Ineos expect to take over the Smart plant in Hambach

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Ineos expect to take over the Smart plant in Hambach

- Ineos is a private chemicals company headquartered in Lyndhurst, UK, founded in 1998 by Sir James Arthur Ratcliffe, who get two-thirds of the company’s shares. The group has a turnover estimated at 80 billion dollars per year.


- The British billionaire recently announced that he wanted to expanded into the automotive industry by producing an SUV inspired by the old Land Rover Defenders marketed between 1948 and 2016, SUV that he has just unveiled to the press. Looking at the model more closely, it can be argued that the Grenadier is almost a carbon copy of the old Defender.


- Sir Ratcliffe asserts that the new Defender has lost its rustic side of an old-fashioned 4x4 and that it is necessary to design a model capable of succeeding the real Defender, meaning capable of being capable on the most difficult terrain. Consequently, the Grenadier takes us ten years back… On the other hand, the chosen engines are modern, sourced at BMW, with six-cylinder 3-liter petrol and 3-liter diesel engines developing respectively 340hp and 265hp. "in order to be up to speed. 'at ease in all circumstances'.


- Ineos initially planned to build a small plant in Wales to produce this model, but the sale of the Smart Hambachplant by Daimler changed the initial plans, and Ineosproposed to buy this plant to produce the Grenadier. The expected production volume will certainly not be on par with the Smart volumes achieved between 2000 and 2019, but it could nonetheless reach between 15,000 and 25,000 units per year if the model succeeds to find its market.



    
 

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Stellantis group is targeting the fourth place in the worldwide carmaker ranking

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Stellantis group is targeting the fourth place in the worldwide carmaker ranking
- The automotive group resulting from the merger of the PSA and FCA groups will be named Stellantis. The creation of the group has not yet been indorsed, pending the validation by the European Commission investigating, in particular, the subject relating to a possible monopoly of the group in light utility vehicles (LUV). The official creation of the group is therefore postponed until early 2021.

- In order to estimate the size of the future group and based on production data in the first half of 2020, Stellantis would have reached 2,632,599 units in the first half of 2020 (including 1,188,949 units for PSA and 1,443,650 units for FCA ), compared to 3,806,239 units for the Toyota group, 3,525,203 units for the Volkswagen group and 3,027,458 units for the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi group.

- Regarding Hyundai-Kia, the Korean group is performing well thanks to the absence of lockdown in South Korea, and would be close to the Stellantis group, with 2,621,795 units. Behind, the GM group is far away, with 2,291,326 units.

- The rank of fourth worldwide carmaker would therefore not have been granted for the Stellantis group in 2020. Everything will depend on the commercial performance achieved by this group and by the Hyundai-Kia group during the second half of the year, but in the absence of lockdown for this period to come, we can assume that the advantage that Korean carmakers benefited in the first half will not be renewed in the second, and therefore the Stellantis group would undoubtedly have a better chance of finishing the year in fourth position than the Korean group. The year 2021 will therefore confirm or not the 2020 scenario.


    
 

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The Seat Alhambra end of production signs the end of large European MPV

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The Seat Alhambra end of production signs the end of large European MPV
- The removal of the large Alhambra MPV (D segment) from the Seat product range may mark the beginning of the end for this type of model, less and less demanded by customers, at least in Europe as there is still a small demand for it in North America.

- In the USA for example, MPV represented 170,000 sales in the first seven months of 2020, or only 2.2% of the US market, against more than 10% twenty years ago. The growth of SUVs - as everywhere - having reduced the influence of MPVs to a tiny share of the market. On the US market, the only models still sold are the Honda Odyssey, Chrysler Pacifica, Dodge Caravan, Dodge Journey, Toyota Sienna and Kia Carnival, when twenty years ago the offer was much more wider, notably at Ford and GM.

