Two major German carmakers, BMW and Audi, released their half-year results this week

Two major German carmakers, BMW and Audi, released their half-year results this week. Sales for the Bavarian automobile company were down by 8.3 percent to EUR20.5 billion. BMW has recently incurred high costs for the development of new models and the relaunch of its 5 Series model. Pretax profit in the first six months was EUR1.8 billion, down from EUR2.0 billion a year earlier. The strong euro did not impair BMW's profit, while it cost rival Volkswagen, which had hedged little of its currency exposure, EUR800 million in the first half-year because. VW's upscale subsidiary Audi had slightly higher first-half sales of EUR11.5 billion, but suffered a 10.6 percent drop in pretax profit to EUR505 million.