Automakers and analysts disagree on when European passenger car sales will finally rebound from a six-year slump. Ford Motor Co. and Daimler see signs that the bottom will be reached this year.
“We’re not predicting any upturn yet, but there are certainly some good indications,” Ford of Europe CEO Stephen Odell said last month. “Our prediction would be that we’re at or close to the trough.”
The European Commission will mediate in a dispute over an air-conditioning refrigerant in Mercedes-Benz cars by refereeing safety tests.
Daimler plans to build a new plant in Brazil as rising taxes on foreign vehicles make it more difficult to sell imported cars in the Latin American country, a magazine reported on Sunday.
Daimler luxury brand Mercedes-Benz is to begin assembling C-class models in Brazil by 2015, with a starting capacity of about 20,000 vehicles a year, German weekly Der Spiegel reported, without saying where it got the information.
Daimler will ask France’s Council of State, the highest administrative court in the country, to lift a ban on sales of certain Mercedes-Benz models.
France took formal steps to outlaw sales of several Mercedes models, raising the stakes in a standoff over parent company Daimler’s use of a refrigerant banned by the European Union.
