Short Torque

Former Fiat CEO dead at 66

Former Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne, who rescued the Italian and the US companies and built them into the world's seventh-largest carmaker, has died, the news breaking moments before the group reported a heavy fall in profit on Wednesday. The announcement of the death of Marchionne, 66, one of the auto industry's most tenacious and respected CEOs, drew tributes from rivals and tears from his closest colleagues, a collective grief that overshadowed a big sell-off in Fiat Chrysler shares. Marchionne had fallen gravely ill after what the company had described as shoulder surgery at a Zurich hospital.

CITIC building tire plants in Morocco

Chinese auto wheel manufacturer CITIC Dicastal will build two production plants in Morocco with an investment of 350 million euros ($407.5 million). The deal was signed Thursday in the Moroccan capital Rabat by the Moroccan Ministers of Economy and Industry, Mohamed Boussaid and Moulay Hafid Elalamy, respectively, as well as Dicastal Xu Zuo, chairman of CITIC. The leading Chinese group plans to produce six million wheels yearly; 90 percent of them will be exported abroad. The plants, which will be built in the northern cities of Kenitra and Tangier, will create some 1,200 jobs.

Cost of NEV battery use declining

The price of running new energy vehicle power batteries declined in 2017 to an average of 1.45 yuan ($0.22) for each watt hour, 25 percent lower than 2016, according to an annual report on the industry. A total of 819,000 NEVs were manufactured and around 777,000 were sold in 2017, and 37.35 billion wh of power batteries were assembled for NEVs, said the report. An improvement in the industrial chain and a rising percentage of domestic batteries contributed to the cost reduction, according to the report. The cost of NEV power batteries need to be as low as traditional fuel vehicles to make NEVs competitive in price, the report said.

Renault profits sink in 1H 2018

French auto giant Renault on Friday said it saw its net profit shrink by nearly a fifth in the first half of the year, as a result of a lower contribution from its strategic partner Nissan The operating margin for the first six months of the year increased, however, to a record 6.4 percent of sales, according to a statement from the group that owns the Renault, Dacia, Lada, Samsung and Alpine brands. Renault saw its net profit go down 18.6 percent to just under 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) from January to June, the statement said. "This decrease came from Nissan's contribution, down 483 million euros, which notably benefited from a capital gain last year," it added.

Germans welcome tariff deal talk

A top German industry group gave a cautious welcome to solutions proposed by the US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to avert a trade war but warned that the US auto tariffs were not completely off the table yet. After a White House meeting on Wednesday, Trump and Juncker said they agreed to hold sweeping trade talks on reducing tariff, subsidy and non-tariff barrier reductions, with Trump appearing to give ground on his threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on imported cars and auto parts.

Daimler reports lower profit, revenue

German automaker Daimler AG said Thursday that its net profit fell 27 percent in the second quarter as the company confronted multiple challenges including trade tensions, weak pricing for its luxury cars and recalls and product delays related to diesel emissions. Net profit fell to 1.8 billion euros ($2.1 billion) from 2.5 billion euros a year earlier. Revenues fell 1 percent to 40.8 billion euros. The company had already lowered its earnings outlook for the year, citing global trade tensions. China has announced it will raise tariffs on cars imported from the United States in response to tariffs announced by the US President Donald Trump.

Motoring - Agencies

(China Daily 07/30/2018 page19)