Word: garel
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...General Motors, unveiled the Eco-Speedster, a sleek, low-riding sports car that gets 2.5 L of fuel to 100 km. But none of the manufacturers ever intended to offer their ultralight cars for sale. "The real problem is that consumers are still very wary of these cars," says Garel Rhys, director of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University Business School in Wales. "People don't buy a car solely for its environmental impact but for a host of other reasons, the way it drives and how it looks." But with fuel prices at historic highs...
...there are signs of life: GM's Employee Discount for Everyone promotion bumped its U.S. sales up by 41% in June, the best monthly sales performance since 1986. And PricewaterhouseCoopers, Rover's administrator, was in talks last week with three separate suitors - involving two Chinese firms - for the carmaker. Garel Rhys, director of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University's business school, sees a happy ending at Rover. With Britain "the first place to get major Japanese investment" in its auto sector, "it would be in keeping to get the first major Chinese offshore investment," he reasons...
...coming months - but it will cost at least €7,500. So could VW be set to take a similar detour? Possibly, according to industry experts, because car buyers in developing countries are developing extravagant tastes. "Romanians read motor magazines; the Chinese car customer is extremely knowledgeable," says Professor Garel Rhys, head of Cardiff University 's Centre for Automotive Industry Research. "They've seen the flow of the newer Western cars coming in." He adds that piling on optional extras doesn't usually give the customer value for money. Better, advises Rhys, to go for "a low-mileage used vehicle...
...cars. In 2000, BMW sold it for the equivalent of $15 to four Birmingham businessmen whose firm was optimistically called Phoenix Venture Holdings. Their idea of a great car: the MG SV, introduced in 2002 with a starting price of $120,000. Only about 50 have been sold. Garel Rhys, an automotive expert at Cardiff University Business School, quips: "It's the yeti car. Everyone's heard of it, but no one has seen one." Last year, overall MG Rover sales were down to just over 100,000, less than half what the firm needed to break even. BMW invested...
...cars, while fuel efficiency directives anticipate lighter cars. Sighed a Ford spokesman: "We're piggy in the middle." But - to mix animal metaphors - is Ford crying wolf? "Think of the discussions in the late '80s about how the cost of controlling emissions would make cars more expensive," says Garel Rhys, head of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff Business School . "The figures that were bandied around turned out to be nothing of the sort." Rhys argues the industry is so competitive that when one carmaker absorbs rather than passes on the cost of compliance, the rest will have...