Auto Industry Archive

Are we poised to dramatically revamp America’s problematic transportation policy? Because of a very well-organized highway lobby, the massive $400 billion bills have tended to favor giant construction projects over public transit and other human-sized innovations. Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-MN), who oversees transportation issues in the House, seems to have another approach in mind. Oberstar...

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Here’s another example of “The World Turned Upside Down“: General Motors announced it has reached a deal to sell Saab to Koenigsegg Automotive AB, a tiny, Swedish boutique maker of high-performance sports cars. After more than 20 years of writing about the auto industry, I thought it was impossible for there to be a car company I never heard of. That’s no...

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One way for the federal government to prop up Detroit automakers is to invest billions and take control of their operations. That’s what happened with General Motors and Chrysler. Another approach is to simply buy the cars themselves. That’s the strategy of the General Services Administration (GSA), which is committing $287 million to buy more than 17,000 fuel-efficient vehicles from all...

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General Motors plans to cut an additional 27,000 jobs this year. As painful as that is, it’s only the tip of a very big iceberg dating back a lot of years. Even before additional job cuts planned for this year, General Motors has steadily become a smaller, more global company, as U.S. employees have shrunk as a percentage of the total. Back in 1986, GM’s worldwide employment peaked...

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Saab is going back to Scandinavian owners, and will probably be all the better for it. The Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported today that Koenigsegg, a tiny niche maker of ultra-fast sports cars, has signed a letter of intent to buy the venerable brand from General Motors. GM never seemed to know what to do with Saab, and its attempts to make the car less quirky and more friendly to...

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Chrysler and General Motors were on Capitol Hill today defending their dismissal of thousands of car dealers between them. “We simply cannot undergo this sweeping transformation without a comparable effort to reshape our retail network — one which was largely created in the 50s and 60s,” said Fritz Henderson, GM president and CEO, in written testimony. GM anticipates reducing...

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There are a range of plug-in hybrid conversion kits on the market, all making extravagant claims of 100 miles per gallon equivalent, seamless operation and zero impact on the warranty of the Toyota Prius donor car. Well, forget 100 mpg. Plug-In Conversions Corporation (PICC), founded in 2007, claims 170+ mpg, with 25 miles of all-electric range, and it’s installing kits from Hong Kong to...

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It looks like the Fiat takeover of Chrysler is finally a done deal, despite a group of Indiana-based pension funds seeking to stop it. The U.S. Supreme Court on June 9 vacated a temporary stay that was granted on the pension funds’ behalf the day before by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Chrysler-Fiat decision was widely reported June 10. “The temporary stay granted by Justice...

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That huge sigh you hear coming from Detroit is relief that the sale of Chrysler’s assets to Fiat can proceed. Yesterday, in a two-page order, the U.S. Supreme Court tamped down the intense anxiety unleashed the day before when it said it might want to look at the deal. The group challenging the sale, including three Indiana pension plans, failed to prove to at least four Justices that a full...

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SEATTLE — Kia is dumping its cute hamsters in advertising for the Kia Forte sedan. The Forte replaces the Kia Spectra, the brand’s best seller in the United States. Michael Sprague, vice president, marketing, said in a June 9 press conference here to introduce the Kia Forte that the hamsters weren’t “serious” enough for the Forte. “We didn’t want the...

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