Word: auto
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...electric technology today - on cost and on performance. "When it comes to electric and hybrid cars, China is challenging the automotive industries in the Western industrial countries," writes Wolfgang Bernhart, a consultant with Roland Berger who estimates that electrics and plug-ins could account for more than half the auto market in China by 2020. "The race for electric mobility is just getting under way." (See the history of the electric...
Priority Lane It won't be an easy race for China to win. The Chinese auto industry is fractured and weak. The domestic market is dominated by foreign manufacturers such as GM (which is doing much better in Beijing than it is in Detroit) and Volkswagen. But the government in Beijing has made it very clear that it considers electric and plug-in vehicles a priority for Chinese companies, and it's willing to spend. The Chinese State Council announced in January that it would spend $1.6 billion over the next three years to develop alternative fuels, and there...
However, Frank Stronach, Magna's flamboyantly unpredictable founder and chairman, sees the acquisition of Opel as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a global car empire on which to stamp his imprint. "It's a risky deal for Magna," says auto analyst George Magliano of IHS Global Insight. "But car assembly is something they really want to do." This ambition may be too tall an order for the Austrian-born Stronach, 76, whose entire career has been marked by both spectacular successes and failures. Most recently, his dream of creating a horse-racing and gaming empire collapsed when...
Negotiations between GM and Magna - based in Aurora, Ont., it's one of the world's biggest auto-parts suppliers, with annual revenue of $23.7 billion - have hit one roadblock after another. A key sticking point is disagreement over Magna's right to use GM's technology and engineering, particularly in Russia and Eastern Europe, where the parts company has plans for aggressive expansion. (See the most exciting cars...
These developments ideally position Magna, which remains on solid financial ground despite reporting a loss for the first half of 2009, to grab a much bigger share of the $400 billion global auto-parts market. This is already happening as its biggest U.S. competitors struggle with bankruptcy as a result of the near death of GM and Chrysler earlier this year...