Auto Industry Archive

They may be small, but the Kia hamsters are doing some heavy lifting for Kia Motors America (KIMTF.PK), so the company will bring them back in November, in advertising for a year-end clearance sale. “They’re recognizable,” said Michael Sprague, marketing vice president for Kia’s U.S. sales and marketing subsidiary. Breaking through advertising clutter is Job One for the...

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A modest recovery seems to be shaping up for the “U.S. auto industry,” starting with third-quarter financial results, but let’s not forget that by “U.S. auto industry” we mean only the portion of the U.S. auto industry that’s still in business. The recovery follows a nuclear winter, with effects that will be felt for years to come. Some analysts expect Ford...

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Bob Dewar, author of the new book A Savage Factory, was general foreman at the Ford Sharonville transmission plant in Ohio in the 1970s, and says he saw upfront the industry’s ethic of waste and meet-the-quota at all costs, quality be damned. Car and Driver said A Savage Factory details “the savage but darkly funny war waged between the hourly line workers, the factory foreman, management,...

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Three of the nation’s largest auto retailers were profitable in the third quarter despite lower new-car sales, but profits were down, and it took a lot of doing for dealerships to make up for lost revenue. The results illustrate that even though their fates are tied to the auto manufacturers, dealerships can respond much faster to a downturn in sales by cutting costs and dropping...

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General Motors put on a bright face Wednesday, introducing new Vice President of U.S. Sales Susan Docherty (former Pontiac-Buick-GMC chief) in a conference call. With the auto industry still deep in recession and GM 100 days out of bankruptcy, she was careful not to artificially inflate expectations. “I’m not here to declare victory, but to talk about progress,” she said. “We have a...

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In another indication that the global auto industry could be staggering towards a recovery, Mazda announced today it managed a thin profit for the quarter just ended of about $7.4 million. Mazda’s result was down 95 percent from the year-ago quarter, but a substantial improvement after three consecutive quarters of operating losses. Scrappage programs in Europe and the Cash for Clunkers...

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Consumer Reports has a reputation for favoring foreign cars and trucks, and for that reason it may have been something of a relief when its 2009 Annual Car Reliability Survey had such good things to say about at least one American carmaker—Ford. The latest survey found 90 percent (46 of 51) of Ford, Mercury and Lincoln cars and trucks enjoying average or above-average reliability. The Ford...

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A turnaround in the residual value of leased cars was a factor in the third-quarter earnings rebound at Daimler, said Bodo Uebber, board member for finance and controlling, and Daimler Financial Services. Residual values are still under pressure, but not as much as last year, he said. “For residual values, the development is positive, far down from the peaks we have seen a year ago. It...

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BMW is proud of what it describes as a 14 percent fuel economy jump in its U.S. car fleet between 1990 and 2005. In Europe, that improvement was even better in the same time frame, at 16 percent. In 2007, BMW AG’s fuel economy improved at four times the average rate of other major manufacturers selling in Europe, according to an analysis of European Union data commission by the European...

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At 10 a.m. tomorrow, Vice President Joe Biden will stand with Delaware Governor Jack Markell inside General Motors’ shuttered Boxwood plant in Wilmington and make an announcement that will surprise absolutely no one: Fisker Automotive, the former Delaware senator will say, is buying the plant to make its $46,000 Project Nina cars (beginning in 2012). Fisker declined to comment. “Come to the...

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