DETROIT -- James Vandenberghe, 58, vice chairman of Lear Corp. since 1998, has retired after 35 years with the auto supplier. He will spend a year as a consultant to the company.
[REG] 9:40 am U.S. ET | July 3
DETROIT -- TK Holdings Inc., a suburban Detroit unit of Japan's Takata Corp., has purchased the assets of the former Assistware division of Cognex Corp. for an undisclosed sum.
[REG] 9:36 am U.S. ET | July 3
Chrysler said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with China's Great Wall Motor to assess the feasibility of developing a long-term, strategic relationship.
[REG] 3:39 am U.S. ET | July 3 | UPDATED: 07/03/08 14:44 CET
Automotive retailer Penske Automotive Group Inc. announced Tuesday that it had paid GE Capital $219 million for a 9 percent limited partnership interest in Penske Truck Leasing Co. L.P. , formerly a joint venture between GE and the Penske Corp.
[REG] 12:01 am U.S. ET | July 3
DETROIT -- Chrysler LLC will realign its human resources, employee relations and communications functions under one executive.
[REG] 4:41 pm U.S. ET | July 2
DETROIT -- Banks cut automaker ratings, oil climbed to a record high, and stock prices in the auto industry plummeted today. General Motors shares closed at $9.
[REG] 4:32 pm U.S. ET | July 2
Marketers should turn to online TV to reach new-car buyers who are fast-forwarding past commercials by using digital video recorders, according to a J.D. Power and Associates study.
[REG] 3:42 pm U.S. ET | July 2
Dealix Corp. said today that it has partnered with Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Autos Web portal to become the site's sales provider of leads. MSN Autos will begin using Dealix's new- and used-vehicle quote system in the third quarter.
[REG] 2:54 pm U.S. ET | July 2
DETROIT -- Johnson Controls Inc. said it expects the joint venture it formed to buy the interiors business of Plastech Engineered Products Inc. will break even in 2009 and turn a profit by fiscal 2010. JCI owns 70 percent of the joint venture, and some of Plastech's term lenders own the rest.
[REG] 2:06 pm U.S. ET | July 2
DETROIT (AdAge.com) -- General Motors said its latest incentives on 2008 models will be extended because the promotion worked so well driving traffic in the final days of June. GM will extend 0 percent financing for 72 months through the July 4 weekend.
[REG] 12:25 pm U.S. ET | July 2
India's Tata Motors expects its launch of the Nano, the world's cheapest car, and its purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover to offset some of the pain of a challenging 2008-09 that has knocked its shares to their lowest in more than three years.
[REG] 12:01 am U.S. ET | July 2
DETROIT (Reuters) -- General Motors will need to raise about $15 billion in cash to shore up liquidity and bankruptcy is “not impossible” if the U.S. auto market continues to slump, Merrill Lynch said on Wednesday.
[REG] 11:00 am U.S. ET | July 2
DETROIT -- Auto supplier ArvinMeritor Inc. today said it expects third-quarter sales to increase 20 percent from a year earlier to $2 billion despite weaker than anticipated sales in North America.
[REG] 10:36 am U.S. ET | July 2
JUNE U.S. SALES
With gasoline prices at record highs and consumer confidence at record lows, U.S. auto sales declined sharply in June. But General Motors still managed to outsell Toyota during the month. Total June U.S. light vehicle sales were down 18.3 percent from a year ago.
[REG] 11:06 am U.S. ET | July 1 | UPDATED: 7/1/08 9:22 p.m. EDT
A new insurance industry service provides some -- but not all -- of the information needed to end title-washing of vehicles severely damaged by crashes or floods, the National Automobile Dealers Association said today.
[REG] 4:40 pm U.S. ET | July 1
The stock market's assault on General Motors and Ford Motor Co. stock prices eased Tuesday, as each company's shares recovered from earlier drops. Ford shares closed at $4.71, down 10 cents or 2.08 percent. GM shares closed at 11.75, up 25 cents, or 2.17 percent.
[REG] 1:14 pm U.S. ET | July 1 | UPDATED: 7/1/07 4:37 p.m. EDT
JUNE U.S. SALES
Hyundai Motor America cracked the 50,000 sales mark in June, the first time in company history. With strong sales of its Accent, Sonata and Elantra cars, dealers sold 50,033 units last month. That is up 1.3 percent or 665 units from June 2007, the automaker's previous best month at 49,368.
[REG] 4:31 pm U.S. ET | July 1
Ford Motor Co. today named Ken Czubay, president of Southeast Toyota Distributors LLC, its vice president of U.S. sales and marketing. Czubay, 59, also heads the world's top-selling Lexus dealership.
[REG] 4:27 pm U.S. ET | July 1
JUNE U.S. SALES
Nissan North America said today that June sales of Nissan and Infiniti vehicles totaled 75,847 versus 92,213 sold last June, a 17.7 percent decrease.
[REG] 11:22 am U.S. ET | July 1 | UPDATED: 7/1/07 3:23 p.m. EDT
JUNE U.S. SALES
Toyota Motor Corp. ran aground in June, with U.S. sales down 21.4 percent, the biggest drop of the year for the world's No. 2 automaker. For the first half, Toyota said it sold 1,240,086 vehicles, down 6.8 percent from the first half of 2007.
