Auto Industry Archive

Even if it’s healthy for the auto industry long-term, Chrysler and General Motors closing thousands of dealerships will create a huge amount of collateral damage to Main Street institutions like Little League Baseball and local newspapers. Love them or hate them, car dealers are the go-to donors for local causes and local sports teams, not to mention keeping newspaper advertising in...

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Chrysler and GM are downsizing, and it’s not going to be pretty—but certainly better than going out of business. Chrysler is up first. The company has 3,200 dealerships around the country, and (according to a motion filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court) it wants to eliminate a quarter of them (a total of 789) by early next month. Chrysler says that 50 percent of its dealers account for 90...

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The myriad issues and conflicts posed by even partial government ownership of General Motors are formidable and ponderous by most accounts. So you have to wonder what happens to the significant number of government contracts awarded to GM and Chrysler under current bailout plans. For fiscal year 2009 through mid-April, GM has been awarded $522 million in federal contracts, 96 percent of them...

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In the rush to get Chrysler sold off to Fiat, Chrysler’s dissenting lenders were run over by a bus, but first they raised a couple of good points. Leaving aside the question whether the dissenters got a fair offer for their portion of Chrysler’s debt, they questioned the fairness of the government’s role in brokering a deal with Chrysler’s other lenders. They also...

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The Big Three would love to have Toyota’s troubles. No one’s talking about the Japanese automaker declaring bankruptcy, though it posted a $7.7 billion 2008 loss last week—even more than General Motors. Although Toyota has a lineup that most car buyers would find attractive in a recession, from the Prius and the practical Camry and Corolla to the Yaris, the market has been so bad that...

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Will battery switching work to speed the electric vehicle (EV) recharging networks of the future? The idea that cars can plug in for short trips and swap batteries for those of more than 100 miles is part of the core business plan of California-based, privately held Better Place. The company kicked off the current plug-in race by signing a comprehensive agreement with Israel (birthplace of...

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All three of Japan’s biggest automakers are tightening their belts, anticipating even lower global sales in the fiscal year that started April 1, including a continuing sales downturn in North America. Nissan COO Toshiyuki Shiga said Japanese automakers face a “triple threat” of the financial crisis, a severe economic recession and an unfavorable trend in foreign exchange...

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Things are tough all over in the global auto industry, even for mighty Toyota, the world’s largest automaker. Nobody is suggesting Toyota is about to go bankrupt, like Chrysler did on April 30, or like General Motors could do on June 1. Still, Toyota last week posted a net loss of about $4.3 billion for the 2009 fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2009. That was reportedly Toyota’s...

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Nissan is getting ready to launch its new electric vehicle (EV) next year, and it recently brought an early test version of the car (in the body of a Nissan Cube, though the actual car will have its own dedicated platform) on a 12-city tour that culminated this week in New York State’s Bear Mountain State Park. Mark Perry, a Nissan spokesman, said that EVs will be 10 percent of the...

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Apparently, now they really mean it: Standard & Poor’s today reacted to the latest news from General Motors by cutting its opinion on GM, which was already “Sell,” to “Strong Sell.” Efraim Levy, auto industry analyst for S&P, said in a note to shareholders today that it’s “increasingly likely” that GM will file for bankruptcy protection....

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