Fisker to deliver 3,000 cars this year

Fisker to deliver 3,000 cars this year.

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Fisker Automotive, the start-up maker of plug-in hybrid luxury sports cars, expects to deliver about 3,000 cars this year, CEO Henrik Fisker said Wednesday in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
Investor to aid VW, Porsche integration

Qatar Holding, the third-largest investor in Volkswagen, will work with VW to assist in its integration with Porsche after the merger between the two carmakers planned for this year fell through.



VW's goal to combine with Porsche by the end of 2011 has been held up by lawsuits in the U.S. and an investigation by German prosecutors linked to Porsche's botched effort to buy VW.

"If there's now a different way, we may as well try to help to make it happen," Ahmad Mohamed Al-Sayed, CEO of the foreign investment arm of the gulf country's sovereign wealth fund, told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday.

Europe's biggest carmaker and Porsche have the option to forgo a full merger and instead fold Porsche's automaking business into the VW group while leaving a separate holding company to manage its 50.7% of VW's common shares.

Qatar has a 17% VW stake, trailing the German state of Lower Saxony's 20% holding, and controls 10% of Porsche.

"We're on the board of both companies and that's the best way to work together," Al-Sayed told reporters at a German industry federation event.

A combination of Volkswagen and Porsche is "a matter of time" as both carmakers have already deeply integrated their managements, Al-Sayed said. VW, which paid 3.9 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in December 2009 for 49.9% of Porsche's automotive unit, reshuffled executives in the past year to underscore its plan to add Porsche to its nine-brand structure.

VW faces challenges in going upscale

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Volkswagen's motorsports chief, Kris Nissen, stepped on the gas of a racing version of the Polo in an attempt to show the world's automotive media that rally-car performance can be packed into a subcompact.

Instead the Polo R WRC, which will compete in the off-road racing circuit starting in 2013, was stranded in the spotlight after Nissen stalled the car's 300-horsepower engine. The mishap on stage at VW's showcase event at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt this month symbolizes the challenges the company faces in shifting its namesake brand upscale.

Europe's biggest carmaker is expanding its range of souped-up VW models, which can cost double the price of the base versions, to boost the brand's margins and image. The strategy, part of the Wolfsburg, Germany-based company's goal of surpassing Toyota and General Motors in sales and profit by 2018, risks increasing competition with its stable of sporty brands.

"Volkswagen is blessed in the high-end segment with Audi and Porsche, not to mention Lamborghini and Bugatti," said Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive Management at the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany.

"You really have to question whether high-performance versions for the VW brand are really necessary."

LG firms sue over headlamp equipment.
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LG Electronics and LG Innotek filed suit in Seoul against BMW and Audi's South Korean units to block local sales of their vehicles equipped with light-emitting diode package headlamps made by Osram.

The two LG Group affiliates said Osram's LED headlamps violated their patents, according to an e-mailed statement from LG Electronics on Tuesday.
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