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Chinese car sales data now available!

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Auto-sales-statistics-China-Yema_T70-SUVGreat news! In the past 18 months, Left-Lane.com has quickly established itself as the leading source of European car sales data, sorted by brand and by model. And lately we’ve been working hard at expanding our database to the biggest car market in the world with almost 20 million annual sales: China. And today we launch the result of all that hard work, as you can use the second drop-down menu on the top right-hand corner of the page to search Chinese auto sales figures of every car sold in China from 2003. That means 72 brands and more than 550 models!

As you’re used from us, you can find annual sales figures by brand and by model from 2003 until 2014 and monthly sales data from 2013 until 2015, which will be updated monthly. And similar to the European monthly brand rankings and model rankings, I also plan to give monthly brand and model rankings for China, pointing out the latest trends and new model launches in the world’s largest car market. [Read more…]

Shanghai Auto Show – The Good

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The first in a series of articles looking at the multitude of cars that made their debut at the Shanghai Auto Show, first we look at the Good, starting with…

Mercedes GLC Coupe Concept

Although it would seem more appropriate to start the list with a Chinese car, it is really hard to ignore arguably the star of the show. While its bigger brother GLE Coupe is a bloated-looking X6 copy, the GLC Coupe is all muscle and elegant lines. It makes you wonder how could BMW get the X4 so wrong…

Mercedes-Concept-GLC-Coupe-10

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Game of Thrones, VW-style (w/ poll)

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Winterkorn and Piech

“I’m at a distance from Winterkorn.”

Those six words spoken by Ferdinand Piëch, the chairman of the supervisory board at VW, began a fascinating saga that has gripped all that follow the automotive industry over the past two weeks. He was speaking of course of Martin Winterkorn, the CEO of VW, and until that point his presumed successor as chairman of the supervisory board.

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Comparison: car sales in France 1985 vs. 2014

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With a little help and some inspiration from Daniel Carrer, I can make an interesting comparison between the car sales in France in 1985 and 2014. Although the French car market as a whole has barely grown in 29 years, a lot has happened in the brands ranking.

France-car_sales-1985-2014-Renault_Supercinq-Peugeot_205The top-3 is still the same, with the Big-3 French manufacturers holding on to their positions, even though Renault and Peugeot have lost quite a bit of market share: 9,08 and 3,67 percentage points respectively, not even counting Talbot in the 1985 figure. Citroën on the other hand is stable, when we include DS sales from 2015.

As a result, the market share of the local French brands has eroded from almost two thirds (63,53%) to under half of the total market (49,59%). Even when counting Renault’s Romanian sub-brand Dacia as local, the French have lost over 127.000 annual sales. [Read more…]

Review: Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle

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After publishing a few critical articles about hydrogen mobility on this site last year, both by myself and a guest author, most notably about the technology when compared to “traditional” Battery Electric Vehicles, I was given the chance to be among the first to drive a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle in Europe: the Hyundai ix35 FCEV. You would’ve seen the pictures yesterday if you followed me on Twitter. In the meantime, the technology has made progress and looks ever more promising, although there’s still a long way to go before hydrogen becomes a viable alternative to gasoline or diesel for a private car buyer.

Hyundai_ix35-Hydrogen-Fuel_Cell_Vehicles-Rotterdam

While Honda has had a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle available for lease in California since 2008, the FCX Clarity has never been able to reach mass production, with less than 100 cars delivered to customers. Other hydrogen test cars from BMW, Mercedes-Benz and General Motors never made it past the prototype phase. This makes Hyundai the first automaker to start mass production of a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle, when it started production of 10.000 Hyundai ix35 FCEV early this year. The South-Koreans beat Toyota to the honor, as the Japanese brand only recently started taking orders for its Mirai FCEV.

Hyundai_ix35-Hydrogen-Fuel_Cell_Vehicle-badgeThis means the ix35 FCEV is a huge image booster for Hyundai, in the same way the Prius hybrid was for Toyota, helping the brand establish itself as a technology leader and a “green” automaker. Driving the car on public roads in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, the ix35 Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle has convinced me that the technology for this type of vehicle is indeed ready, which solves the chicken-or-egg problem with this new technology. [Read more…]

European car sales analysis February 2015 – models

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After exploring the European car brand-ranking for February 2015, let’s look at sales of individual car models in Europe.

