Bmw facing 'worst crisis in its history'

[Sudesh]

BMW is facing the ‘biggest crisis in its history’, according to the company’s chairman. The manufacturer is understood to be laying off 8,000 workers worldwide in a bid to cut costs. All automakers have been hit by the sudden global economic downturn including BMW, VW and Porsche.

The ‘c’ word seems to be on everyone’s lips at the moment as they struggle to rescue sales. Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche admitted the situation could easily be the ‘worst crisis since World War II’ and VW chairman Martin Winterkorn said the company had ‘never before seen this kind of crisis’. He added that it was now impossible for his company to avoid ‘difficult cuts’ and ‘painful’ measures.

The New York Times reports that cars from BMW and Mercedes were starting to gather dust at US ports, while thousands of Toyota and Nissan models are said to be piling up in Long Beach, California. BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer told Germany’s Spiegel that following fantastic sales in the last decade the manufacturer is now in the ‘biggest crisis in its history’. Looks like the British car industry got out just in time…

source: http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=19050

[Senninha]

There are and will be many of these stories in the mags/papers over coming months ...

...and by example, Audi has just put £80m aside to cope with the PCP returns due to start soon .... the A6 will not be worth the residuals set so drivers will be handing them back at that value in p/x or simply walking away to another manaufacturer....

... same problem Ford had back in the Cossie days when the bottom fell out of the market...

... or the high end stuff where market research showed that £110k was a 'good' price point :eek: ... now you can buy Lambo / Ferrari / Aston for circa £30-40k below this. I think this confirms that new cars have simply been too expensive, especially in this market.

There will also be lots of individual horror stories but his one will be rather common for a while ... my mate is a Business Manager at BMW and they had a nice lady in the showroom looking to change her 11 month old RR Sport SE ... £59k new and best price they could offer in a deal ... £29k! HAd she had an X5 then they may not even have offered her a deal as the network is full of them ...

regards, Paul