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Carlos Tavares of Nissan is made the new CEO of Peugeot in November 2013.

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Toyota revised its profit forecast downward for the current fiscal year ending March 2012, by 54%. The revised forecast is for net profit of 180 billion yen ($2.32 billion), down 54% from a prior estimate made in August, and half the 408 billion yen earned the prior year. The strength of the yen has impacted the price competitiveness of Japanese exports. It has also affected the value of overseas profits on Japanese financial statements. Toyota makes half of its global production in Japan compared to a third for Honda and Nissan, leaving it more vulnerable to the value of the yen. Also affecting Toyota are the severe floods in Thailand which led to shortage of parts from component suppliers in Thailand. The new forecast uses an exchange rate of 77 yen to the dollar and 105 yen to the euro. That compares with the exchange rate for the prior fiscal year of 86 yen to the dollar and 113 yen to the euro.

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Ford CEO, Alan Mulally, says the electric battery in the newly designed Ford Focus EV electric car costs about $12,000 to $15,000. The car price is $39,200. The similiar gasoline powered car price is about $22,000. This car has a 23 hour kilowatt hour battery pack. Based on this information the cost is $522- $650 per kilwatt hour. The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal reaching $300 per kilowatt hour by 2013, as it funds new electric car development in the U.S. The Ford Focus EV is directly competing against the Nissan Leaf. The Leaf starts at $35,200, with a range of 73 miles on a full charge compared to 76 for the Focus EV. The Focus can be recharged in three and half hours using a 240 volt charger, compared to 7 hours for the Leaf. What the battery cost tells us is that the electric car development has to bring costs down rapidly for electric cars to become price competitive.

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Even if a automobile part for assembly is manufactured in the U.S., the subparts may be sourced overseas. This makes it extremely difficult to pinpoint the country of manufacture. Toyota Siena is 90% sourced with US and Canadian parts according to the U.S. National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. The Ford Mustang 2005 by contrast uses 65 %US and Canadian parts according to NHTSA. There is a publicity war between the US makers and the Japanese with commercials arguing about who is more American. According to the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association $28 billion is the amount of cumulative investment in N. America and $45 billion is the amount of annual purchases of parts, so that 67% of the Japanese brand cars sold in N. America are made there. A graph from National HighwayTraffic Safety Association shows the Average percentage of auto parts made in the US and Canada for cars sold in N. America. It shows 2 interesting things. 1. That the US makers GM and Ford are closer to 80% and the Japanese makers Toyota and Honda are about 70%. So American makers still have more American content. Note though that Nissan is only around 54 % domestic content, significantly lower. Its always been a much weaker competitor than Toyota, and its sales recently have been sluggish in the US. The Koreans are not shown here but its quite possible that their content is closer to Nissans than to Toyota or lower than Nissans. So all foreign plants may not be the same. Notice the change in Toyota from 52% domestic content to 70% domestic content, from 2000 to 2005,an 18% jump which could only result from a deliberate strategy anticipating the controversy of who is truly American and who isn't. 2. In contrast GM has definitely shifted from 92% to 80% and rapidly moving in the opposite direction than Toyota. The sea change currently underway in the American auto parts industry is in the background, with Delphi looking to increasing manufacture and sourcing overseas particularly Asia (China, India etc), to bring down costs and be competitive in a globalizing auto parts industry. In the future as Delphi shifts overseas and GM procures from China and India one could see a continuing rapid shift to higher overseas content to add the cost savings directly to GM and Ford's bottom line. ...

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Japan's economy minister, Mr. Seko, says that with no-deal Brexit Britain will lose access to Japan's new economic partnership agreement with the European Union which last month created the world's largest free trade zone. Seko said 1000 Japanese companies have invested in the UK creating 150,000 jobs, because it served as "a gateway to the European market."

Nissan is scaling back its Sunderland factory. Sony and Panasonic are relocating their EU headquarters to Amsterdam. Honda will close its Swindon plant in 2021. Seko said "uncertainty for the consequences of Brexit is spreading in Japanese industry."

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CTS Corp of Elkhart, Indiana supplies accelerator asemblies to Toyota. It is now designing a new pedal to stringent specifications from Toyota. These pedals are manufactured at aplant near Toronto. CTS also supplies parts to Honda Motor Company and Nissan Motor Company, and says only 3% of its business is from Toyota. It mainly builds auto sensors and components.

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Fuel efficiency for the entire US vehicle fleet increased by 1.4 miles per gallon to 22.4 miles per gallon for 2009, an increase of 7% over 2008. A shift from pickups to cars, and to smaller vehicles. Toyota at 25.4 mpg, Nissan at 23.6 mpg, GM at 20.6 mpg, Ford at 20.3 mpg, Daimler at 19.5, and Chrysler at 19.2 mpg.

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How is it that GM would predict sales close to 16 million when no one else sees that happening. Is it just optimistic, even in the face of last years forecast which also stumbled badly with no improvement in the second half as expected. Instead GM closes the year 2007 with sales down 6% over 2006. And much worse numbers for Ford which saw 12% decline, and Chrysler a 3% decline. Chrysler continues to sell to rental fleets. Toyota's and Honda's sales grew by 3.1 and 2.8% respectively. But this year 2008 Toyota doesn't expect to do well with only a 1% increase. Nissan and Hyundai are in the same straits as the Big Three American makers in inventory of cars and sell to rental car fleets. In terms of inventory per point of market share Nissan has excess production capacity and more cars as inventory, about 39,000 per point of Nissan's market share similar to the Big Three. Toyota and Honda have 28,000 per point of their market share.