Automotive News Europe Blogs
Posted 12:01 am U.S. ET, May 23
 | Luca Ciferri is Automotive News Europe's chief correspondent | |
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With Mazda, Alfa Romeo may finally have found the right partner to help it replace its front-wheel-drive Spider roadster, which ended production in 2010.
Fiat and Mazda plan to jointly develop a new roadster for Alfa and Mazda based on the Miata/MX5 platform. The move should help Fiat Group's sports-car brand lift flagging sales. Alfa has the thinn ...
Continue reading "With Mazda, Alfa may have the right partner for a Spider revival" » May 23, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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Posted 12:01 am U.S. ET, May 15
 | Paul McVeigh is managing editor at Automotive News Europe. | |
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On the day that Opel workers demonstrated against potential plant closures and job losses, Chevrolet's announcement that it will launch a new subcompact SUV called the Trax might be seen as adding insult to injury.
Managers and workers at General Motors' money-losing European unit complain bitterly that GM restricts the brand's ability to boost its ...
Continue reading "Will the Chevy Trax add to Opel's woes?" » May 15, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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Posted 12:01 am U.S. ET, May 9
 | Nick Gibbs is UK correspondent for Automotive News Europe. | |
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Opel/Vauxhall's decision to name its new minicar Adam has not been well received.
"Straight out of the drawer marked 'silly names,' " was one of the harsher comments on Twitter. "First Renault Zoe. Now Vauxhall Adam. Did someone give car companies a baby names book for Christmas?" was another.
Opel is positioni ...
Continue reading "Will buyers like the name Adam for Opel's new Fiat 500 rival?" » May 9, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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Posted 12:01 am U.S. ET, May 7
 | Douglas A. Bolduc is managing editor at Automotive News Europe. | |
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Rolls-Royce – the automaker known for its Flying Lady on the hood – forever proved to me and two others that the new Phantom is much more than just a luxury lounge on wheels. When asked to dart around an unidentified flying object on a highway in southern France last Saturday, the Phantom performed perfectly, saving me and the two other people in the car from potentially se ...
Continue reading "Flying Lady 1, flying object 0 " » May 7, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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Posted 12:01 am U.S. ET, May 1
 | Bruce Gain is an Automotive News Europe correspondent in France. | |
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Renault's push into China may be a case of better late than never. The automaker launched a big effort to succeed in the world's biggest auto market at the Beijing auto show last week when the company unveiled the Talisman sedan.
Renault has a lot of catching up to do. Its vehicle sales in China were just 24,000 last year, up 60 percent on the year ...
Continue reading "Can Renault succeed in China?" » May 1, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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Posted 12:01 am U.S. ET, April 25
 | Luca Ciferri is Automotive News Europe's chief correspondent | |
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Regardless of the weather, the temperatures inside most halls at the Beijing auto show are either uncomfortably hot or absolutely oppressive. One exception during this year’s show was Volkswagen Group’s new pavilion, where the well-prepared Germans avoided broiling visitors by making an excellent decision.
Warned by local officials that ...
Continue reading "VW keeps cool in Beijing by planning ahead" » Apr 25, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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Posted 12:01 am U.S. ET, April 23
 | Luca Ciferri is Automotive News Europe's chief correspondent | |
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I am pretty quick to complain so I thought that I gained a lot of new material this morning because of the rough trip from my hotel to the opening of the Beijing auto show. It turns out I got to the show with fewer delays than Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne's police-escorted motorcade.
My journey did not start well. Two taxi drivers refused to ...
Continue reading "How I beat Sergio Marchionne to the Beijing auto show" » Apr 23, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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 | Douglas A. Bolduc is managing editor at Automotive News Europe. | |
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The Fiat 500 is winning fans and increasing sales fast in the United States.
Maybe it's because of fun ads starring bad boy actor Charlie Sheen and striking Romanian model Catrinel Menghia; or maybe it's because the design and size of the minicar set it apart in the land of beefy pickups, sedans and SUVs. Whatever the reason, the 500 is generating ...
Continue reading "Fiat 500 gains fans and sales in the U.S." » Apr 20, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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 | Luca Ciferri is Automotive News Europe's chief correspondent | |
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Lada-branded cars have ruled the Russian car market since their creation under AvtoVAZ over 40 years ago, so it may be a bitter pill to swallow for some Russians to learn that a model from a foreign automaker could soon become the country's best-selling car, for the first time.
First-quarter sales published this week by the Association for Europea ...
Continue reading "Lada is set to lose its No. 1 spot in Russia to a foreign brand" » Apr 13, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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 | Luca Ciferri is Automotive News Europe's chief correspondent | |
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Italy has become Europe's weakest major car market and the country is set to drag down sales across the region as a whole in 2011.
Car sales in France fell 23.5 percent in March and by 21.7 percent in the first quarter. Italy declined by 26.7 percent last month and by 20.9 percent in the quarter.
But the pain i ...
Continue reading "Italy's slump will drag down European sales" » Apr 4, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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Posted 12:01 am U.S. ET, March 30
 | Luca Ciferri is Automotive News Europe's chief correspondent | |
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Volvo is giving its much bigger German rivals a tough fight in their home market in a key area: average transaction price for new cars. Volvo’s improvement shows that CEO Stefan Jacoby’s ambitious plan for the Swedish automaker is gaining traction.
Volvo ranked fourth in 2011 with an average transaction price in Germany of 35,039 euros, ...
Continue reading "Volvo pressures Germans in their home market" » Mar 30, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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Posted 12:01 am U.S. ET, March 29
 | James B. Treece is industry editor at Automotive News. | |
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Azure Dynamics has followed Bright Automotive into bankruptcy. Yet Tesla Motors' stock trades near its record high on Wall Street.
The stock market is supposedly rational. Keep telling yourself that.
Azure, which has been active in the UK, Norway, Sweden and Belgium, and Bright both handled electric delivery va ...
Continue reading "In EVs, practicality be damned" » Mar 29, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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Posted 12:01 am U.S. ET, March 23
 | Douglas A. Bolduc is managing editor at Automotive News Europe. | |
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Ferrari's new supercar and Audi's next-generation entry-premium model were the big Web winners from the Geneva auto show this month, according to a study.
The Audi A3 was the media darling of the show as it was mentioned in 9 percent of all the online stories from journalists covering the event, according to UK-based Kantar Media.
Continue reading "Ferrari and Audi were Geneva Web winners" » Mar 23, 2012 12:01 am U.S. ET Post Comment |
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New-car sales in Europe are expected to decline about 5 percent to 7 percent this year, but they are off to an even worse start in the first two months.
In February, sales fell 9.2 percent to 923,381 in the EU plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland compared with the same month in 2011, according to industry association ACEA.
