Latest automotive comment
The best views and opinions in automotive industry publishing, all in one place, from just-auto's monthly columnists and in-house experts.
23 Jun 2017 | Graeme Roberts
Just what an embattled prime minister kicking off Brexit negotiations needed this week - one of the home team announcing it's going to need 5,000 more people here in the UK. Jaguar Land Rover company plans to hire 1,000 electronics and software engineers as well as 4,000 additional personnel, including in manufacturing, and it already employs 37,000.
Velar redefines Range Rover luxury - COMMENT
23 Jun 2017 | Guest
Tata-owned premium car maker Jaguar Land Rover is adding, this year, another model to the Range Rover sub-brand's range - the Velar. Hilton Holloway, editor of '5054' magazine, reflects on the thinking behind the latest Range Rover luxury car and the values of the brand.
Air quality debate needs to move on from diesel cars - JLR
22 Jun 2017 | Dave Leggett
The debate on air quality in cities has become unhelpfully fixated on diesel cars that are a small part of the overall problem, according to Jeremy Hicks, Managing Director of Jaguar Land Rover UK.
VW Polo ready to bat off Fiat Brazil's Argo - the week
16 Jun 2017 | Graeme Roberts
News from the fascinating market that is Brazil drew the most eyeballs to just-auto this week as Our Man in Sao Paulo, Fernando Calmon, introduced us to Fiat's new Argo, ready for battle in the hot compact hatchback segment. Looks like a cracking wee car but, as Chris Wright, live from Berlin, reports today, Volkswagen is readying return fire in the form of the latest Polo, dripping with standard or available technology. It'll be interesting to see what VW Brazil does with that - Fernando will tell us in due course - but the days of last decade's designs being foisted on South America look, thankfully, to be over.
The week - May's roll of the dice fails
9 Jun 2017 | Graeme Roberts
Britain woke up this morning to news of yet another unexpected voting result - Prime Minister Theresa May's bid to increase her majority in parliament has failed and, to use the local vernacular, it's 'hung', requiring an uneasy alliance with Northern Ireland MPs to achieve any sort of majority. Naturally, we have a view.
What does the UK election result mean?
9 Jun 2017 | Dave Leggett
The result of the UK general election raises a number of questions for UK economic prospects and the position of the UK's automotive sector. Dave Leggett offers some thoughts.
The Week - Volvo's inter-continental solution
2 Jun 2017 | Dave Leggett
It has been a week in which the notion of our global interdependence and the benefits - or not - of approaches that reach across borders, have been challenged, again.
The week - it's tough at the top, Mr Fields?
26 May 2017 | Graeme Roberts
There had been enough rumours in automotive and financial circles over the last few weeks (and months) to suggest Change was coming at Ford - to wit the Monday ousting of CEO Mark Fields (billed in the press release as 'retirement') after less than three years in the top job, with a well-seasoned (but mostly not in autos) executive, Jim Hackett, replacing the long-Ford-serving Fields who had been praised, for example, for his work heading Mazda on the way to the top job in Dearborn and the moves towards 'mobility' once there.
Ford opts for presentational change
23 May 2017 | Dave Leggett
The more I look at it, the harder I am finding it to understand the rationale for change at the top of Ford Motor Company. I am concluding, at this point, that it is perhaps more rooted in presentation than substance.
The week - retrenchment at Global Motors
19 May 2017 | Graeme Roberts
Signs are that GM, sometimes referred to as 'Global Motors', is having a strategic rethink and tactically withdrawing from markets where the chances of making a decent buck, and consequent return to investors, are slim. Only recently, The General finally threw in the European towel: after years of good effort but continuing losses, it announced in March - eve of the Geneva show, no less, it would sell the loss-making European Opel operations to PSA Group in an EUR2.2bn deal expected to close by the end of this year. This week, GM announced cuts to its international operations which it said would save it around US$100m a year.
Detroit has investors on its mind - COMMENT
18 May 2017 | Dave Leggett
The automotive business, like others, is subject to economic cycles. It is now ten years since the global economic slowdown - the 'credit crunch' of 2007 - that eventually brought us a much more serious banking crisis in late 2008 and the a pretty severe global recession in 2009.
The week - the time saving autonomous car
12 May 2017 | Graeme Roberts
If a self-driving car could give you back an hour each day, how would you use it?
5 May 2017 | Graeme Roberts
Quarterly results, first or fiscal, continued to trickle in this week with Autoliv (which recently announced an interesting joint venture called Zenuity with Volvo Cars) beating its forecasts. This supplier recently announced some new business with Daimler's Mercedes for the S-Class update. Volkswagen, despite ongoing diesel crisis costs, also pulled off a spectacular Q1 result.
UK-EU Brexit discord to be expected - COMMENT
2 May 2017 | Dave Leggett
The UK's exit from the European Union (so-called 'Brexit') is going to be a drawn out and complex business.
