The new alliance between Suzuki and Volkswagen won’t have much effect in North America according to the sales chief of the Japanese firm’s US unit.
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“It’s mostly about India and technology. We’ll eventually see some of the technology here but not for awhile,” American Suzuki Motor’s Gene Brown told Reuters, adding it was becoming increasing expensive for any company to develop new engines. Cooperation between Suzuki and Volkswagen in North America was very limited, he said.
Brown expects Suzuki sales to rebound this years after falling for the first time in several years in 2009.
“We’re not predicting any big gains but flat has become the new up,” he said.
One thing that should help Suzuki is the improvement in GMAC’s financial position.
GMAC has provided financing to Suzuki dealers over the years as part of the now defunct General Motors-Suzuki alliance. GMAC is now independent of GM and has strengthened it overall position, giving Suzuki hope that it might be able to start leasing some vehicles again. “They had stopped leasing,” Brown said.
Suzuki has previously sourced a D-segment sized sedan from GM-Daewoo for North America but recently launched a replacement developed in-house.
