World financial crisis leads to auto industry layoffs across Europe

The markets for luxury cars and massed-produced ordinary autos have both been hit. Until now the expensive sports cars and luxury autos produced by German companies Porsche and BMW were especially favoured by those who were able to reap huge fortunes on speculative financial transactions and could easily lay out several tens of thousands of euros for a new vehicle. Many in this layer are now jobless and can no longer afford a new car.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung reports on the sports-car producer Porsche: So far Russia was regarded as a guaranteed customer for the small sports car manufacturer. If a market gave way somewhere, Russia was easily able to adjust the balance. The Porsche family was always able to find enough wealthy people ready to buy up their annual production of 100,000 cross-country and sports cars. This now seems to be in the past.

The BMW company, which like Porsche specializes in high-priced cars, announced a 14 percent decrease in sales worldwide for September. BMW sales in the US have decreased by as much as a quarter in the same month. Porsche registered a decrease of 44 percent in the US and an average loss worldwide of 27 percent.