The week - Results season is upon us, again
28 Apr 2017 | Graeme Roberts
That came around again quickly - results season again is upon as, depending on whether automakers and parts suppliers work on calendar year or, commonly in Japan, India and, coincidentally, in our very own parent company Aroq's head office, fiscal year, first quarter or fourth quarter/full year financials spill out all over.
Tomorrow's winners prepare for change today - COMMENT
25 Apr 2017 | Dave Leggett
How much disruption will the auto industry experience over the next ten years or so? It's a question that many are asking as attempts to sketch out the future of mobility - or, more accurately, urban mobility - gather pace.
Autonomous tech creeping in - the week
21 Apr 2017 | Graeme Roberts
Autonomous driving will, of course, arrive in stages; there are already defined levels of autonomy and quite a bit of the tech needed is already in cars as standard or optional equipment. I was reminded of this just this week when key tier one supplier Bosch popped up with its finding one in four newly registered cars has an automatic emergency braking system on board to prevent accidents and, if necessary, bring the vehicle to a stop in the event of an emergency.
Daimler suggests a good Q1 result - the week
13 Apr 2017 | Graeme Roberts
'Early doors' - to borrow a phrase from our editor - for me ahead of the Easter break hence an earlier than usual look back at an already shortened week.
Rethinking the interior of autonomous vehicles - COMMENT
11 Apr 2017 | Guest
Dr Detlef Jürss, Chief Technical Officer of Adient, describes how life on board will change in the vehicle of the future – turning today’s functional interior into a place for work, relaxation, communication, entertainment or even sleep.
Travel reports-r-us - the week
7 Apr 2017 | Graeme Roberts
A busy week for us. Editor Dave Leggett returned from a few days in Korea with Ssangyong and filed this report after interviewing Anand Mahindra, the chairman and managing director of Mahindra Group which owns the Korean automaker. Yours truly had an interesting Monday in Germany, as Audi showed and told all about the new, upcoming A8 flagship's body shell and walked us through the new plant built specially to make it.
Automotive market is 'polarising' - Anand Mahindra
3 Apr 2017 | Dave Leggett
The world's automotive market is drifting towards two separate poles according to Anand Mahindra, the chairman and managing director of Mahindra Group.
Government pulls trigger on Brexit - the week
31 Mar 2017 | Graeme Roberts
Brexit, long a word used on just-auto, finally began this week with the UK's official triggering of the infamous Article 50; the first time a country has had the temerity to ask to leave the European Union. There sure were some rather surly Eurocrat faces being televised from Brussels but we took a balanced view.
UK triggers Brexit countdown - COMMENT
29 Mar 2017 | Dave Leggett
The UK prime minister, Theresa May, has invoked the EU constitution's 'Article 50' which formally begins the two-year process by which the UK exits the EU. Although trade arrangements are not formally included in the UK's exit terms, they are sure to be the subject of intense discussions.
The week - new and future products galore
24 Mar 2017 | Graeme Roberts
Our look at future Volvos was the most popular read on just-auto this week, a pleasing result, because I know how much work it takes to put one of those together. Hat tip, then, to our resident 'new and future products' editor/analyst (he'll answer to either) Glenn Brooks, also researcher/editor for our production life, factory source and platform basis research database PLDB. If you're not familiar with PLDB (or our OEM/supplier research database QUBE), follow the link for a preview; if you'd like to see more, click this link to get in touch.
BREXIT - UK-EU trade uncertainties cloud outlook
21 Mar 2017 | Dave Leggett
The outlook for the UK's automotive sector after Brexit - the now omnipresent term for the UK's exit from the EU - remains somewhat uncertain.
THE WEEK - More Chinese Volvos are a-coming
17 Mar 2017 | Graeme Roberts
The Chinese are coming - certainly some of the Volvo models they make over there.
THE WEEK - PSA, GM Europe, Geneva
10 Mar 2017 | Graeme Roberts
Yes, of course, Geneva this week, with lots of shiny new metal to get the consumer media all a-Twitter (other social media platforms are available), but the big story, looking all but inevitable a week ago, was the first-thing-Monday announcement PSA would acquire GM Europe's Opel/Vauxhall operations. Or, as some pundits put it, GM (with some large pension liability support) will pay PSA to take it away.
Scale drives PSA's Opel ambitions - COMMENT
7 Mar 2017 | Dave Leggett
The deal is all but done, scheduled to complete this year. Opel/Vauxhall is to become part of the PSA Group. When the news broke last month that the two were in talks for a sale, my thoughts could be summed up in a simple question: Why would PSA want to take that on?
Nervous European auto workers await fate - the week
3 Mar 2017 | Graeme Roberts
This was not a good week to be a worker in certain auto or engine making plants owned by GM, PSA or Ford in the UK and Spain. Especially for those of nervous disposition.
Ford's Bridgend engine plant – the anatomy of its decline
1 Mar 2017 | Calum MacRae
A confluence of factors, many of them rooted in history, are behind the expected decline in output at Ford’s Bridgend plant which will lead to the loss of 1,100 jobs over the next five years.
