Mazda Motor Corp. (7267.TO) said Friday that its joint venture in China slashed its vehicle sales projection for this fiscal year amid slowing auto demand in the key growth market.
Auto makers have been able to partially make up for a sharp decline in their global sales on solid demand for cars in emerging markets, even as more mature markets falter due to economic weakness.
Ford Motor Co. (F) has won court approval to shift its retiree health-care expenses to a United Auto Workers union-run trust fund.
Ford is the last of the Detroit auto makers to win court approval to create the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association fund which was part of a new labor deal reached last year with the UAW. General Motors Corp. (GM) received its court approval in July followed by Chrysler LLC (C.XX) earlier this month.
Ford Motor Co., moving to wean itself from dependence on light trucks, said it will spend $75 million to convert a Michigan sport-utility-vehicle factory to build cars.
Work at the Michigan truck plant in the Detroit suburb of Wayne will begin in November, and production of an unspecified small car will start there in 2010, Ford said in a statement.
Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) plans to invest $75 million to retool a Michigan truck plant to build cars as part of its effort to boost its product line-up with more fuel-efficient vehicles, the automaker said on Tuesday.
Ford’s truck plant in Wayne, Michigan, which currently builds the slow-selling Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUVs, is scheduled to produce cars in 2010.
Taylor Hacquard’s first trip to Ontario’s Mosport International Raceway failed to lack drama as the Vancouver racer put in a spirited performance on what was both an eventful and busy Saturday hosting Round 8 of the 2008 Star Mazda Championship Presented by Goodyear.
General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner said last week the company is hoping its recent decision to offer employee discounts to all will help spur some activity in a U.S. auto industry that remains uncertain.
“It is very early, but I would say, one or two days out of the box, the reaction is excellent,” Wagoner said last week in Lordstown, Ohio. “The market is so unsteady now we need to let this play out a few days and see if we can use it to build up some momentum. … to see if we could find anything that would get the market going a little bit.”
Also in San Francisco, Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, the parent company of Dollar Rent a Car and Thrifty Car Rental, charges roughly 20 percent more for the Prius than for other economy or compact cars. Hertz charges about $5 a day extra for its Green Collection, which includes 3,400 Priuses. The company says the fee covers the cost involved in making certain these cars can be reserved by make and model.
In an effort to re-energize confidence in the company’s future, Ford Motor Co. has been shuttling hundreds of employees and retirees to its top-secret test track in Dearborn, Mich., almost every afternoon, to drive the company’s promising vehicles of the future.
Building small cars in the U.S. has generally been a money-losing venture for General Motors Corp. (GM)
But now the auto maker believes it has found the formula to turn a profit on compact cars, even if those cars are built by union labor in a traditional Rust Belt town.
Ford Motor Co. (F) said Tuesday its vehicle sales across 19 main European markets fell in July.
In these markets, including Germany, France and Sweden, Ford sold 117,200 vehicles, down by about 6.6% compared with July 2007. In the first seven months of 2008, sales dropped 2% to 940,600 units.
