Geneva motor show revs up under cloud of crisis
PARIS (AFP) – Plunging prices and over-capacity will again this year cast a shadow over the Geneva International Motor Show, which kicks off this week, but plenty of luxury racing dreams should still be prominently on display.
The European auto industry got off to a bad start in January, when new car registrations in the European Union plummeted to their lowest level since 1990 after an already catastrophic 2012.
Only 12 million cars were sold last year – the lowest number since 1995.
A worker puts some finishing touches on the stand’s decoration while a car is seen still veiled during the final preparations prior to the opening of the 83rd Geneva International Motor Show
Switzerland, the host of what is one of the auto industry’s biggest events, is a rare bright spot on the crisis-hit continent.
The Swiss, who do not belong to the EU, saw new car registrations jump 2.4 per cent last year from an already record year in 2011, with 431,000 new registrations.
For the neighbouring EU nations, however, the end of the tunnel remains out of sight and most experts refuse to guess when, if ever, the market will come roaring back and hit its pre-crisis 2007 level of 16 million cars sold.
Stefan Bratzel, a German car industry analyst, expects to see sales across Europe slip five per cent this year and predicts that the mood in Geneva will be jaded.
German carmakers, who sell heavily in North America and Asia where sales – especially at the high end – are up, are nonetheless doing quite well.
Daimler and Volkswagen raked in record net profits in 2012, and BMW looks set to do the same.
European leader VW, which saw its net profit soar 40 per cent last year to 21.7 billion euros (ê28.6 billion), pulled far ahead of the next in line, PSA Peugeot Citroen.
The French company has had a very bumpy ride and suffered a 5.0-billion euro loss last year. In July it announced the closure of its historic plant in Aulnay, near Paris.
US carmakers Ford and General Motors, who lost billions of dollars in Europe last year, also decided to shut down plants, with Ford closing sites in Belgium and Britain and GM closing an Opel plant in Germany.
“We are only just getting started on the reorganisations” in the auto
industry, Fitch analyst Emmanuel Bulle cautioned.
“Suppliers, who are also suffering, will also start facing this issue,” said Max Blanchet of the Roland Berger consultancy, predicting that between 40,000 and 80,000 jobs could disappear from the European car industry over the next two years.
Other carmakers, in less dire straits, have opted for a softer approach.
French Renault for instance is aiming to reach an agreement with the unions allowing salary cuts in exchange for it agreeing to keep up production in France, after it completed a similar deal in Spain.
Trailing its high-end competitors, Daimler plans to cut costs by two billion euros in its cars division by the end of 2014 in a bid to improve profitability.
Italian Fiat meanwhile is turning towards luxury car production to maintain its industrial base in Italy, and recently inaugurated a Maserati plant near Torino.
