EuroWire May 2015

Transatlantic cable

rst-quarter earnings, the company said on 18 th March. (“GM to Shut Russian factory, Opel Will Stop Selling There,” 19 th March) The Free Press reporters wrote that the moves show GM “has run out of patience” with a car market that not long ago was expected to be one of the fastest-growing in the world. They recalled the groundbreaking for an expansion of the St Petersburg plant, in 2012, at which the then-head of GM international operations bracketed Russia with China in terms of growth prospects. “We had to take to take decisive action to protect our business,” said Karl-Thomas Neumann, Opel Group CEO, referencing Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea and the ongoing military con ict with Ukraine. The company assured owners of Chevrolet and Opel vehicles that it that it would continue to provide parts and services, and GM’s joint venture with Autovaz will go on building the Chevrolet Niva. Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, told Mr Gardner and Ms Priddle that he gives GM CEO Mary Barra credit for her willingness to acknowledge that Russia has not worked out for her company. He said: “In the past GM used to dither for years before making a decision like this.” † Ford Motor Co, another of the Detroit Big Three, will stay the course in Russia although it has stopped making the current Ford Edge mid-size utility vehicle there and has not said when it will start producing the new model. Ford of Europe president Jim Farley told media at the Geneva auto show in March that, while Russia is volatile now, it has a strong middle class and Ford is committed to the region for the long term. In 2012 Ford forecast auto sales in Russia of more than four million a year industry-wide. Sales were only around 2.5 million in 2014 and Mr Farley said he expected similar results this year. A star at home in the USA, the Tesla Model S electric sedan encounters a speed bump in China “In 2014 Tesla Motors Inc sent 4,800 Model S sedans to China. Of those, 2,499 were sold and 2,301 were not.” Paul Ausick, of the nancial newsletter 24/7 Wall St , was supplying background to reports from China, dated 16 th March, concerning Tesla. These indicated that the Palo Alto, California-based maker of electric cars and electric vehicle powertrain components had red 30 per cent of its Chinese sta . The layo s reportedly began before the Chinese New Year holidays in January and February and reduced the sales sta by half. The Chinese website CarNewsChina.com , cited by Mr Ausick, also said that layo s had occurred in administration, tech support and procurement as well as in the marketing, public relations and legal departments. Before the rings, Tesla is believed to have had 600 employees in China. Tesla CEO Elon Musk acknowledged weak sales in China in a letter to shareholders when the company reported fourth-quarter 2014 results. In January of this year, Tesla China sold just 120 cars, according to CarNewsChina.com . (“Tesla Fires China Sta as Sales Falter,” 17 th March)

The other states that made it into the Top Ten for 2014 – with new solar installations ranging from 239.8MW down to 88.2MW – are New Jersey, New York, Texas, Hawaii and New Mexico.

Technology

Transparent solar panels hold promise for display screens and windows that could power mobile phones and buildings “Solar energy is the future. The problem is, it’s been the future for a long time. And while progress has been made, using the sun as a primary source of power hasn’t really broken through.” Sam Grobart of BloombergBusiness (22 nd March) then went on to report a possible breakthrough in the form of see-through panels made up of solar cells that absorb only ultraviolet and infrared radiation – the invisible parts of the solar spectrum. The totally transparent solar panels, thin as a laminate, are the brainchild of Miles Barr who, as a PhD student in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), developed invisible solar cells that could generate electricity. He was able to engineer the cells so that visible light could pass through while transmitting the solar energy. Mr Grobart noted that the technology still has a way to go because the cells must become more e cient to prove cost-e ective. But the prospect is intriguing: solar cells that could become a part of any glass or plastic surface. They could invisibly cover the display of a smartphone, enabling the phone to charge itself under natural or arti cial light. If the process were incorporated into window manufacturing, homes and skyscrapers could draw power from the sun without the spatial and aesthetic limits of the opaque solar panels in current use. (“See-Through Solar Is Tomorrow’s Threat to Oil,” 23 rd March) The inventive Dr Barr, now the CEO of Ubiquitous Energy, a Silicon Valley company he founded, hopes eventually to bring the see-through panels to market. Mr Grobart, for one, will be watching and waiting. “If solar is the future,” he wrote in BloombergBusiness , “transparent solar may be the future that actually works.” Disillusioned with the Russian car market, General Motors is pulling out its Chevrolet and Opel brands General Motors will stop production at its factory in St Petersburg, Russia, by midyear and will have halted production of Chevrolet cars through its joint venture with GAZ by the end of 2015. Also as reported by Greg Gardner and Alisa Priddle of the Detroit Free Press , GM will reel in its German-based Opel brand, which by the end of 2015 will no longer be sold in Russia. The moves drastically reduce GM’s presence in Russia and will result in about $600 million in special charges against Automotive

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May 2015