Some chief executives in Europe’s car industry are kept awake at night with thoughts of stagnant sales, factory closures and balance sheets aglow with red ink. But for Norbert Reithofer at BMW, the future seemingly holds no fear.
The German carmaker is not only delivering ever-larger sales volumes across the globe. It is also expanding some production facilities in anticipation of rising demand for its luxury models.
The extraordinary feature of BMW’s achievement is not so much that it leaves European mass market producers such asPSA Peugeot Citro?nand Fiat trailing in the dust. It is rather that even Volkswagen and Daimler, BMW’s powerful German rivals, find it hard to gain an edge over the Munich-based manufacturer at the luxury end of the market.