[REG] 11:12 am U.S. ET | July 1 | UPDATED: 7/1/07 2:50 p.m. EDT
JUNE U.S. SALES
American Honda Motor Co. bucked the downturn in U.S. sales in June and posted a 1.1 percent gain over June 2007. Honda sold 142,539 vehicles in June, a new monthly record. For the first half of 2008, Honda sales rose 4.1 percent from last year to 798,358.
[REG] 11:19 am U.S. ET | July 1 | UPDATED: 7/1/08 3:05 p.m. EDT
JUNE U.S. SALES
Despite strong retail sales for some of its cars, General Motors said today that June sales fell 18.5 percent from the same month a year ago. GM sold 265,937 vehicles in June, down from 326,300 last year. For the first half of 2008, GM's U.S. sales totaled 1,604,942, down 16.
[REG] 11:24 am U.S. ET | July 1 | UPDATED: 7/1/08 2:05 p.m. EDT
JUNE U.S. SALES
Chrysler LLC posted the biggest sales decline in the U.S. auto industry last month among the major automakers. The privately owned automaker sold 117,457 cars and trucks in June, down 36 percent from June a year ago. “The June results reflect the industrywide impact of U.S.
[REG] 11:16 am U.S. ET | July 1 | UPDATED: 7/1/08 3:38 p.m. EDT
The Bush administration is taking Congress up on its offer of more time to write a new roof strength rule for vehicles. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters notified chairmen of key congressional committees that the July 1 deadline for the new rule, set by law in 2005, will not be met.
[REG] 3:55 pm U.S. ET | July 1
The Bush administration's proposed fuel economy standards for 2011-15 are far too high given the “economic stress” the auto industry faces, a key industry lobby said today.
[REG] 2:00 pm U.S. ET | July 1
General Motors notified its dealers this morning that it will be extending its 0 percent financing sale through Monday, July 7. “As you'll hear later in our sales call today, it turned out to be a successful program.
[REG] 11:05 am U.S. ET | July 1 | UPDATED: 7/1/08 12:30 p.m. EDT
Toyota Motor Corp. says it may need to consider raising the prices of its passenger vehicles in the future due to surging raw materials costs, though fierce global competition would make such a move difficult.
12:01 am U.S. ET | July 1
General Motors has chosen Arkona Inc., a DealerTrack Holdings Inc. company, to join its Integrated Dealer Management System program. More than 1,000 dealers use Arkona's management system to run their daily operations. Arkona, in effect, will replace Reynolds and Reynolds Co.
12:01 am U.S. ET | July 1
Americans found their new vehicles slightly less gratifying this year than last year. That decline was caused in large part by declining consumer gratification with the fuel economy of their new vehicles, according to this year's J.D.
12:01 am U.S. ET | July 1
Almost three-quarters of U.S. consumers are interested in hybrid technology for their next vehicle, but the added cost seems too high for many, a study has found.
12:01 am U.S. ET | July 1
Chrysler LLC on June 26 launched technology offerings that will compete against Ford Motor Co.'s Sync system. One of those features will turn vehicles into Internet hot spots, the first time such a technology will be included in mass-market vehicles.
12:01 am U.S. ET | July 1
Continental plans to replace what it sees as an increasingly sluggish demand for diesel fuel cars with supplies to the future trend of electrical cars, board member Karl-Thomas Neumann told Handelsblatt. "Regarding diesel fuel, I'm more skeptical by now. There's not much happening in the U.S.
[REG]
July 1 09:26 CET
The labor union at Hyundai Motor Co. plans to strike for two hours Wednesday, July 2, as part of anti-government protests sparked by a resumption of U.S. beef imports to South Korea.
[REG] 9:54 am U.S. ET | July 1
Sales of new cars plunged 30.8 percent in Spain in June compared with the same month last year after suffering an annual fall of 24.3 percent in May, the Spanish automobile manufacturers' association reported Tuesday. Sales came to 114,958 units last month.
[REG]
July 1 15:42 CET
Audi has told its 4,600 European repairs and service outlets to reapply for their contracts with the automaker. An Audi spokeswoman said the automaker would redraft the contracts with new terms that aim to improve customer service standards.
[REG]
July 1 11:34 CET
Penalties will be imposed by France on heavily polluting cars annually and not only upon purchase, Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told daily newspaper Le Parisien on Tuesday.
[REG]
July 1 11:03 CET
BMW of North America is calling on the Bush administration to create an alternative fuel economy program for companies that would be hardest hit by proposed new standards in the 2011-15 model years.
[REG]
July 1 06:01 CET
Light trucks should be equipped with bumpers like those that the government requires cars to have, according to safety researchers for auto insurers.
[REG] 12:01 am U.S. ET | July 1
NEWS ANALYSIS
Can the Detroit 3 hang on? The startling collapse in sales since April means the three automakers are burning through cash reserves at a terrifying rate. Suddenly they have far more urgent deadlines for fixing their businesses.
12:01 am U.S. ET | July 1
Mahindra & Mahindra's U.S. importer has dropped plans to call its pickup the Appalachia. American sales and marketing officials now want to use alphanumeric names. Instead, Mahindra plans to sell an SUV, called the Scorpio in India, and a pickup.
12:01 am U.S. ET | July 1
