Article: PSA and Toyota in Europe
From: hugo_steincamp (hsteincamp@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri 31 Dec 2004 - 11:59:13 EST
An interesting article from Business Week:
Revved Up For Battle
A Franco-Japanese venture aims to redraw Europe's small-car map
Outsiders haven't been allowed a glimpse yet. But rivals are already
feeling uneasy. Deep in the Czech Republic, in a town called Kolin,
Europe's newest auto plant is being put through its final paces
before a March debut. The ultra-low-cost manufacturing joint venture
between Toyota Motor Corp. (TM ) and PSA Peugeot Citroën (PEUGY ) --
combining Japanese production expertise with French parts-purchasing
might in Europe -- is sure to up the ante for volume auto makers, who
already have to worry about surviving on razor-thin margins. ``It
will set a new benchmark,'' says Carl-Peter Forster, president of
General Motors Corp.'s (GM ) European unit, which has announced
12,000 job cuts as part of a painful restructuring of its high-cost
factories in Western Europe. Advertisement
Brace yourself, GM. Watch out, Ford Motor Co (F ). Take cover, Fiat
(FIA ). The imminent opening of the $2 billion Kolin plant heralds a
survival-of-the-fittest battle in Europe. The prize: mastery of
Europe's $50 billion small-car market, which already makes up 32% of
total car sales and is luring an increasing number of customers from
the mid-size segment, where sales are shrinking.
Kolin highlights how the rules of the game are being rewritten. To
win in small cars today, combatants must pack vehicles with costly
high-tech innovations but still offer a rock-bottom sticker price. To
eke out a profit, auto makers have no choice but to slash
manufacturing costs. The European front-runners in that race are the
French and the Japanese, who are wielding innovative manufacturing
strategies to defend profits. ``It will be clear how competitive the
Kolin plant is when we announce the price of the new cars in March,''
says PSA's Daniel Marteau, vice-president in charge of cooperation
agreements -- including the one with Toyota. Analysts expect the cars
produced in Kolin to be priced at about $10,000, the going rate for
European minis. But that price will include features normally found
in more expensive models, such as an electronic stability program and
four airbags.
European auto makers have long excelled at making iconic small cars
that sold in massive volumes -- from Fiat's Cinquecento and
Volkswagen's Beetle to Renault's Twingo. But as the market morphed in
the late 1990s and niche models proliferated, Fiat, Ford, Opel, and
Volkswagen were caught off balance with high costs, bloated
structures, and overcapacity, leaving them awash in losses. To
succeed in this category, you need ``extremely lean production, high
volume, and competitive labor costs,'' says Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer,
director of the German Center for Automotive Research in
Gelsenkirchen. That's a menu of strengths Europe's carmakers are
struggling desperately to put together.
Now Europe's laggards face another threat: The arrival of cutthroat
Asian auto makers, which in just a few years have grabbed a sizeable
13.3% of the European market. The Japanese (Toyota, Nissan, and
Honda) and the Koreans (Daewoo, Hyundai, and Kia) are getting
traction in Europe with stylish cars priced around $10,000 to
$12,000. Daewoo's sprightly Matiz and Hyundai's Atos are now a common
sight along Rome's narrow streets and the elegant boulevards of Paris.
The Toyota-PSA venture is the biggest threat of all. The streamlined
Kolin plant will churn out a total of 300,000 small cars a year --
100,000 each for Toyota, Peugeot, and Citroën. The three models share
nearly all their parts, except for exterior features such as the
grill or headlights. Toyota's top managers say the Czech plant may
even outperform Toyota's existing plants. The Kolin production lines
were designed and built in Japan by Toyota's suppliers and tested in
a virtual factory to ensure a smooth rampup. The Kolin factory will
be run by some 30 Japanese and 10 French managers, while a host of
engineers from the Tsutsumi factory in Toyota City will keep close
tabs on the production engineering details.
PRESSURED PANDAS?
Exactly how big a squeeze will the Toyota-PSA venture put on the
competition? That depends on the success of the three models -- the
new Peugeot 107, the Citroën C1, and the Toyota Aygo (pronounced ``I
go''). Despite the extras packed into these cars, analysts say,
Toyota and PSA are likely to squeeze an operating profit of 3% to 4%
from their new minis, compared with rivals who only manage a profit
of 1% to 2% on similar models.
That spells trouble for Toyota's and Peugeot's European competitors.
Fiat is likely to see sales of its new 8,600 euro ($11,500) Panda
come under pressure, analysts say. New-generation small cars entering
the fray include Renault's new 5000 euro ($6,000) Logan and a
supersmall minivan called the Modus, both of which hit showrooms this
fall. Meanwhile, Volkswagen is preparing to strike back with the
European launch in 2005 of the Fox, a small-car model being built in
Brazil.
Of course, Toyota, Peugeot, and Citroën will also go head-to-head
against each other. But even if sales of one model far exceed the
others, the Japanese-French joint venture is widely viewed as a win-
win deal. Coming on the heels of Toyota's success with the 12,250
euro ($16,281) Yaris subcompact, the Aygo will burnish the Japanese
giant's brand image in Europe -- a must for succeeding in the market
for larger models and for its Lexus luxury brand. Plus, the joint
venture with PSA allows Toyota to share the heavy expense of a new
plant. ``We needed a partner to get the right volume for costs,''
says Shuhei Toyoda, the former president of Toyota Motor Europe who
helped broker the collaboration with PSA.
PSA too will be able to cut costs thanks to the Kolin venture. At the
new plant, PSA managers will get a close-up look at Toyota's vaunted
production methods and logistics structures, analysts say. Kolin,
along with other cost-control initiatives, will help boost PSA's
pretax profit margin from an estimated 4% in 2004 to 5.9% by 2006,
according to a recent report by Robert Pottmann, auto analyst at M.M.
Warburg & Co.
The French and Japanese sister models will arrive in showrooms with
perfect timing. A stagnant European economy is stoking sales of
smaller cars. ``There is pent-up demand for affordable vehicles,''
says Christoph Stürmer, senior analyst at market researcher Global
Insight Inc. in Frankfurt. Toyota and PSA, already primed for the
toughest market conditions, should enjoy the ride.
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