Europe de l'Ouest

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.

As if to mark his difference and/or to highlight what might have opposed her to Thierry Bolloré (Renault's former CEO, recently laid off), Clotilde Delbos (appointed to replace him) began her interim period at the head office of the Renault group with a "profit warning": no, the return to positive cash flow in the second half of the year will not offset the €700 million negative cash flow of the first half; no, revenue will not be constant but will fall by 3 to 4% and the operating margin will be 5% rather than 6% as announced in July; no, the 2022 plan will not be implemented and it is urgent to redefine it so that everyone knows where he is going.

 

She did not just talk to the analysts. She also spoke on Tuesday in a video for employees to tell them that the "Drive the Future" plan had to be taken up again because the market has changed over the past two years and that "unfortunately, the situation did not improve during the summer" and requires that the strategy be adjusted to "get Renault back on track".

The show goes on and the last episode was the brutal eviction of Thierry Bolloré (Renault's CEO) on Friday.

 

This is willingly commented on as the counterpart to Saikawa's which would have been desired by the Nissans and - as some presume - agreed by Jean-Dominique Senard (Renault's Chairman) that the trio of leadership candidates should be put in the order he wanted to see prevail.
The government and the agency of state shareholdings ("APE3: Agence des Participations de l'Etat) which, after having wished for the Renault-Nissan merger and having favourably considered the Renault-FCA operation, seem to have finally understood since the beginning of June that the relaunch of the Alliance should be the priority given to J.-D. Senard would have validated the option. The undertaking would therefore mainly be a process of "de-ghosnisation" of the top management of the two companies necessary for a new start.

 

If this interpretation contains some truth, it is probably a little short, however.

For decades, private and public transport have formed an irreconcilable couple, an irreconcilable opposition.

 

The former were expanding spontaneously, allowing urban sprawl, eating all the space and generating pollution and congestion.        
It was then considered - not without reason - that it was imperative to organise the "modal shift" by taxing the car, making parking difficult and expensive and organising congestion. Conversely, public transport deserved to be massively subsidised and to be a priority in the allocation of state and local authority public speding as well as in the allocation of space. Through hard work, this dichotomous approach has finally achieved some success in major cities where the car has actually backed down.
However, due to the inability of these and other public policies (land and development) to contain urban land price growth and/or to match employment and residential location, urban sprawl has continued, mobility needs have increased, public transport has not been able to cover them, the number of vehicles per household has continued to increase and there are now two deadlocks.

 

L’urgence dans laquelle l’industrie automobile se trouve fin 2019 donne lieu, à Francfort et ailleurs, à un jeu d’influence complexe où chacun adosse ses propos à une cause a priori légitime pour contrer une autre partie prenante qui en invoque une autre.

L’UE a, il y a un an, fondé ses injonctions sur l’urgence climatique. Les constructeurs comme les états sont sensibles à l’urgence financière et souhaiteraient que les ventes de SUV puissent continuer de générer le cash qui permet de combler les pertes sur les VE pour les uns et de financer les primes à l’achat des dits véhicules pour les autres. 

Toyota a annoncé le 28 août qu’elle allait recruter 500 personnes sur son site d’Onnaing. Ces nouvelles recrues viendront porter les effectifs à 4 500 employés et correspondent à l’investissement de 300 millions d’euros annoncé début 2018 pour porter les capacités de production du site à 300 000 véhicules par an. La direction indique que les effectifs sont passés de 2 938 CDI en janvier 2018 à 3 150 aujourd’hui, avec un objectif à 3 600 d’ici fin 2020.