European auto sales accelerated more than 9 percent last year, but scandal-hit Volkswagen AG (VW) lagged, an auto manufacturer’s association said yesterday.
In a year that saw German giant VW engulfed in a massive pollution cheating scandal, Europe’s overall auto market grew 9.3 percent compared with 2014, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association said.
That translated into the sale of 13.7 million cars last year, it added.
Sales at VW rose by 6.3 percent, despite the firm grappling its biggest crisis over disclosures in September last year that it had fitted 11 million of its vehicles with devices designed to cheat pollution tests.
France’s Renault SA enjoyed a 9.2 percent rise, while its rival, PSA Peugeot Citroen, trailed Europe’s overall trend with 6.2 percent growth.
Shares of French automaker Renault plunged more than 10 percent on Thursday as environmental officials revealed its diesel engines exceed emissions limits, although unlike the VW scandal no cheating software had been found in the cars.
French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy Segolene Royal made the announcement after a commission she appointed submitted test results of French and foreign vehicles, which found carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions in Renault cars to be too high, as were those of several non-French automakers that were not identified.
Royal said that “the searches [at Renault] had nothing to do” with the tests related to the VW scandal and French Minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs Emmanuel Macron, on a visit to Berlin, was quick to note that Renault was “not in any way a comparable situation” to that of troubled VW.
Renault’s stock closed down 10.28 percent at 77.75 euros after sinking by as much as 20 percent throughout the trading day in Paris after unions first reported that anti-fraud detectives had raided sites at the firm, possibly in connection with the emissions probe.
“The news triggered a massive selling movement, it’s a disaster that’s pulling everybody down,” said one Paris-based analyst, referring to falling auto stocks across Europe.
Shares in Peugeot, France’s biggest automaker, fell 5.05 percent, although it released a statement on Thursday saying it had not been the target of any anti-fraud raids. It said that similar government tests had resulted in the “absence of any anomaly” in emissions.
Shares in BMW AG, Daimler AG and VW all lost more than 3 percent at the close of trading in Frankfurt, Germany. Fiat Chrysler shares crashed after a report was released saying the company has been accused of conspiring to inflate its US sales figures.
The company said the claims were unfounded, but its shares tumbled 7.9 percent in Milan, Italy, and were down 5.5 percent in midday trading in New York.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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