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China's Geely buying majority stake in Lotus

Geely, the Hong Kong car company that owns Volvo, is acquiring control of British car company Lotus. Geely is purchasing a 51-percent stake in Lotus from struggling Malaysian car company Proton, and a 49.9 percent stake in Proton itself. Etika Automotive will gain the other 49 percent of Lotus. France's PSA Group and Japan's Suzuki had apparently also been interested in acquiring Proton. Geely says it plans to revive both Proton and Lotus. "The agreement lays the foundation for a wider framework for both Geely Holding, Proton and Lotus to explore joint synergies in areas such as research and development, manufacturing and market presence," Geely said in a news release. Those joint synergies will be highlighted by the lightweight chassis technology Lotus is known for, which could help Geely improve fuel efficiency. Geely CFO Daniel Donghui Li said the company aims to "unleash the full potential of Lotus Cars" by expanding and accelerating new products and technologies. Proton was nationally held but was privatized in 2007 to Malaysian conglomerate DRB-Hicom, which is owned by tycoon Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary. It was supposed to be the flagship for Malaysia's economic development.Though it owns two factories, Proton mainly rebadges foreign-made cars and sells them in Malaysia. What it has, what Geely presumably wants, is a distribution network in Southeast Asia to pit Chinese cars against Japanese automotive dominance in the region. Retaining a 50.1-percent stake in Proton is seen as a face-saving move. "Proton will always remain a national car and a source of pride, as Proton will still have a majority hold of 50.1 percent," Malaysian finance official Johari Abdul Ghani said. "Our very own much-loved brand now has a real chance in making a comeback, a huge one I hope." Related Video:

Genesis cars win accolades, offer value — so why are sales so bad?

My high-school buddy Brent Cormier was so smitten with the Genesis G80 when he saw it at an event I hosted at SXSW in 2016 he bought a used 2013 Hyundai Genesis a short time later and fell in love with the car. "It surpasses my every expectation," said Cormier, a self-described "renaissance man" who owns and runs a real estate agency with his wife Laura, is a food service executive chef and part owner of Austin-based Thin the Herd Guitars. "I was locked into Mercedes and Audi for 10 years," he added. "And felt trapped in an endless pit of maintenance costs." After owning the Genesis over the past two years — including using it as an Uber and Lyft driver to earn extra cash — Cormier learned what some frugal luxury sedan buyers and a handful of car reviewers have discovered: Genesis offers great bang for the buck compared to other premium brands and can compete with the best in terms of performance, features and comfort. Hyundai's luxury brand also earned a prominent third-party endorsement last week when for the first time Genesis topped J.D. Power's 2018 APEAL study, surpassing German luxury-performance icon Porsche. The APEAL study (which stands for Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout) "measures owners' emotional attachment and level of excitement across 77 attributes," ranging from performance to comfort, and asks nearly 68,000 owners of new 2018 models to score vehicles on a 1,000-point scale. In its second year ranked as a stand-alone brand, Genesis earned an APEAL score that bumped it up 15 points to 884 and helped push it past Porsche — and past BMW, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volvo, Cadillac, Land Rover and Lexus, in order of ranking. Last month, Genesis also topped J.D. Power's Initial Quality Survey (IQS) for the first time this year. And both its models were awarded Top Safety Pick Plus ratings by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, among 11 Plus ratings in all for Korean vehicles. Despite high J.D. Power rankings and great reviews, Genesis U.S. sales were off 50 percent for the first six months of 2018 compared to 2017, and in June Genesis sold only 796 vehicles — the first time U.S. numbers dropped below 1,000 in a month. Part of Genesis's APEAL and IQS success can be attributed to its small product lineup: just two models, the G80 and G90 sedans, with a third, the 2019 G70, launching later this year. And while those numbers may help in J.D.

Volvo agrees to transfer tech to new parent Geely

Following the acquisition of Volvo by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group in 2010, we definitely saw this news coming. The two companies have signed an agreement that will give Chinese automaker Geely access to key technologies developed by Volvo, and in turn, the deal could help the Swedish automaker lower its production costs.
As a part of the "technological cooperation agreements" signed by both companies, Automotive News China reports that Geely will be able to tap Volvo for three much-needed technologies, including the use of a midsize platform, Volvo's proven safety innovations and interior air quality systems. The latter two technologies are important to improve the crashworthiness of Geely's cars, along with helping isolate vehicle occupants from China's often severe air pollution. The report says that Volvo tech will likely be used on a premium car brand that Geely is expected to create.
Volvo, on the other hand, is to benefit from the "local market exploration experience and cost control experience" of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, which is technical way of saying that Volvo will be able reduce its costs by tapping into Geely's established supply chain.