by Joseph Szczesny | Jun 24, 2009
GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson said Wednesday that the company filed documents late Tuesday in U.S. bankruptcy court in New York saying the Shreveport complex, employing 950 people, had been assigned to the old GM. Shreveport had previously been left off the list of old...
by Ken Zino | Jun 24, 2009
Gunnar Andersson was born in the Swedish province of Dalsland, on 17 April 1927, three days after the first Volvo car left the factory in Gothenburg. When Andersson was 10, his family moved to Gothenburg and after school, he joined the Air Force, training to be an...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jun 24, 2009
He was supposed to be the numbers guy, quietly sitting in the background, figuring out how to make things work. But the world turned upside-down for Frederick A. “Fritz” Henderson, when, on March 31st, the White House drove General Motors Chairman Rick...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jun 24, 2009
If you’ve been filling your tank, lately, you know the bad news: after a brief, spring reprieve, fuel prices have been rising again, now nudging $3.00 a gallon in some parts of the country. While prices are nowhere near the $4-a-gallon level, as they were this...
by Ken Zino | Jun 24, 2009
A hydrogen-powered “streamliner” claims to have beaten the BMW H2R to move into the land speed record books. The H2R had posted a 186 mph top speed record during an FIA sanctioned run in Germany, which requires the speed by maintained for one mile,...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jun 24, 2009
Just mention the term, “plaintiff attorneys” in automotive circles and watch how everyone flinches. Big Three executives have, over the years, often claimed that liability and other lawsuits can add hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to the cost of a...
by Mike Levine | Jun 23, 2009
Chrysler isn’t stopping with diesel-engine maker Cummins as the company leverages its time in bankruptcy court to modify its mountain of debt, including costs occurred while developing the current and future versions of its Ram pickup. Among others left holding...
by Ken Zino | Jun 23, 2009
The first three auto loans for developing “advanced technology” that were announced earlier today actually had their origins under the Bush Administration when the economy, auto companies and taxpayers were in much better shape, at least on the paper that...
by Joseph Szczesny | Jun 23, 2009
“They think there is a lot of opportunity overseas for the Jeep brand,” said one senior Chrysler official, who asked not to be identified by TBD. The possibilities are especially strong in regions such a South America where Fiat already has a...
by Ken Zino | Jun 23, 2009
One year after the program was announced by the Bush administration in 2007, the first three auto loans for developing advanced technology were granted to the Ford Motor Company, Nissan Motors and Tesla Motors. The $8 billion in conditional loan commitments for the...
by Paul A. Eisenstein | Jun 23, 2009
Maybe it’s a sign of age, but when I was first burning rubber down the Jersey Shore, the guys with the really hot-looking cars were as likely as not poseurs. The folks you didn’t want to race – not if you wanted to hang on to your cash – were...
by Joseph Szczesny | Jun 22, 2009
General Motors, Chrysler and Ford all have ignored calls for more fuel efficiency at their own peril, according to a new report from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. The report, “Fixing Detroit: How Far, How Fast, How Fuel...
