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Posts Tagged ‘big three automakers’

GM to Boost Volt Production

General Motors Co. plans to boost production for its range-extending electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, to 16,000 vehicles this year, and 60,000 in 2012, the company said today.

The Detroit carmaker had originally planned to build 15,000 Volts this year, and 45,000 in 2012, but strong demand for the battery-powered car has prompted the company to churn out more.

The announcement comes just two weeks before a four-week shutdown at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant, where GM builds the Volt, for retooling.

Ford Offers Buyouts to All UAW Workers

 DETROIT, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N) said on
Monday it is offering its 41,000 U.S. factory workers buyouts
and early retirement offers in a bid to reduce its payroll
costs as it aims to return to profit by 2011.

 The buyouts mark the second round of such offers for Ford
workers represented by the United Auto Workers union this year.
About 1,000 workers took Ford's earlier offer in July.

 While Ford was the only U.S. automaker to have avoided
bankruptcy in the past year, its relative success has
complicated efforts to win concessions from its major union.

 Ford workers have until late January to accept the offer,
which includes payouts of up to $70,000 cash for newer hires to
$60,000 cash for veterans already eligible for retirement.

 "Despite a strengthening in our business, we still have a
surplus in employees," said Ford spokesman Mark Truby.

 Ford did not provide a target for how many workers it
expected would take the buyout offers.

Bankruptcy Leads Possible Plan for Struggling GM and Chrysler

WASHINGTON — The Obama’s administration’s leading plan to fix General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC would use bankruptcy filings to purge the ailing companies of their biggest problems, including bondholder debt and retiree health-care costs, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move would in essence split both companies into their “good” and “bad” components. The government would like to see the “good” GM to be a standalone company, according to an administration official. The “good” Chrysler would be sold to Fiat SpA, assuming that deal is completed, this person said.

GM and Chrysler have had bankruptcy attorneys devising plans for such a move in recent months.

GM looks increasingly like it will be forced into filing for bankruptcy protection, sometime in mid-to-late May, in a plan where the automaker breaks into two companies, the surviving entity a “new GM” that maintains key brands such as Chevy and Cadillac and some international units, say several people familiar with the situation.

A key ingredient is getting the UAW to agree to an entirely new labor contract, including major reductions in health-care benefits, according to several people involved in the matter. “That’s the No.1 wildcard here,” one of these people said Monday.

At Chrysler, bankruptcy would be used to force new labor contracts and rework debt deals with secured creditors. People working on Chrysler’s behalf say the deal is risky, because the company is still not convinced that it could survive even a short-term bankruptcy.

Big Three Bailout is Near

DETROIT, Dec 18 (Reuters) – General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC made significant progress late Thursday on a deal to secure emergency loans as part of a U.S. government aid package, people familiar with the talks said.

The package would demand sweeping restructuring at the troubled automakers in exchange for bridge loans to carry GM and Chrysler for several months, according to the sources.

Emergency federal loans for the two companies could be announced by the government as early as Friday, according to the sources who were not authorized to discuss the negotiations.

GM Plans to Idle 20 Plants, 6 in MI

DETROIT — General Motors Corp., awaiting word on whether the auto industry will get emergency federal aid to stay afloat, will temporarily idle 20 plants across North America and slash production early next year to adjust to plummeting vehicle sales.

The temporary closures are unprecedented in scope. When combined with moves announced a week ago the closures mean GM will build 250,000 fewer vehicles than usual during the first quarter of 2009, company spokesman Chris Lee said. Normal production volume during the first quarter would be about 750,000 vehicles.

The plants affected in Michigan include facilities in Detroit-Hamtramck, Flint, Pontiac, Orion Township and two plants in Lansing.

Bailouts for Bankers but Nothing for Detroit Automakers?

This is the part of our nation’s surreal economic crisis that seems particularly surreal:

The US auto industry, which employs 3 million Americans in auto plants, parts and supplier networks and dealerships nationwide is broadly understood as being essential to maintaining America as an industrial force.

It’s financial collapse, which even critics of moves to bailout the industry suggest is imminent, would devastate workers, retirees and communities in every state of the nation.

Despite the grumbling from anti-union zealots, the auto giants have radically retooled in a manner that makes the cost of producing a vehicle at a unionized plant of General Motors, Ford or Chrysler roughly equivalent to the cost of running a car off the line at a non-union plant.

And to top it all off: Auto plants actually produce something that most Americans consider to be useful.

Yet, proposals to provide what now seems to be a very small bailout — $25 billion — are currently stalled.

At the same time, the whole of the federal government is scrambling to buy as much as $50 billion in “toxic assets” — bad loans and other products of irresponsible financial practices that are of dubious value — from Citigroup, a global banking concern that makes money by charging working families exorbitant interest rates for credit.

Perhaps, in some wild calculation of American interest, Citicorp is worthy of a bailout.

But what mad calculus would make Citigroup more worthy than the auto industry?

Something is fundamentally wrong with a federal government that offers bankers a bailout and autoworkers as cold shoulder.