Category: PKC Group


Over the month of February, 14,131 new heavy trucks were registered in Europe, or 46.4% less than a year ago. Despite a 42.7% plunge, Germany remained the largest market with 3,185 new heavy trucks, closely followed by France -25.9% and 3,018 units. The Netherlands fared best among the major markets, contracting by 15.2% and recording 1,264 new vehicles. Results in Italy and Spain dropped by 49.6% and 76.9% respectively. In the new EU Member States, Poland, the most important market, plunged by 71.6%.

The cumulative figures from January to February show a 36.5% decrease in Western Europe and a 67.9% drop in the new EU Member States, resulting in an overall 40.5% decline. In absolute figures, Germany

-35.0 registered the most vehicles, followed by France -29.1%, Italy -34.1%, the Netherlands -7.1%, the UK -45.7%, Belgium -21.6%, Spain -76.5% and Poland -68.8%.

via ACEA – European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.

Volvofabriken i Tuve stoppar produktionen en vecka i månaden det närmaste halvåret. Efterfrågan är för låg.

Sedan i höstas har 1 200 anställda varslats på fabriken i Tuve. Nu kommer nya åtgärder för att förhindra överproduktion i tider då beställningarna rasar för AB Volvo. Stoppdagar har tidigare använts vid enstaka tillfällen, ofta i samband med helger.
– Nu kommer vi att tillämpa stoppdagar mer frekvent. Det kommer att handla om en vecka varje månad om man lägger samman det, säger pressinformatör Stefan Karlsson.

Stoppdagarna kommer att spridas ut under månaderna och de anställda kommer att vara lediga eller ägna sig åt underhållsarbete.

Volvo gör detta för att förhindra att lastbilar byggs för lager och för att effektivisera arbetet. Produktionen kommer att planeras på veckobasis och vara helt beroende av efterfrågan.
– I det här läget är kassaflödet väldigt mycket i fokus. Då är det viktigt att man inte producerar på spekulation och att hålla nere lagerkostnaderna, säger Stefan Karlsson.
De anställda som det närmaste halvåret i princip kommer att jobba drygt 75 procent behåller sin fulla lön.

Vad som händer till sommaren är oklart, men då har samtliga varsel realiserats, och Tuvefabriken kommer att drivas av knappt hälften så många anställda som för ett halvår sedan.
– Då får man ta en ny diskussion.

Förutom Tuvefabriken kommer AB Volvos övriga anläggningar samt leverantörer i Sverige också påverkas. Exempelvis Volvo Powertrain i Skövde.
– Tuvefabriken har valt att lägga sig på en veckas stoppdagar i månaden, men vad som är bäst för andra fabriker är upp till var och en. Men självklart måste alla anpassa sig till den nya nivån, säger Stefan Karlsson.
Krisen är alltså fortsatt akut när det gäller de fallande orderingångarna.

Blir det fler varsel?
– Det är inget som är planerat i Sverige dag, men vi följer utvecklingen och gör justeringar globalt.

source: GP.se

German truck producer MAN AG will reduce its production in the first half of 2009 by 45% instead of by 30% as initially planned, corporate insiders said. MAN has never faced a crisis of this scale, an unnamed employee commented. What compounded the problems was the eastern European market, which has recently come to a complete standstill.

MAN saw eastern Europe as having considerable potential in the past years and set up a truck plant in Krakow, Poland, in the autumn of 2007. The regulations in Poland do not allow adjustments of production through timesheets, so MAN laid off 150 workers at the Krakow production site last year and plans massive job cuts, the insiders claimed.

The company is in talks with Polish governmental representatives over the possibility to introduce short-time work at the plant.
Abstracted from an original article in Die Welt

German sales of trucks and buses fell 29 percent in January and the industry faces a “challenging” year, the country’s vehicle-makers association said.

Deliveries of all classes of commercial vehicles dropped to 18,770, the Frankfurt based association, or VDA, said in an e-mailed statement. Sales of trucks lighter than 6 tons fell 31 percent from a year earlier, while sales of vehicles over 16 tons dropped 27 percent and bus deliveries fell 19 percent. (Bloomberg)

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) — Eugene Shakalida aimed in 2007 to triple the fleet of heavy trucks at a logistics company he co- owns near Moscow. Now, he won’t buy a single one this year.

