Auto Industry Archive

There’s quite a chorus of voices that think the prospect of General Motors taking over Chrysler is a really terrible idea. Fundamentally, GM already has too many brands, too many trucks, and too many dealers. Why would it want another company that also has too many brands, too many trucks and too many dealers? GM’s weaknesses and Chrysler’s weaknesses reinforce each other....

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The bandwagon for zero-emission, battery powered electric vehicles is starting to roll, as now the Mini brand from BMW is the latest to join a growing number of automakers that say they will have so-called EVs ready for private individuals to buy, much sooner than had been expected. Before this year, mainstream automakers were pretty vague about when they would have EVs ready for anything...

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The Find: GM and Chrysler are moving towards a merger according to news sources, but at least one expert sees the deal as a disaster in the making. The Source: The blog of Robert Salomon, associate professor of management at Stern School of Business, NYU. The Takeaway: There’s no doubt American car manufacturers are suffering from a double whammy at the moment: high (though currently...

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As tough as business conditions are for U.S. automakers, they’ve been even tougher, longer, for their suppliers, because supplier margins are one of the first things to go, when sales start to turn down. Based largely on lower forecasts for U.S. auto production, Barclays Capital Inc. recently cut earnings estimates for all the suppliers it follows, said analyst Brian Johnson....

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Electric-vehicle maker Tesla Motors Inc. will delay building its second battery powered model at least six months, until the middle of 2010. In the meantime, Tesla will pursue government loans to help pay for developing the new car, tentatively called the Model S. Congress last month approved $25 billion in direct loans to U.S. automakers, to help automakers develop more fuel-efficient...

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American drivers have cut back on the number of miles they drive nine months in a row, and 10 of the last 11 months, based on Federal Highway Administration statistics. That’s good news for environmentalists, and for those who would like to see the United States import less oil. But it turns out to be bad news for federal highway administrators, since a lot of their road-fixing budget...

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Here’s another early signal that U.S. auto sales in October could be worse than a truly terrible September: J.D. Power and Associates said on Oct. 15 that the seasonally adjusted annual selling rate, or SAAR, for October will “probably” be below 12 million. In turn, if the October sales rate is ”substantially” below 12 million, that could prompt J.D. Power to cut...

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Labor unions in the United States and Canada on Tuesday expressed concern about the prospect of job losses from any merger between General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, which is controlled by private equity group Cerberus Capital Management.  But Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner could be rewarded handsomely in severance benefits — offset somewhat by stock losses — in the event of a...

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Gas prices have fallen sharply. The two-week drop of about 35 cents per gallon, from Sept. 26 to Oct. 10, reportedly was the steepest drop ever measured by the Lundberg Survey, which tracks gas prices. Logically, that should improve demand for automobiles, especially trucks, since higher gas prices helped kick off the worst of the present auto-sales downturn in the first place. However, the...

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October auto sales could be even worse than September, based on early indications of demand, according to edmunds.com. That’s saying something, because U.S. auto sales fell 26.6 percent from the year-ago month. Year to date, sales were down 12.8 percent to about 10.8 million, according to AutoData. Last month, edmunds.com predicted September sales would fall 19.7 percent, so the actual...

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