In a further sign of problems at Saab, the Swedish auto maker has been forced to halt production on Tuesday due to a shortage of components. The brief shutdown raises questions about the company’s ability to meet its production schedule. It comes just days after Saab’s long-serving chief executive announced his decision to retire and parent company Spyker Cars NV reported a steep loss for 2010 and said it would raise €13.6 million ($19.2 million) in a capital increase.

On Monday, Spyker Chief Executive Victor Muller met with officials at Sweden’s National Debt Office to provide assurances over collateral to meet the terms of the credit guarantees the government provided to secure European Investment Bank funding that helped it to buy Saab last year. Spyker’s investors have been unnerved by the latest developments. The company’s shares were down 8.8% at €3.90 by late morning in Europe, partially retracing a drop of as much as 20%. The stock has shed more than one-fifth of its value since Thursday, the day before the Dutch car maker announced its earnings.

Production at Saab’s Trollhattan factory, which makes 224 cars a day, was halted briefly Tuesday. Spyker confirmed that some suppliers had halted supplies to Saab due to talks about payments and terms, but Saab production had restarted. In a statement, the Dutch company said it had sufficient funds to meet its immediate needs and was seeking to strengthen its financial position and capital structure.

That Saab is lagging with its payments also was confirmed by FKG, a trade association representing Scandinavian auto industry suppliers. Saab’s advertising agency Lowe Brindfors has cancelled all of its ongoing work for Saab because of unpaid bills, Swedish media business paper Resume reported.

Spyker Cars bought unprofitable Saab in February 2010 from General Motors Co., which at the time was wrestling with its own financial problems that resulted in the U.S. auto maker seeking protection from its creditors. Spyker pledged it would make Saab profitable again by 2012. The company paid GM $74 million in cash for Saab, and secured several loans to fund its business plan, including one for €400 million from the EIB. The Swedish government provided loan guarantees.

Spyker expected to sell 50,000 Saab cars in 2010, but this target was lowered during the course of the year to 30,000 to 35,000 cars. It sold 31,696 cars last year. Spyker said it still expects to sell 80,000 cars in 2011 and 120,000 cars in 2012, which should allow the car maker to turn a profit. The company booked a €218 million net loss in 2010.

All kinds of companies now offer car insurance; specialist companies, all the way through to supermarkets – no wonder consumers are finding it hard to choose! This is where price comparison sites come in. One of the market leaders in this sector is Moneysupermarket.com, which compares a broad range of car insurance policies from a wide range of companies, and tailors the search results to be as accurate as possible. This has revolutionised the car insurance industry, as competition has never been higher. Never have there been more special offers emerging, as well as a bright array of car insurance ad’s to tickle our fancy.

Price comparison sites are not a recent trend, but the current financial climate is forcing these services to become more sophisticated and transparent. Show us one car driver who does not spend hours and days hunting down the best insurance premium? The state of the economy is making drivers flock to price comparison sites in greater numbers than ever before. This is an evolution of consumer behaviour towards better value, and a second generation of this trend. More than ever car drivers are shopping around before committing to a provider. By doing their research and comparing different companies they are likely to shave hundreds when renewing their car insurance policy. Price comparison sites can probably get drivers the best deal on car insurance.

| Car Insurance Advert:

After decades of trying to make cars quieter, manufacturers are willing to bring back, and even brand, decibels. It’s clear that some vehicle manufacturers see prospects of warning sounds as a unique and possibly valuable form of branding. Maybe even to the point of a commercial prospect.

There are powerful arguments to be made that Electric Vehicles sounds should be standardized. Whatever sound is used, it needs to be a defined and standardized sound that is identifiable as a car in motion. Random sounds and tunes could be misidentified and abused.

Some solar-powered traffic signals have been previously provided by private investors. Sometimes costs were defrayed by allowing limited advertising on the lights. Certainly one way of getting motorists attention, but not likely to improve road safety. But the extensive use of  renewable sources to power traffic lights is still very limited.