Shakalida, 40, is trying to avoid job cuts as prices for cargo shipments plummet as much as 40 percent. His company, Trasko, spent a decade growing from a handful of workers and trucks to 320 employees and 90 vehicles, he said in a telephone interview.

Trasko’s reversal of fortunes reflects the demise of the heavy-truck industry as demand runs dry for goods from car parts to household appliances in regions including eastern Europe, which was a main engine of the previous boom. European heavy-truck sales may plunge as much as 40 percent this year, hurting Volvo AB, Scania AB and MAN AG, who together account for 54 percent of that market.

“The current slowdown in industrial activity across the world has few precedents,” said Carl Holmquist, an analyst with Danske Bank in Copenhagen. “Very few  companies can do anything to protect short-term margins.”

European truckmakers’ earnings will fall 60 percent to 80 percent this year, Credit Suisse analyst Arndt Ellinghorst estimates. Volvo and Scania report fourth-quarter earnings this week, while MAN will release results Feb. 19. View full article »

MOSCOW, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Russia’s largest truck maker Kamaz is halting its main assembly line for the third time since the onset of the economic crisis, which has effectively frozen demand for trucks, it said on Thursday.

The suspension will last from Jan. 29 until February 12. In these two weeks the company plans to clear its stockpile of unsold trucks, said Vladimir Samoilov, spokesman for Kamaz, in which Germany’s Daimler took a 10 percent stake last month. Russia’s construction firms and heavy industries, where Kamaz finds most of its customers, have been forced to scale back production and cancel projects amid the global financial crisis.

Kamaz idled its assembly lines for two weeks in November due to the crisis, and again in December for one month. The last suspension, during which the truck maker had also planned to clear its stock of trucks, ended only ten days ago on Jan. 19.

Daimler, seeking access to what it expects to become one of the largest truck markets in Europe, signed a deal to pay $250 million for the 10 percent stake on Dec. 12. The deal calls for a further $50 million to be paid in 2012 if Kamaz meets earnings and sales targets.

Jan 26, 2009 – The truck-production facilities of German MAN AG (FSE:MAN) will remain idle for 70 days in the first half of 2009, a spokesman for MAN’s truck division said on Monday.

There are no production plans for the second half of the year but further stoppages are possible if the negative economic conditions persist.

Of the 70 days with no production, 42 will be offset with short-time work, which will affect 9,400 workers in the three German plants of MAN.

MAN is preparing for an economic downturn of between two and two and a half years. The company expects a drop of around one-third in commercial-vehicle revenue in the current year and will therefore reduce production costs by almost one-third. Lay-offs have not been planned for now.

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) — Volvo AB has outstanding loans of 27.1 billion kronor ($3.3 billion) that are coming due this year, Dagens Nyheter reported, citing its own calculations.

Ten large Swedish companies have bank loans from institutions outside the Nordic region for a total of 1.5 trillion kronor that are coming due in 2009, the newspaper said. If big companies have to rely on extended credit lines for financing, there will be less credit for smaller firms, putting them at risk of bankruptcy, DN reported.

Volvo is the world’s second-largest truckmaker.

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) — The slump in European heavy-truck sales slowed last month, with deliveries falling 15 percent, about half the drop in November, as Italy and the U.K. defied the economic recession and tighter credit.

Manufacturers sold 16,674 trucks weighing 16 metric tons or more in December, compared with 19,708 a year earlier, the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers Association said in a statement today. Full-year deliveries fell 2.2 percent to 313,765 vehicles. View full article »

Jan 21, 2009 – German truck maker MAN AG (FSE:MAN) will launch short-time work at its plants in Munich, Nuremberg and Salzgitter in an effort to cut costs by 30%, a spokesman for the company said on Tuesday.

Work at the three German sites will be halted 42 days on average in the first half of the year. After implementing different work models, MAN will stop production for around 70 days in the first six months, which will affect 9,400 workers, according to data of trade union IG Metall.

The move has been approved by the respective authorities. Affected workers with children will get 67% of their net wages and those without children — 60%.

MAN had already halted production for several days in the third quarter of 2008 following a significant decline in incoming orders.