In a week full of quarterly results (there’s still a few to come, BTW) and some interesting new plant announcements, I was intrigued to see how many just-auto readers zoomed in on my little local obsession with Jaguar‘s dimming daylight runners.
After I queried the background to this nice bit of detail design, a diligent Jaguar spokeswoman got back to me yesterday with the reasoning behind it all – yet again, in a supposedly ‘global’ market, it seems the US has gone with different rules from Europe.
Some interesting news of new plants, expansions or contract wins. Ford announced a second car assembly and and engine facility for India – a US$1bn spend is not to be sneezed at – and Toyota, for the second time in a month, said it would expand capcity at its local TKM unit there. With a plant also going up in Brazil, the little Etios is going to soon be a common sight in ’emerging markets’ in India, China and South America, just for starters. And, though it’s not officially confirmed, Toyota reportedly is planning a 30% boost in Chinese engine output with some of the motors destined for the planned locally-made Etios. And Nissan Motor is also spending big in China.
Here in the UK, Honda just confirmed the next generation Civic and CR-V would be made in Swindon so that should be another four to five years’ of work guaranteed for the plant – gone are the days of successor new models as of right; with global production systems now in place, assembly plants have to bid for new production on a contract by contract basis.
No quarterly results season would be complete without at least one word from Our Man in the City, Rob Golding. This week he took a close look at Renault.
Have a nice weekend.
Graeme Roberts, Deputy Editor, just-auto.com
