We heard news back in September that BMW had tasked its M Division with building a production version of the BMW Concept CS, but it seems that after relooking its accounts books, they’ve decided that they cannot afford it. They’ve just released Q3 2008 financial results and the company only managed an operating return on sales of less than 1.3%.
The Concept CS has been shelved for now, as internal calculations showed the car would not be helping that return on sales figures, plus they do not need such a halo vehicle at the moment. Instead, BMW will be focusing on Efficient Dynamics and its “project i”, which is expected to spawn a new city car (i = Isetta?) that will have a choice of either electric propulsion or a high efficiency combustion engine.
BMW also needs to focus on its plans to cut costs by 6 billion Euros a year by 2012. As it is, they’re struggling financially. Q3 2008 earnings before interest and tax fell 60% to 387 million euros compared to the same period last year, far from the estimated 574 million Euros that financial analysts had predicted.
So the 4-seater, 4-door Aston Martin Rapide rival BMW Concept CS remains for the moment just that, a concept and nothing more until the world gets through this recession.
After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history. An avid electronic gadget aficionado as well as big-time coffee lover, he's also the executive producer of the Driven motoring TV programme.
What the h…? Sigh..
Y ?
i tot they are doing good?
financial problem?
They are doing quite good in Malaysian market, but not worldwide.
Nobody is safe from the current situation, even gigants like Toyota , GM, VW etc.
Dang!! there goes my car.
Good, just focus on your next coming baby SUV…the X1 and the S-Class rival, the new 7 series!
oh well, i guess its the audi a5 saloon, volkswagen passat cc or xf then….porsche’s is a bloody expensive mondeo, merc’s is awful
audi winning liao. lol.
wud b one of the best car ever if it is launched, unfortunately it fails !!!!
This shows that they are also not immune to sluggish sales.
How could they perform so bad? I thought the cars are quite sought after…
now, alfa romeo, where are you, you know you guys can desgined anything, especially a four door coupe, which will definitely make u guys superb again
designing something, and actually managing to sell it are 2 different things..
end of the day, bmw is in the business of selling cars.. if they think an idea, or concept aint gonna sell, or the markets bad, they will consider stopping it. the planned M3 CSL has also been canned because of this.
the whole world is going through a financial crisis right now. car sales are bad everywhere.. even toyota is going through a slump in the US right now.
Cyberkayu, I guess BMW felt that adding more gas-guzzling super-expensive cars will not be profitable.
Spy photos of the next 6-series with camo are now out, i’m sure some of the styling of the Concept CS wll make it to the new 6-series.
BanyakMasukWorkshop said,
November 6, 2008 @ 10:44 am
designing something, and actually managing to sell it are 2 different things..
end of the day, bmw is in the business of selling cars.. if they think an idea, or concept aint gonna sell, or the markets bad, they will consider stopping it. the planned M3 CSL has also been canned because of this.
the whole world is going through a financial crisis right now. car sales are bad everywhere.. even toyota is going through a slump in the US right now.
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right now the world is so derived of beautiful cars, alfa romeo is much needed, plus alfa romeo can chase james bond in his v12 aston martin dbs…super