Auto Industry Archive

Think Global, Norway’s plucky electric vehicle (EV) maker, is thinking big. Despite entering what design chief Katinka von der Lippe calls a “court protection program” and operating on a bridge loan from its battery company and other suppliers, the company is pushing forward with ambitious plans to expand into the U.S. Think is in discussions with eight states, including Michigan, about...

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General Motors has already received $13.4 billion in loans from the U.S. Treasury and is seeking an additional $16.6 billion in federal assistance aid to avoid a potential bankruptcy. Critical to the restructuring plan the struggling automaker submitted to Congress in December was an underlying assumption that vehicle sales would begin to recover in 2010. Amid an uncertain economic environment...

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The UAW agreed to accept shares of Ford stock instead of cash, for 50 percent or more of Ford’s future payments to the union’s Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association. In 2007, a new labor agreement transferred responsibility for health care costs from Ford to the VEBA, starting in 2010. In light of the auto industry crisis since last fall, Ford asked the union to accept shares...

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This is not George W. Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA proposed a far-reaching rule yesterday which would require all the industries producing greenhouse gases to report their emissions. This will not necessarily be an onerous burden on the auto industry, though it is one of the leading emitters. Vehicles account for 26 percent of U.S. emissions, according to federal...

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Ford put some additional daylight between itself and rivals Chrysler and GM, in winning union approval for additional concessions from the UAW on March 9. Ford is expected to provide additional details on March 11. To give Ford credit where credit is due, I’ve been on Ford’s case for a while now, expecting that sooner or later, Ford will have to break down like Chrysler and GM and ask...

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Automakers used to celebrate when they produced a million of some popular model, like the Chevy Impala or Ford Galaxie. But these are leaner times, and besides, the green space is not that big yet. So Ford is celebrating another, smaller, milestone: 100,000 hybrids. “It’s huge,” says Gil Portalatin, Ford’s hybrid systems engineering manager. “This was from a domestic supplier, not one...

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In meeting with representatives of President Obama’s automotive task force this week, Detroit is rewriting the definition of “mixed feelings.” On the one hand, it’s important to make a good impression on Obama advisers Steven Rattner, Ron Bloom, Diana Farrell and Brian Deese. Their input will affect Obama’s ultimate decision on vital loan requests pending before the U.S....

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When people use the word “tax” and the phrase “electric car” in the same sentence, they’re usually talking about the lucrative tax credits you can grab onto by buying one. But there’s another way to look at the tax issue. Suppose, as many analysts are now concluding, the bulk of the car fleet shifts from gasoline to electric. Will we tax EV recharges the way we now tax gas (at 18.4...

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GM was wildly successful if it hoped to scare everybody with its annual report filed March 5. GM’s accountants, Deloitte & Touche LLP, cast a pall over GM by stating the obvious, that there is reason to doubt GM’s ability to continue as a “going concern.” The topper is a statement in the 2008 GM annual report that even if GM gets everything it’s asking for: up...

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General Motors’ economic woes are deepening, with the company’s auditors saying that its continued survival is in “substantial doubt.” Among many other serious issues, that raises questions about the future of one of the company’s most touted products, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid vehicle. The Volt is different, of course, because it’s an “extended range” hybrid whose...

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