Dodge Journey Ads a Hit, But Ford’s Drive One Has Mixed Impact
By Dale Buss
Chrysler’s advertising campaign for its new Dodge Journey crossover has greatly boosted initial online interest in the vehicle, according to an analysis by Edmunds.com. But the new omnibus marketing effort launched by Ford recently, Drive One, isn’t packing nearly the same punch.
Those are the conclusions of research by David Tompkins, executive director of business solutions for Edmunds.com, based in Santa Monica, Calif., using consumer visits to the New Vehicle Detail Pages (NVDPs) of the site in April, in the immediate wake of the launches of the two advertising campaigns.
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Chrysler Unveils New Gas-Price Guarantee Incentive: "Let’s Refuel America"
By Michelle Krebs
DETROIT -- Chrysler announced Monday evening that it will launch a new incentive program, called “Let’s Refuel America,” that guarantees buyers of most of its vehicles can lock into $2.99 a gallon gasoline for the next three years. The program starts Wednesday and runs through June 2.
It comes as no surprise that Chrysler is offering a gas-related incentive: Chrysler’s sales were the worst of any automaker in April date. And even the current hefty cash incentives seem to be doing little to move the metal. Edmunds.com had predicted gas prices would be the next front for automaker incentives, as it has become in the presidential campaign.
It’ll also be no surprise that, as all politicians are getting into the act, other automakers surely will jump on this bandwagon.
“Much like GM’s Employee Pricing program spared like wildfire in the summer of 2005, it’s likely other manufacturers will follow Chrysler’s lead,” said Jessica Caldwell, manager of Edmunds.com’s pricing and industry analysis.
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Remember the Last "Quick Fix for Gas Addicts"?
Ah, how quickly some of us forget.
It was almost two years ago to the day that General Motors announced a fuel price protection program, much like the one Chrysler launches on Wednesday. GM offered buyers of certain vehicle models, mostly large SUVs, in Florida and California a guarantee of gasoline capped at $1.99 a gallon for a year.
The promotion didn’t move the needle on sales, and it opened the floodgate of criticism of GM, especially in a now-famous column by The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman.
We're betting GM won’t be following Chrysler’s lead -- and we're wondering if Friedman is dusting off his old column to blast Chrysler.
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Chery Partners With Arizona Chipmaker for Hybrids, Fuel Technologies
Chinese automaker Chery Automobile Co. Ltd. is partnering with a Phoenix, Arizona-based high-tech company, Freescale Semiconductor, to build a research facility in China to develop hybrids and other fuel-efficiency technologies.
"Through joint research and development, Freescale and Chery intend to drive breakthroughs in next-generation automotive system designs," Paul Grimme, Freescale senior vice president, told the Arizona Republic.
Chery also has an affiliation with Chrysler that is moving forward. Freescale supplies, among other things, advanced automotive chips for the 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon 2-Mode hybrids. Chrysler is about to launch the same 2-Mode technology, cooperatively developed by General Motors, Daimler and Chrysler with BMW, in its 2009 Chrysler Aspen and Dodge Durango.
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Chrysler Opens Online Post for Listening to Customers
By Dale Buss
As the auto industry headed into this downturn, Chrysler faced severe competitive disadvantages in crucial areas ranging from product breadth to financial wherewithal to management depth.
But there is at least one strategic arena where the privately held new Chrysler has demonstrated a determination to take a back seat to no competitor: listening and adjusting to what its customers want. Chrysler has just demonstrated that edge, for instance, by launching its gas-price "protection" plan, the first of a potential wave of similar incentives that was predicted last week by Edmunds.com.
Chrysler’s new online Customer Advisory Board (CAB) is the latest manifestation of the automaker’s decision to develop a greater capacity for gauging and then quickly responding to the expressed desires of its customers and prospective customers – one of the few potential industry-leading advantages that is immediately available to the beleaguered automaker.
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April Car Sales: U.S. Consumers Flock to Cars, Gouging Detroit Three
By Dale Buss
Americans rushed to swap their thirsty trucks and SUVs for fuel-efficient cars in April, making the month a turning point for the industry’s biggest segment shift in memory.
The stampede to cars left in the dust a Detroit Three that simply weren’t ready for its magnitude because of their reliance on truck-based vehicles, while it lifted Japanese automakers whose traditional strength has remained in small cars.
As U.S. consumers definitively reacted to $3.50-a-gallon gasoline, passenger cars outsold truck-based vehicles for the first time in at least 20 years. The move comprised a shift of six percentage points for the industry compared with last April, to 54 percent car sales.
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Gasoline Programs Could Be Next Wave of Incentives, Edmunds.com Predicts
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — As gas prices rise this summer, automakers may well turn to marketing programs that include free gasoline instead of or in addition to cash rebates and low-interest financing, Edmunds.com predicts.
“Gas prices are having a profound effect on the psychology of car-buyers, so we expect that automaker and dealer marketing tactics may include free gasoline programs this summer,” stated Jesse Toprak, executive director of Industry Analysis for Edmunds.com. "As indicated in Edmunds’ True Market Value Predictive Alerts, transaction prices of gas-guzzling large SUVs and trucks will likely continue to fall.”
