-segment SUV with a receding line could have been called Q4 (like the Q8 which is a coupe version of the Q7), but the manufacturer preferred to call it Q3 Sportback. This suggests that there will be new Sportback versions derived from the SUVs Q1 and Q5, and, why not, Q7. This name also leaves room for a future Q4, which will not be a Q3 coupe, but a brand new SUV with dimensions close to a Q3.
- The new Audi Q3 Sportback is positioned by the manufacturer as a rival of the BMW X2 and Mercedes GLA, while the standard Q3 is rather considered as a rival of the BMW X1 and Mercedes GLB. It uses the most powerful engines of the Q3.
- While the Audi Q3 achieved nearly 170,000 sales worldwide in 2018, and Inovev expects 150,000 sales in Europe alone over the next three years, the more expensive Q3 Sportback will probably not exceed 75,000 annual units in Europe.
- For China, the success of this vehicle is not certain, because on the one hand the competition from SUVs is much more intense than in Europe, and on the other hand nobody knows when the Chinese market will rebound (it is down 14% in the first half of 2019) and how strong this recovery will be.
- The Q3 Sportback will initially be produced at the Hungarian Gyor site, alongside the standard Q3. Inovev expects 75,000 annual sales of the Q3 Sportback.
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続きを読む... Inovev forecasts 75,000 new Audi Q3 Sportback per year
The European LCV market grew by 3.9% in the first six months of 2019
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The European LCV market grew by 3.9% in the first six months of 2019
- After increasing by 4.0% in 2017 and 3.1% in 2018, the European LCV market (29 countries) resumed its growth in the first half of 2019, with an increase of 3.9% and a volume of 1.14 million units.
- We could therefore end the year with a volume of slightly more than 2.2 million units, an increase of 3.5% compared to 2018. However, this volume would be lower than in 2007, when it reached an all-time high of 2.3 million units.
- It is of note that the growth observed on the European LCV market is disconnected from the trend observed on the European PC market, which fell by 3.1% in the first half of 2019.
- The countries that register the most LCVs remain France (thanks to the high proportion of LCVs converted into company cars), ahead of the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Italy. These five countries accounted for 69% of LCV sales in Europe as a whole in the first half of 2019, compared with 70% in the first half of 2018.
- The countries with the highest growth in LCV sales were Lithuania (+39.5%), Hungary (+21.4%), Slovenia (+16.7%), Latvia (+12.1%) and Germany (+11.7%). In general, growth in Eastern European countries was higher than in Western European countries, with growth in this region reaching 7.2% while that of Western Europe did not exceed 3.6%.
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続きを読む... The European LCV market grew by 3.9% in the first six months of 2019
Why Mercedes transferred the production of the B-Class to Rastatt
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Why Mercedes transferred the production of the B-Class to Rastatt
- The first generation of the Mercedes B-Class compact MPV was produced at the Rastatt site in Germany from 2005 to 2011. The second generation was produced in Rastatt from 2011 to 2014. Its production was transferred in 2014 to the new Hungarian plant in Kecskemet that Mercedes had just built.
- The third generation of the B-Class launched at the end of 2018, for a marketing campaign that began in the first weeks of 2019, has been transferred again from the Kecskemet site to the German site in Rastatt.
- So much so that today the Rastatt site produces the Class A hatchback, Class B and GLA, while the Kecskemet site has been home to the new generation of Class A hatchbacks and tri-corps since the beginning of 2019, and the CLA sedans and station wagons which have been produced there since their launch.
- As there are expected to be as many Mercedes Class B cars in Rastatt as there are Class A cars in Kecskemet, there will be no decrease in production in either Rastatt or Kecskemet, as the manufacturer plans to manufacture 300,000 cars in Rastatt (100,000 Class A, 100,000 Class B, 100,000 GLA) and 200,000 cars in Kecskemet (100,000 Class A, 100,000 CLA) each year.
- The capacity of the Rastatt plant is currently 300,000 units per year while that of Kecskemet is 250,000 units per year. In the event of higher than expected demand for the future GLA, the German manufacturer will have the possibility to transfer part of the Class A produced at Rastatt to Kecskemet and thus use the remaining capacity.
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続きを読む... Why Mercedes transferred the production of the B-Class to Rastatt