Now here’s a creative design that is not only green, but also cost-effective, which might encourage installation of solar-powered traffic systems. Solar Traffic Light has been designed to include Discolor LED technology, essentially hosting all the three colors of the lights within a single unit. The lights source power from the solar panel on top of the unit, which is elegantly designed as a hood.

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Green Light

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This saying first appeared in the 3rd century BC in Greek. It didn’t appear in its current form in print until the 19th century, but in the meantime there were various written forms that expressed much the same thought. Toyota in 1997 is widely credited with coining the saying in the Hybrid arena with the Prius.

The Prius is still one ugly car. Not very politically correct, therefore apologies in advance if you own one, and our deepest sympathies to Toyota designers. If you don’t own one, or didn’t design the thing yourself, you probably agree with this opinion. Luckily they are slightly improving with each new revision. But assassinating the design of Toyota’s Prius is not the intention of this opinionated article.

On the contrary, because a decade later the unusual styling of the Prius is no longer a priority. Priorities are now set among financial crisis, CO2 emissions, saving the planet – and still have time to contribute to Starbucks global domination, which fits perfectly with the profile of a Prius perspective buyer. The ugly duckling has been sold over one million times; so there must be a lot of ‘Grande Caffè Latte’ drinkers around. Toyota is not even slightly concerned with the looks of the car affecting sales figures.

A new generation of mean, green, marketing machine has been shifting attitudes towards electric cars. Most large automotive companies are still pouring money into electric vehicle development, and venture capitalists are still hot on their heels. Despite the epic financial recession, venture capital investment in green automotive technology keeps rising, and the biggest winners; smart automotive suppliers.  But it isn’t just about electric vehicles,  it is also about time automotive companies started considering complete energy and manufacturing cycles.

The problems faced by the traditional automotive industry, particularly companies in the US, have been well documented. Maybe only to support a glorified lessons-learned system that will never see the light of day. But for many outside investors, now is “THE opportunity” to take a chunk of the market themselves by supporting new clean technologies. Those investors are perhaps supported by naive government initiatives to drive green solutions forward. This opinion based on recent investment decisions in the automotive industry. Governments are being urged to use their new-found power over the banks to pursue environmental goals. They should create a “green bank” to finance the building of energy infrastructures for a low-carbon economy. One idea to raise money; banks should issue green bonds. The borrowing could be specifically for low-carbon investment, and the bonds guaranteed by the governments, making them a sound bet for investors.

So then, is turning green really all about churning green? From a profit standpoint, turning green is creating opportunities for automotive companies to increase their profit margins. One can say that turning green does translate to a bigger profit for automotive enterprises willing to gamble. However, problems arise when some of these businesses start initiatives to somehow justify the unbelievable price tags that they put on their green technologies. In direct contrast to warnings that green policies will harm the automotive economy even further, such practices will actually create new jobs and generate extra revenues. Also reducing waste and pollution usually saves businesses money, which should mean higher profit margins and better, greener automotive products for consumers.

Green is still THE automotive business catchword these days. It helps sell simple technologies branded as planet savers. It compels companies to launch campaigns asking customers to use less fuel. It fuels investment in startups that promise to make energy out of things like algae, hemp, and sunlight. But since the credit market squeezed shut and the stock market began to plunge, the “economy”, “redundancies” and “credit crunch” are becoming the new automotive catchwords – competing with “green”, and “green” is now simply becoming “expensive”. Hybrid technologies might shrink fuel bills in a few years, but it costs a lot upfront. And investors, who have just watched the money in their bank accounts evaporate, are once again wary of investing in risky green technologies.

Nissan and Sumitomo established a joint venture to recycle lithium-ion electric car batteries, which could give Nissan an early lead in the fledgling electric car market by making its vehicles more affordable. The venture is based on a ‘4R’ business model – Reuse, Resell, Refabricate and Recycle. Nissan aims to launch mass market electric vehicles by 2012. It already operates a joint venture with NEC – Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC) – that makes high-performance lithium-ion batteries.

