Category Archives: Automotive
Ford to invest $155M, add jobs at engine plant
CLEVELAND – Ford Motor Co. said it will spend $155 million upgrading a factory to build a new fuel-efficient V6 engine for the 2011 Mustang and expects to add 60 jobs as a result.
Ford says the upgrades are part of $1.8 billion in investments for engineering and facility modernization that will support its 2011 vehicle [...]
Economists Seek to Fix a Defect in Data That Overstates the Nation’s Vigor
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
WASHINGTON — A widening gap between data and reality is distorting the government’s picture of the country’s economic health, overstating growth and productivity in ways that could affect the political debate on issues like trade, wages and job creation.
The shortcomings of the data-gathering system came through loud and clear here Friday and Saturday [...]
Deere to recall 452 workers at Iowa plant
By DANIEL LOVERING, AP Manufacturing Writer
Farm equipment maker Deere & Co. said Wednesday it will recall most of the workers it laid off from an Iowa plant earlier this year to start production of the company’s 2010 models.
Deere, based in Moline, Ill., said the 452 manufacturing employees will be recalled to its [...]
U.S. stimulus deal buoys U.K. factory’s workers
Backdrop for Obama’s announcement of fuel-efficiency grants? A couple of foreign-built trucks
Jason Reed / ReutersIn August, President Obama announced, at this event in Indiana, new funds to support the building of vehicles like the one behind him — which was manufactured in England.
F. Brinley BrutonReporter
Photographs of President Barack Obama run on a constant loop in the [...]
Small Carmakers Benefit From Detroit's Woes
Gary Bogdon for The New York Times
Lee Figliuolo of Palm Coast, Fla., bought a Hyundai Genesis.
As if Detroit didn’t have enough worries.
In addition to the recession, and the bankruptcies of Chrysler and General Motors, a new threat has appeared in the rearview mirror.
Many smaller automakers are gaining a bigger share of the market, most [...]
Small Parts Suppliers Fight to Survive
“We’re just fighting to stay alive,” said Tim Knisley, PMT’s chief financial officer.
The high-profile bankruptcies of Chrysler, General Motors Corp. and a few big suppliers have overshadowed the financial peril now facing the hundreds of small subsuppliers whose fate is also tied into the auto industry.
Yet the woes at PMT are being replicated across the [...]
Iconic Hummer brand sold to Chinese manufacturer
By TOM KRISHER, AP Auto Writer
DETROIT – Hummer, the off-road vehicle that once epitomized America’s love for hulking trucks, is now in the hands of a Chinese heavy equipment maker.
General Motors Co. and Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Corp. finally signed the much-anticipated deal to sell the brand on Friday.
Tengzhong will get an 80 percent [...]
Amid the global economic crisis, China rises
By JOE McDONALD, AP Business Writer
BEIJING – The auto-parts maker Delphi Corp. is headquartered in Troy, Mich., in the heart of the region that made the United States the car capital of the world. It’s a place where the phrase “buy American” is right at home.
Now the 3,000 employees of Delphi’s brake and suspension unit [...]
Gore-Backed Car mfg a non US Firm Gets Large U.S. Loan
A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.
Family Loyalty Anchors Ford in Risky Times
BILL VLASIC
DEARBORN, Mich. — They met in late January at a nondescript conference center near the Ford Motor Company’s headquarters, just as they have every three months for the last 20 years.
Yet this meeting was hardly routine for the dozens of descendants of Henry Ford, who are the controlling shareholders of the nation’s second-largest [...]