Europe Faces Commercial Vehicle Shake-Up

The auto brands struggling the most in Europe's brutal passenger-car slump also will be hardest hit in a coming shakeout of the region's light-commercial-vehicle market, Automotive News Europe predicts.

Analysts tell the online newspaper that new alliances and rising competition from Asian companies pose a big risk to Fiat, General Motors' Opel unit, PSA and Renault. Daimler, Ford and Volkswagen also are vulnerable, ANE says.

Bernstein Research estimates that profits from lucrative LCV sales have been offsetting passenger-vehicle losses at many of those companies. But the research firm opines that last year's alliance of GM and PSA and the 2010 tie-up of Renault-Nissan and Daimler are destabilizing longtime supply agreement among automakers in Europe.

Toyota and Hyundai are becoming more aggressive sellers of LCVs in the region, ANE notes. The EU's free trade pact agreement with South Korea is reducing tariffs on Korean LCV imports. Japan and the EU are in talks about a similar agreement.