Industry

Detroit has long been the heart of America's automotive industry, but 2009 has been a major period of upheaval for the city, with further shocks expected to come - including the possibility that General Motors will move its corporate headquarters out of Detroit downtown area and into a neighbouring...

Just a bit over ten years ago, only a few of the dedicated had any idea what a hybrid car was, but in another ten years or so, the eco-friendly vehicles will account for 19.4% of total sales in the U.S., according to JP Morgan's latest estimates. Today hybrids make up a little less than 1% of the...

We’ve heard a lot about Roger Penske and his plans to acquire the Saturn brand from General Motors and use it to start selling vehicles sourced from carmakers overseas. Last week Penske announced that his company hired ex-Chrysler president Tom LaSorda to advise on the bidding process, and...

When Mark McNabb announced his resignation from head of GM's premium division last week, it wasn't clear where he'd be headed next. But today, Maserati North America has announced he'll be heading up their company as the new president and CEO. The move from a GM brand to a Fiat brand is an...

Despite Volvo being a Swedish company, the trouble-stricken carmaker may have to look to the Belgian government for financial aid to help keep it on its feet. Volvo currently operates a plant in the Flanders region of Belgium, and the Flemish Premier Kris Peeters has been in talks with Volvo CEO...

The contents of the bids for purchase of Opel submitted by Fiat, Magna and Ripplewood Holdings on Wednesday - and BAIC on Thursday - haven't yet been disclosed, but today the governor of the German state where Opel is headquartered said he thinks Magna's plan is the best for Opel. Though Hesse...

With confirmation Saturn is up for sale coming from General Motors earlier this month, a number of potential investors and buyers have come out of the woodwork recently and confirmed interest in the struggling brand. Two main groups include investment firm Telesto Ventures and Roger Penske’s...

As General Motors peers over the brink of the abyss into a future that very likely holds a bankruptcy, the hits just keep coming. Today industry forecasters revealed that Toyota will pass GM in U.S. market share by 2010 at current rates, while Ford will push past the General in North American...

The U.S. Treasury, General Motors and the United Auto Workers have reached a tentative bargain on how they'll deal with changes to the current agreement in the face of the industry's problems and GM's increasingly probably bankruptcy. The details of the deal are being kept quiet until the local...

Last April General Motors made some structural changes to its brand operations, consolidating a lot of redundant work into a single channel. As part of that change, Mark McNabb was appointed head of Cadillac, Hummer and Saab as chief of GM's premium division. Things have changed at GM since then...

Only yesterday it was announced that former Chairman of Borden Chemical and of Duracell International, Robert Kidder, would preside over a restructured Chrysler as its new CEO, but already reports have emerged claiming Fiat has appointed three new directors for the struggling carmaker. In the lead...

The symptoms of America's ailing carmakers don't recognize borders, and no nation is more keenly aware of that fact than Canada. That's doubly true after today's announcement of General Motors' planned closure of 42% of the company's Canadian dealerships. In all about 300 dealers will be shuttered...

Nearly three weeks into Chrysler's bankruptcy and the global strategic alliance between Fiat and Chrysler comes news today that C. Robert Kidder - not Sergio Marchionne - will play the role of CEO for Chrysler after the bankruptcy. The news, which comes directly from Chrysler, contradicts a...

Italy's Lancia has had a turbulent past and has only been back on the automotive radar for a short while now, however, the relatively niche brand may be on the outs again following news of Fiat's interest in Opel. Fiat, which has already formed an alliance with Chrysler, is now attempting to form a...

Like the Ouroboros, Porsche and Volkswagen have been considering an arrangement that would have heavily indebted Porsche Automobil-owned Volkswagen purchasing Porsche AG. A tentative solution was reached earlier this month that would have seen Porsche and VW combine to put 10 brands under a single...

Carmakers are already fretting at the thought of achieving the new 35mpg CAFE standards imposed by the U.S. government by the current 2020 deadline, but an announcement by President Barack Obama today revealed the plan to get the standard up to 35.5mpg by 2016. The plan requires a gain of over 5%...

There's no denying the new 2010 Chevrolet Camaro is an eye-catcher, and it has the performance to match it, with even the V6 variant checking in at over 300hp. But all that mean and too little green could be making it harder for General Motors, despite over 18,000 sales so far. GM's new de facto...

Electric vehicles are popularly perceived as the front-runner of the alternate fuel competition, but successfully developing EVs has proven to be a difficult and expensive task. To help share the burden and the expertise necessary to get an electric car to market, Daimler AG, parent company of...

Just a few days ago we brought you a story about General Motors considering bringing small cars from China to the U.S. in order to bolster its sales in the segment. Currently, the carmaker is looking to sell around 17,300 Chinese-made vehicles in the U.S. by 2011 and over 50,000 units by 2014...

Bidding for General Motors’ Opel division has intensified recently, with the German government revealing late last week that only two parties remain in the bidding war – Fiat and Magna International (together with Russia’s GAZ Group). While it’s been speculated that Fiat is...