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Posts Tagged ‘GM’

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.

In a refreshing change, the Big Mitten wins

Two industrial icons, one of them partially crippled, shined on Michigan today. Bankrupt General Motors Corp. said it would locate its new small car plant at Orion Township, a move that will save a few thousand manufacturing jobs and keep an endangered stamping facility in Pontiac alive — even at the cost of steep local tax abatements.

And General Electric Co. says it will open a next-generation high-tech facility in Van Buren Township and create up to 1,200 new jobs, many of them paying $100,000 a year or more. The GE gambit holds greater symbolic importance, mainly because its proposed location lends credibility and heft to a planned “Aerotropolis” along the I-94 corridor between Willow Run and Detroit Metropolitan airports. Even North Carolina’s vaunted Research Triangle languished for years until a major corporate player — IBM? — became the kind of lead anchor tenant that wooed others.

The announcements are badly needed wins for beleaguered Michigan, its strained tax base and its embattled governor, Jennifer Granholm, holder of the worst economic record of any sitting governor in the nation. After months of nothing but bad news, GM and GE today delivered the industrial equivalent of manna from heaven — or evidence of the invisible hand of President Barack Obama’s auto task force and Treasury Department working a little magic.

GM Filed Ch. 11 Bankruptcy This Morning

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — General Motors filed for bankruptcy protection early Monday, a move once viewed as unthinkable but became inevitable after years of losses and market share declines that were capped by a dramatic plunge in sales in recent months.

In the end, even $19.4 billion in federal help wasn’t enough to keep the nation’s largest automaker out of bankruptcy. The government will pour another $30 billion into GM to fund operations during its reorganization.

Taxpayers will end up with a 60% stake in GM, with the union, its creditors and federal and provincial governments in Canada owning the remainder of the company.

Nearly a dozen plants will be identified for closure by 2010, resulting in 20,000 job losses. Three more plants are set to be idled and put on stand by status in hopes for a rebound in sales that may never come.

GM will also shed its Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and Saab brands and cut loose more than 2,000 of its 6,000 U.S. dealerships by next year. That will likely result in more than 100,000 additional job losses.

More than 650,000 retirees and their family members who depend on the company for health insurance will experience cutbacks in their coverage, although their pension benefits are unaffected for now.

GM Filing Ch. 11 Bankruptcy Monday in New York

General Motors Corp. president and Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson will hold a mid-day news conference from the GM Building in New York on Monday, the day the 100-year-old automaker is expected to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

GM, which has lost nearly $90 billion since 2005, is expected to file bankruptcy in U.S. District Court in New York, where rival Chrysler LLC is undergoing a court-ordered restructuring. President Barack Obama also plans to address the nation Monday on GM’s planned court restructuring.

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.

The Cost of GM’s Death