Auto giants stake out new strategies

Auto giants staked out positions in the weak European market yesterday, with GM standing by Opel, Fiat open to world alliances and Volkswagen aiming to match 2011’s record earnings.

“Any talk of insolvency should be off the table, any talk that we are not committed to Europe should be off the table,” declared Stephen Girsky, vice president of General Motors.

“We are committed to Opel and Vauxhall in Europe,” he said of GM’s two struggling European subsidiaries.

“There is no debate whether the Vauxhall name is important or not. We know it is very important and we have no plans to walk away from it,” said Mr Girsky at the Geneva Motor Show.

GM had initially decided to sell Opel/Vauxhall but changed its mind after its own rescue by the US government in 2009, and has decided to turn the European unit around itself.

Mr Girsky added that the group has been talking to both the British and German governments on the future of its activities in Europe, which have suffered from the crisis in the eurozone, and is to continue with these.

GM also signalled that its alliance with PSA Peugeot Citroen, announced last week, will soon start to deliver cost savings.

“In the second half of this year you will start to see some of the product programmes and purchasing initiatives will start to be developed,” Mr Girsky said.

Meanwhile, Fiat’s boss Sergio Marchionne said the GM-PSA accord did not close off any avenues in the Italian group’s search for global alliances.

Fiat “remains open” to any opportunities for alliances around the world, he said, adding that the group is interested in partnering “all” firms, except some which are incompatible, such as Volkswagen and Daimler.

He revealed that he will meet Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn today.

“Renault is technically compatible with Fiat,” said Mr Marchionne, who has been credited with turning around the Italian company from the brink of collapse and engineering an ambitious partnership with US giant Chrysler.

Nissan-Renault reported a 10 per cent jump in global sales for 2011, and the alliance’s chief Carlos Ghosn had said that he is looking to another sales record this year.

Nissan also announced that it would invest £125 million (€150 million) to build a new hatchback compact car in Britain, allowing it to create 2,000 jobs.