Reselling the batteries solves one of electric car manufacturers’ biggest problems, which is affordability. Demand is expected to be particularly high for back-up power supplies, uninterruptable power supplies, load levelling for the electricity grid, and levelling of energy from both photovoltaic solar and wind power. In Japan, demand for such recycled batteries is expected to reach the equivalent of at least 50,000 electric cars a year by 2020.

“…lithium-ion batteries retain 70% to 80% of their residual capacity after 10 years…”

The lithium-ion batteries Nissan uses retain 70% to 80% of their residual capacity, even after their average lifetime of 10 years in an electric car. The OEM believes such a venture will enable high residual values for electric-car batteries. The output of many renewable energy sources is tied to external conditions such as sun and wind, rather than the amount of power users need at a given time. Using big lithium-ion batteries, producers could store excess energy during off-peak hours and release it again when demand rises or power sources fail.

Once upon a time it was known as the world’s traditional automotive powerhouse, but unfortunately ‘Detroit’ is no longer a symbol of power within the global automotive industry. Detroit’s automotive industry has been forced upon a cultural change as a pure form of transformation, which was radical and fundamental. This cultural change involved changing the basic values, norms, and beliefs, in order to significantly improve performance. A mission that appeared impossibly daunting with numerous obstacles: collapse of market shares, overwhelming structural costs, profuse bleeding of cash.

The unusual suspect character that led the effort had no automotive or governmental experience. Steven Rattner left his Wall Street position, and straight into the largest restructuring attempt in American history. The scale and speed of the rescue raised many more questions, especially within the automotive circle. Rattner, who led the task force, believed passionately that the decision to intervene prevented a colossal economic collapse. Part of the suspicion was caused by the appointment of a ‘non-car czar’ to come to the rescue of a passionate industry.

In return the task forces were shocked, even beyond their low expectations, by the poor state of the once imperial industry. The imminent collapse of the vehicle manufacturers, and their respective supply chains, would have devastated an already fragile economy. The timing had been set by an arbitrary deadline for the plan implementation, and by coincidence, the major players would probably run out of money around the same time. Moving simultaneously down multiple paths, the team began meeting with all the interested parties: labour, lenders, legislators, and suppliers. Naively assuming that stakeholders were eager to see a rescue with a set of ‘gives’; they were startled that each stakeholder meeting invariably included a set of ‘wants’ from the government.

Most companies needed gigantic reductions in their costs and liabilities. Many had way too many plants and workers for expected production volumes. With financial markets still largely frozen and no private capital available, there was no question that many would slid into bankruptcy, run out of cash, closed their doors, and liquidated. Peculiarly, among all this chaos, everyone seemed wildly over-excited about Hybrids and Electric Vehicles. As if the industry’s salvation rested only on new technologies. Detroit should be applauded for the increased emphasis on new technologies, which were driven by both commercial considerations and public relations, but new technologies couldn’t possibly have any meaningful impact on short and mid-term finances.

The principal of buying assets when they’re cheap is hardly a new idea, or exclusive to the automotive industry, therefore the growth of renewable energy is no exception to market development. Companies are paying only about 25 percent of the estimated cost of building those factories from scratch. Taking advantage of the low prices available today to expand their manufacturing capacity cheaply and to position themselves to grow when market conditions improve. These projects are real attempts to replace thousands of lost automotive jobs with ‘green jobs’. It also proves the ability of some renewable-energy companies to benefit from the recession, especially from the automotive industry’s pain.

“…a win-win situation…”

In some ways, the recession has been a major advantage  to startups that might have otherwise had difficulty raising the capital to buy manufacturing equipment, or persuading manufacturing partners to buy the equipment, especially if they planned to start small. Aside from the manufacturing capacity, the hard times for the automotive industry also means good deals for capital equipment, including machines for production and assembly. Meanwhile, other companies are finding ways to make use of automotive technology for renewable energy. Sustainability is a comprehensive concept. The challenges of climate protection and of the market can only be met if we move on from automotive to eco-motive concepts. In other cases, companies only plan to make use of extra capacity at existing automotive-supply factories to keep manufacturing expenses low. Taking into consideration the state of the automotive industry; a win-win situation for all players and industries involved.