Posted by Alex Bale
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Most car makers don't expect electric vehicles to take more than 15% of the global market in the next 12 years, according to a survey carried out by KPMG.
KPMG surveyed more than 200 global motor industry executives and found that most were investing in downsized petrol and diesel engines to keep ahead of ever tightening emissions regulations, rather than going for pure electric vehicles. The survey certainly seems to back up something that Toyota said late last year, when its European sales boss said that customer needs were better met by hybrids and plugin hybrids than by pure battery EVs.
“When you look at current MPG estimates for new cars, it’s very evident that automakers are continuing to significantly improve engine efficiency”, KPMG’s National Automotive industry leader Gary Silberg said, speaking to The Detroit News. “What’s clear is that the internal combustion engine is not going anywhere soon.”
The study also found that more than 60% of car makers were preparing to invest in their factories to make production more efficient and that the executives polled picked BMW, Hyundai and VW as the car makers most likely to increase their global sales over the next year.
Posted by Alex Bale
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Ford has confirmed today that it will be shuttering its factory in Genk, Belgium and transferring production of the new Mondeo to its Spanish factory in Valencia.The news will have come as a terrible blow to the 4,300 people Ford currently employs in Genk, building the Mondeo, S-Max and Galaxy. The all-new Mondeo, based on the US-market Ford Fusion, had been earmarked to be built in Genk, but when Ford delayed its European market introduction by 6 months, we smelled a rat. There were even rumours that production of the Mondeo would move to low-cost Mexico, but yesterday the announcement came that Genk was going and Valencia was getting the gig.That means that Genk will continue on its current four-day-week for a time yet, turning out the current Mondeo and S-Max & Galaxy, but will be progessively closed down as production of those models winds up. No word let on whether Valencia gets to build the next S-Max and Galaxy, but it's likely.The move comes as Ford seeks to both stem losses of €404-million this year in Europe, and against the background of a meltdown in European car sales that is seeing the long-standing problem of over-capacity in the industry (too many factories turning out too many cars for too few buyers) finally being tackled. Fiat has already closed a facotry in Sicily and may close another, PSA Peugeot Citroen has earmarked its Aulnay plant for closure and GM's Bochum plant in on the chopping block too.
