Auto Industry Archive

Think, the European battery car maker, will soon be speaking Norwegian with an unmistakable American accent. The company, once an arm of Ford, has some $47 million in new investment (partly from American investors) and, after it conquers Asia and Europe, an ambitious U.S. expansion plan. Think emerged from the Norwegian form of bankruptcy just last week. The U.S. battery company Ener1 (which...

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Cash for Clunkers produced a big, temporary blip in U.S. auto sales for August, as opposed to a lasting recovery, analysts said. Still, post-“Clunker” auto sales for the rest of 2009 should be a modest improvement over the first half of this year. “Now that cash for clunkers is over, we believe that the debate will center on the impact of a potential pull forward effect on auto sales...

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Recessions tend to have a devastating effect on smaller automakers. The U.S., for instance, had hundreds of brand names when the Depression started, but many were casualties of the shrinking auto market that continued through the 1930s. The ones that survived cut both production and prices, staying afload on paper-thin margins. Think, the Norwegian company that makes plastic-bodied, two-seat...

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The UAW sharply criticizes Toyota but gives General Motors a free pass, in the union’s latest statement protesting plans to close the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont, Calif. NUMMI was founded in the early 1980s, as a joint venture between GM and Toyota. At the time, Toyota was exploring manufacturing in North America, and GM wanted to learn Toyota’s...

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Cash for Clunkers wasn’t a complete bust for domestic brands, especially Ford, even though brands from Japan and South Korea dominated the list of Top 10 biggest sellers under the Department of Transportation trade-in program. The DOT noted that in part because of Cash for Clunkers, Ford and General Motors recently announced production increases for both the third and fourth quarters....

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In a sign of a heightened international competition, the leading Chinese battery maker and (increasingly) carmaker BYD (“Build Your Dreams”) is intending to bring its E6 electric car to the U.S. a year sooner than previously announced. That will make it available here next year, just in time to compete with the Nissan Leaf (also a battery car) and Chevrolet Volt (a “range extender”...

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Mini is likely to add a sportier, two-seat hatchback to its lineup, based on a concept car to be shown at the Frankfurt auto show in Germany next month. In the United States, the Mini brand is outpacing the rest of the market, but sales are down nevertheless. Through July, U.S. sales year to date for Mini were down 18.1 percent, to 25,757, according to AutoData Corp. Auto sales for the U.S....

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Ford was the biggest winner back in June when the Department of Energy announced the first round of its $25 billion loan program for electric vehicles and battery manufacture. The company was funded with $5.9 billion through 2011 to improve the fuel efficiency of a dozen popular vehicles—from the Taurus to the F-150 truck. Ford is also the recipient this month of two grants from the DOE’s...

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And so Cash for Clunkers ends with both a bang and a whimper. The program, which stopped accepting new consumer applications on Monday, was undoubtedly a success. In the third quarter, the White House Council of Economic Advisors said the program would increase economic growth by as much as 0.3 to 0.4 percent, and create 21,000 jobs. Further, the program processed 625,000 applications worth...

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The beat-down goes on for U.S. automotive suppliers, although a relative increase in production in the third quarter of 2009 should provide some relief. In addition, Deloitte Corporate Finance LLC said in a report last week that the U.S. Treasury may have to provide some government support to the auto supplier segment, to keep Treasury’s stake in Chrysler and General Motors viable....

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