Car companies news

French Peugeot is close to issuing its new generation off-roader based on new Mitsubishi Outlander introduced at Tokyo Motor Show in 2005. In fact new off-roader will duplicate Outlander and named 4007, given distinction s between these two cars will be minimum in exterior as in inner compartment.

Peugeot 4007 production is planned for 2007. It is certain now new off-roader will have 2.4 Mitsubishi developed engine with 170 h/p, and a diesel HDI, 2.0 cubic displacement with 136 h/p developed by Peugeot-Citroen PSA.

Suppositional price for new Peugeot 4007 amounted at 20 000 to 30 000 euros depending on package and Peugeot hopes to bring sales of this model up to 30 000 a year.

BMW is going to introduce at Geneva Auto Saloon its new 3-door 1-serie version with removable hard top. European dealers will possess new 1-serie model this summer; cabriole variant sales launching is dated early 2007 while US market will see new model right after. Some suppose that new BMW cabriole will gain “2-serie” name hence marketing issues.

Besides these two version new 1-serie will be offered in coupe, estate, sedan and roadster body types. As for the engines for the model more probably they will be L4, L6 power units with 115-255 h/p ratio.

Recently hot controversy sparked out between BMW and Nissan as the first one accuse the second of violating author law. The matter is that Nissan’s luxury Infinity subdivision started to use “M” letter to name its M35 and M45 models, given BMW has its sportive models “m” indication. After Infinity held an advertising company with “M’s coming” slogan BMW lost patience and brought an action against Japanese company. Despite court found BMW pretensions ungrounded car manufacturer from Bavaria is going to obtain justice by further efforts as according to their information – 30 years of M-serie models promotion took BMW some $250 million – so will fight for the cherished “M” letter!

General Motors announced the company is going to invest $15 billions to IT technologies development during the following 5 years. In fact, for these purposes Electronic Data Systems Corp. Company and Capgemini Company from France will be financed with $3.8 and $0.5 billion correspondingly. Besides GM Corp. according to the signed contracts aimed at widening collaboration with Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM these companies will receive $700 million and $500 million relatively. In addition the contract was made with Indian Wipro Ltd. and some other companies marking global development strategy of General Motors. Remarkably this activity by GM was performed in the light of pure financial loss of the company in 2005 amount to $8.554 billion and total gain loss – 0.4% compared to 2005 gain.

The total sales of Renault and Nissan in 2005 amounted to 6 129 254 (6% increase to 2004 ratio) vehicles put the alliance on the 4th position given Nissan brand sold 3 597 784 vehicles and Renault – 2 531 748 ones with world market share of 9.8%. One of essential factors plays geographically mutual augmentability of two manufacturers. In 2005 Renault and Nissan were keeping on joint efforts towards producing automobiles on the same platforms and with the same utility. Each partner in 2005 launched model production of common B-platform: these are Note, Wingroad и Bluebird Sylphy of Nissan and Clio of Renault. Besides, Nissan issued Serena model on C-platform which is of Renault Megane – the most demandable car in Western Europe for the last three years.