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European car sales up 8% in February

Three weeks ago an analyst increased projections for European car sales this year, expecting them to climb three percent compared to last year instead of 2.7 percent. That number is a postive sign after years of hard times but it turns out February was especially good, overall European sales climbing eight percent on a wave of southern European recovery and discounts - and this comes after five months of gains including January's 7.2-percent jump over the year before.
The only country of Europe's five largest markets to post a decline was France, just as it did in January, Germany, the UK and Italy posting solid double-digit numbers, Spain rocking the charts with an 18-percent increase because of a government program to encourage trade-ins.
The only brand to miss the wave was Volkswagen, dropping 0.8 percent as it watched the double-digit growth at sister brands Audi, Seat and Skoda lift the Volkswagen Group sales up by seven-percent. Peugeot overcame flat sales at Citroën to improve the group by 3.5 percent, BMW and the Mercedes-Benz/Smart combo rose by four percent, the Fiat group jumped 5.8 percent, Ford was up 11 percent, the Renault Group 11.5 percent, General Motors 12 percent and the Toyota clan by 14 percent.

Volkswagen poised to enter F1 with Red Bull

The Volkswagen Group could finally be preparing to enter Formula One, and enter it in a big way. That is, at least, if the latest reports prove accurate. And given the source, we're taking notice. The word around the paddock this weekend in Singapore has it that VW is entering into a partnership with Red Bull Racing that would see the German auto giant not only supply the team with engines, but buy the team altogether. The move would come as a welcome development for Red Bull, which took four consecutive world championships between 2010 and 2013, but has fallen off pace over the past couple of seasons due in large part to the under-performance of its Renault engines. The deal, which according to the report is currently being finalized, would see VW develop an all-new engine for Red Bull (and potentially for Toro Rosso and other customer teams), but the new power unit wouldn't be ready before 2018. In the interim, Red Bull would break off its current deal with Renault a year early and switch to another customer engine arrangement, with Ferrari currently rumored to be the favorite. The energy drink company that currently owns the team, in turn, would revert to a (prominent) sponsorship role - similar, it bears noting, to the role it plays with VW's World Rally Championship team. The termination of the relationship with Red Bull could spell the end of Renault's current F1 program, unless the French manufacturer carries through with plans to reacquire its stake in the Lotus team that was once its own. The VW deal would also ostensibly put to rest the mooted arrangement that would have seen Red Bull switch from Infiniti sponsorship and Renault engines to a similar deal with Aston Martin and Mercedes. What isn't clear at this moment is which brand Volkswagen would choose to promote with the new F1 program. Audi is speculated to be the favorite, which would likely spell the end of its Le Mans prototype endurance racing program – leaving that realm to Porsche after a solid decade and a half of dominance. The board in Stuttgart could, however, opt to hand the opportunity to one of its other brands, including Bugatti, Bentley, Lamborghini, Seat, Skoda, or the Volkswagen brand itself. The news comes from not only from the BBC, but from its analyst Eddie Jordan – a man who knows a thing or two about running an F1 team... and selling one. Jordan ran his eponymous grand prix team from 1991 through 2005.

Winterkorn remains CEO of Volkswagen's majority shareholder

Martin Winterkorn may have stepped down as the chief executive of Volkswagen in the wake of the diesel emissions scandal, but he's not out from under the company's large umbrella just yet. In fact, according to a report from Reuters, he still holds four top-level positions not only within the industrial giant's bureaucracy, but at the top of it. And one of those is as CEO of the company's largest shareholder. That holding company is Porsche SE, the investment arm of the Piech and Porsche families (Ferdinand Porsche's descendants) which holds over 50 percent of VW's shares. In 2008, Porsche SE acquired majority interest in the Volkswagen Group which in turn acquired Porsche the automaker – and placed VW's Winterkorn at the head of the executive board of the holding company. Though Winterkorn has resigned from his position as chairman of VW's management board, he has apparently yet to step down from running Porsche SE. That's not the only job that Winterkorn still retains in VW's senior management. He also continues to serve as chairman of Audi, as well as truck manufacturer Scania, and the new Truck & Bus GmbH into which Scania has been grouped together with Man. It remains unclear if or when Winterkorn might resign from those positions as well, or how his tenure in those posts might affect the company's effort to start over in the aftermath of the scandal in which it is currently embroiled. Also unclear, Reuters reports, is how much, exactly, Winterkorn will receive in compensation after having stepped down from his chair at the head of the VW executive board. His pension is reported at over $30 million, but he could be awarded a large severance package as well amounting to as much as two years' worth of his annual compensation, which amounted to around $18 million last year. Whether he receives the severance pay or not is expected to depend on whether his resignation is considered by the supervisory board to have been the result of his own missteps or independent of the situation that resulted in his resignation. One way or another, he's not likely to go poor anytime soon.