- In Europe, the remaining large MPVs are the Volkswagen Sharan, Ford Galaxy and S-Max, Renault Espace and Mercedes V-Class, the latter being more of a Minivan than a true MPV. Renault has announced the non-replacement of Espace, and that Ford has indicated that the Galaxy and S-Max are nearing the end of their commercial career and that they will not be replaced. In the first seven months of 2020, these models totalled 44,372 units in Europe, or just 0.8% of the European market, a proportion three times lower than that of the US market.

- The large Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat, Lancia and Opel minivans have disappeared since a long time and the Seat Alhambra is the latest to be removed from the product range, thus announcing the imminent end of this type of vehicle in the D segment. 


    
 

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Mercedes X-Class and Renault Alaskan didn’t succeed on the European market

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Mercedes X-Class and Renault Alaskan didn’t succeed on the European market
- The Renault-Nissan group had multiplied rebadged versions of models within its brands range, such as the Dacia rebadged Renault, the Dacia rebadged Lada, the Samsung rebadged Renault, the Renault rebadged Nissan, etc ... These rebadged models have not always had a good commercial career.

- The rebadging of the Nissan Navara pickup is a good example: Daimler became a partner of the Renault-Nissan group a few years ago and several projects were announced and materialized at the time, such as the rebadging of the Renault Kangooto Mercedes Citan and the rebadging of the Nissan Navara to Mercedes X-Class. At the same time, the rebadging of this same Nissan Navara to Renault Alaskan was decided. The idea was that proposing the Navara pickup under multiple brands would increase sales of this model.

- In fact, this was not the case as the three pick-ups together reached a volume of 61,000 units in 2017, 59,000 units in 2018 and 47,000 units in 2019. The year 2020 records even lower sales volumes but mainly due to the coronavirus crisis. The Mercedes X Class has thus totalised 20,621 sales in three years and the Renault Alaskan 4,217 sales, while the Nissan Navara recorded 142,479 sales over the same period. The results show that the Mercedes and Renault pick-ups were unsuccessful, and that customers relied on the original model.

- The two carmakers have therefore decided to stop the production of these two pick-ups this summer in Barcelona, the Nissan Navara continuing to be produced until June 2021, when this plant will close. These three models were produced in this factory.


    
 

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VW ID5 and ID Buzz to be launched in 2021 and 2022

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VW ID5 and ID Buzz to be launched in 2021 and 2022
- Following the launch in 2020 of the Volkswagen ID3 sedan and coming ID4 SUV, both battery electric vehicles (BEV) from the C-segment market, the German carmaker has announced the launch of the ID5 in 2021 and the ID Buzz in 2022.

- The Volkswagen ID5 will be a D-segment SUV, therefore longer than the ID4 (length: 4.62 m). This future model targets the VW Passat and VW Tiguan customers. It will be produced in Zwickau, alongside ID3 and ID4; this plant having a production capacity of 200,000 electric cars per year. It should also be noted that the carmaker’s objective of producing 100,000 cars in Zwickau by 2020 will not be met, due to the coronavirus crisis and the postponement of the ID3 production for several months. We will be closer to the figure forecasted by Inovev (45,000 units) and even lower.

- While it was supposed to be produced in Emden, the production of the ID5 in Zwickau is explained by the fact that the transfer of the Passat from Emden to Turkey has not yet done, since the construction of the Turkish plant has not yet been decided.

- The second model announced is the ID Buzz which will be launched in 2022 and will attempt to gradually succeed the Kombi. As for the ID5, it will be based on the Volkswagen's MEB platform, which is intended for all the group's BEVs. The ID Buzz will likely be produced at the Hanover plant, alongside the VW Kombi and Transporter. The announced price of these two new models will be around 50,000 euros, which is 10,000 euros more than the ID3 and 5,000 euros more than the ID4. The ID1 (A-segment at 20,000 euros) and ID2 (B-segment B at 30,000 euros) will be launched between 2023 and 2025.


    
 

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