Oct31
DETROIT — Fall in this city has always felt a bit like spring elsewhere. It is traditionally the season of fresh starts for the hometown industry, a time when the auto companies get a jump on the calendar and begin shipping next year’s models to dealers.
Workers at a Chrysler plant in Warren, Mich. General Motors and Cerberus, the parent of Chrysler, are in merger talks.
There were some new bright spots this fall, too — or at least brighter ones. The once-gra...
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DEARBORN, Mich. — With United States vehicle sales down nearly 13 percent this year, most car companies have been cutting production rather than increasing it. Workers at Ford’s River Rouge plant were told that 1,000 laid-off employees would be rehired.
But with 1,200 hourly workers cheering them on, top executives of the Ford Motor Company said Thursday at the ceremonial introduction of a new version of Ford’s most important product, the F-150 pickup, that the...
DETROIT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Six U.S. governors and a group of chief executives on Thursday urged the Bush administration in a letter to aid the embattled auto industry while the White House rebuffed a request for direct support of a merger between GM and Chrysler.
An administration official said the focus instead would be on speeding of $25 billion of low-interest loans for factory retooling, a step the industry's allies say does not go far enough to reverse a deepening industry cr...
Oct30
With car sales across the country slowing to a dead stop, America's carmakers could soon find themselves running on empty, CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports. By some estimates, General Motors is burning through $1 billion a month, and both it and Chrysler could be broke by next summer. How bad is it? So far this year:
Ford's sales are off 19 percent GM's are down 20 percent Chrysler's sales have slid a staggering 26 percent
Oct29
The timeless elegance for long distance Zeppelin’s has come again. A French design firm is bringing back the airship era.
Designer Jean Marie Massaud and the French aerospace design company ONERA have teamed up to create the "Manned Cloud” or “Le Manned Cloud”
The 700 foot long blimp or should we say Zeppelin is shaped like a blue whale that will swim through the sky effortlessly.
The “Le Manned Cloud” Zeppelin will offer two fl...
The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) estimates over 700 new car dealerships will close by the end of 2008, a total of 270 more closers then this time last year. When considering employment loss, about 40,000 jobs will be lost just due to the fact that the retail sales fell over 18% to 568 Billion from 693 Billion. Dealership wages account for 13% of the retail payroll. Read more
Oct28
NEW YORK - Investors are watching what role the U.S. government will play in any merger among automakers as downgrades from credit ratings agencies indicate their financial condition is weakening.
Reports continued to surface Monday over the possibility of a marriage between General Motors Corp. (nyse: GM - news - people ) and Chrysler LLC. The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site that the U.S. Department of Energy is trying to free up $5 billion of a $25 billion federal loan ...
The Bush administration is working to release to General Motors Corp. a portion of the loans Congress approved for the auto industry, according to a person familiar with the matter, a move that could help ease the way for the company's discussed merger with Chrysler LLC.
WSJ Detroit Bureau Chief Neal Boudette and WSJ reporter John Stoll discuss the very real possibility of a General Motors Corp.-Chrysler LLC merger amid increasingly poor sales that could send the automakers to the poo...
Oct27
Obama has also said the loan program should to be doubled to provide $50 billion. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's economic adviser, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that the funding for the loans "needs to get out the door, and the top priority should be to get it out quickly, not take 18 months." The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Center for Automotive Research has estimated that General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC may need a $15 billion bailout to su...
Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. automakers' financing units may qualify for financial aid under the $700 billion financial rescue package enacted Oct. 3, the Bush administration said. A White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, declined to comment on whether other assistance might be available to help General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, and Cerberus Capital Management LP's Chrysler LLC, complete a merger. On this subject, she referred questions to the Treasury Department....