European-car-sales-statistics-subcompact-segment-2014-Ford_Fiesta-Renault_Clio-Volkswagen_PoloThe top-4 is stable on January, with Volkswagen stealing both first and second place, followed by the Renault Clio and Ford Fiesta. However, the Fiesta is likely to more than make up for its disadvantage next month, as March is traditionally the busiest month in the year for UK dealers, benefiting Ford and Vauxhall. From past experience, I expect the Fiesta to sell more than 40.000 units in March, which would help it leapfrog both the Clio and the Polo in the first quarter ranking.

In fifth place we find the Peugeot 208, which is the model’s highest ranking in exactly one year and allows the 208 to outsell the Opel/Vauxhall Corsa also for the first time since the same month last year. After showing a huge gain of almost 50% in January, the Corsa is actually down a little in February, despite being facelifted recently.

The Volkswagen Passat makes it three VWs in the top-10 (and 5 VW Group models), as it hits its highest ranking in 36 months with sales up by almost 66% on last year thanks to the new generation. We’ll have to be patient for the long-awaited battle between the Passat and the Ford Mondeo, as the new generation Mondeo hasn’t hit full steam yet. In fact, the Ford is selling at less than a third of the volume of the Passat in the first two months and is stuck in 73rd place. [Read more…]

Citroën beats up an SUV with a Cactus stick

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Following the critical and commercial success of the C4 Cactus, Citroën figured it might as well try applying the same theme to a larger crossover and created the Aircross Concept.

Citroen-Aircross-4

(Slightly) less polarizing then its smaller sibling, the Aircross features plenty of the design cues that make the Cactus stand out: Air Bump inserts, funky lights and wrap-around glasshouse on the outside, minimalist dashboard design with a separate screen instead of an instrument binnacle on the inside.

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European car sales analysis February 2015 – brands

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volkswagen_group-sales-europe-february-2015European car buyers registered just over 952.000 new cars in February, an increase of 7,8% on February of 2014, and the highest growth rate in 11 months and a healthy sign the recovery of the European auto market is well and truly under way. This brings the 2015 year-to-date tally to over 1,97 million cars, up 5,5% on the first two months of last year.

Biggest winners in February were Volkswagen Group, Renault-Nissan and BMW AG, adding a combined 50.000 extra units compared to February of 2014. Volkswagen, Renault and Nissan added the most volume as single brands.

On the downside, General Motors still leads the way due to the withdrawal of Chevrolet, followed by Suzuki, which is eagerly awaiting the new Vitara while the new Celerio is slow to pick up steam, and Tata, whose three brands all lost volume on last year. At brand level, DS also lost a lot of ground in a drought of fresh product. [Read more…]

UPDATED: NY Auto Show – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

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The New York International Auto Show is finally under way, and here are our thoughts:

2016-chevrolet-malibu-007-1

Kriss: for me the good is the new Malibu, which I think looks amazing, even if the facia is a bit too busy and the engine line-up weird (a 1.5-liter turbo with only 160hp as a base engine in the US? even VW could not pull that off!)

Screen Shot 2015-04-02 at 8.21.36 PM

Bart: or me, the good is the Porsche Boxster Spyder. Basic, fast and less girly than a regular Boxster.

[Read more…]

How the Chinese and Indians successfully buy brands while the Americans fail

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Volvo-Pirelli-Peugeot-Citroen-Chinese_DragonThe recent acquisition of Italy’s tire manufacturer Pirelli by the Chinese state-owned chemical company ChemChina is the latest in a string of Chinese and Indian investments in worldwide known European brands, not limited to the automotive industry. Do European countries and consumers have to worry about this phenomenon? Does this spell danger for our crown jewels and will the manufacturing jobs be moved to China or India, where labor is much cheaper? History proves us we should embrace the Asians as excellent caretakers of “our” brands, better than the Americans have been in the last few decades.

The Asians understand the value of a brand, because in their domestic markets there’s a huge difference in perception between local brands, which are considered low-value and can only compete on price, and foreign import brands, which are considered high-end and therefore are able to demand higher transaction prices, resulting in high profits.

The American way

As a result, when an Asian company takes over a Western brand, it will do anything to preserve the brand image, because that is what makes a brand valuable and leads to those higher profit margins. This view is contrasting with the way American companies used to handle their takeovers of European brands in the relatively near past. [Read more…]

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