Meantime, Edmunds.com estimated Thursday that the average automotive manufacturer incentive in the U.S. was $2,449 per vehicle sold in April 2008, up $13, or 0.5 percent, from March 2008, and up $39, or 1.6 percent, from April 2007.
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Ford’s Early Agreement with Canadian Union a Positive Sign
By Michelle Krebs
The news that Ford reached an early agreement with its Canadian union is being overshadowed by Las Vegas billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's purchase of the automaker’s stock, but the Canadian deal is every bit as significant -- maybe even more so.
Talks between Detroit’s three automakers and the Canadian Auto Workers union regarding a new contract to replace the current ones that expire in September appeared as if they could be extremely rancorous. A strike appeared to be a distinct possibility.
But Ford’s announcement Monday that it had reached an agreement with the Canadian union -- especially in an unheard of four months plus ahead of schedule decreases -- lessens the odds.
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Dodge Ram: Spending Most for Incentives
By Michelle Krebs
Chrysler is spending more on incentives for the Dodge Ram than any manufacturer outside of the luxury market, according to Edmunds.com’s analysis.
The Total Cost of Incentives, Edmunds.com’s proprietary formula for measuring incentives, on the Dodge Ram was an average of $8,260 for every truck Chrysler sold. The average transaction pice on a Ram is $31,900, according to Edmunds.com's calculations.
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April Auto Sales: Buyers Continue Shift to Smaller Cars and SUVs
SANTA MONICA, Calif. – As gas prices skyrocket, the biggest growth in April vehicle sales
are expected to be in small cars and small SUVS. In total, April vehicle sales likely will show a decline from April of last year but increase from this past March, according to a forecast by Edmunds.com.
Automakers are expected to report new vehicles sales, including fleet sales, of 1.3 million units for April, a 2.2 percent decrease from April 2007 and a 3.7 percent increase from March 2008, Edmunds.com predicts. April 2008 had 26 selling days, two more than last April 2007. When adjusted for this difference, sales decreased 9.7 percent from April 2007.
“It’s clear that gas prices are weighing heavily on car-buyers’ minds," observed Jesse Toprak, Edmunds.com’s executive director of Industry Analysis. “We predict that this month, the segments with the most year-over-year growth will be compact SUVs and compact cars at 52 percent and eight percent, respectively.”
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Kerkorian's Tracinda Builds Stake in Ford
He’s back and Ford is the object of his affection this time.
Last Vegas billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, through his Tracinda Corp., has amassed 100 million shares for a 4.7 percent stake in Ford just this month. Further, Tracinda said it plans to buy up to 20 million more shares at a premium to last week’s closing price.
Kerkorian’s move on Ford is a vote of confidence for Ford management led by CEO Alan Mulally and the company’s turnaround prospects.
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Chrysler Puts Axle Plants Up for Sale
Chrysler has quietly begun looking for buyers for two Michigan axle plants – one still under
construction, sources told the Wall Street Journal, which says the move reflects the automaker’s search for a leaner business model.
Over the past two months Chrysler has approached two axle suppliers, Dana Holding Corp., which recently emerged from bankruptcy, and American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc., which has been struck by workers at five plants since late February, about buying the two plants for about $400 million. The offer has also been made to private-equity groups, the newspaper reported in Monday’s edition based on comments from anonymous sources.
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Strategies Changing Quickly in the Green Game
By Dale Buss
As Earth Day comes around once more, there are a few different scoreboards for tracking the relative progress of automakers in their attempt to win the green derby.
According to Toronto, Canada-based consumer-research firm BrandIntel’s recent survey of online discussion, for example, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes and Volkswagen have the most “green credibility” due to their hybrid and diesel vehicles. General Motors and Chrysler have been stuck among the least-credible because of their large fleets of trucks and SUVs and weaker lineups of hybrids and diesel options. Ford sits in the middle.
But several automakers are forging strategies for changing such scoreboards in their green credentials. A look at a few:
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Chrysler, Getrag Shift Into Drive for New Fuel-Saving Tranny
By Bill Visnic
Getrag Corporate Group and Chrysler LLC have signed the “definitive agreements” for the development, manufacturing and supply of Getrag’s high-tech Powershift automated-manual transmission earmarked for future Chrysler vehicles, Getrag announced earlier this month.
Getrag’s Powershift transmission incorporates the dual-clutch electrohydraulic components designed and developed by BorgWarner Automotive Inc. for its ground-breaking DuoTronic technology, first deployed in production vehicles by the Volkswagen Group, marketed as the Direct Shift Gearbox.
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UAW Strikes GM, Dana Gets Ex-Toyota Exec
By Bill Visnic
The massive gears of the auto industry’s manufacturing sector continued to grind out a changing tune this week, reacting to larger, macroeconomic forces in the U.S. economy that are mandating interesting, if not wrenching, change, particularly for the domestic Big Three automakers.
On Thursday, union leaders for United Auto Workers Local 602, representing workers at General Motors Corp.’s Delta Township assembly plant near Lansing, MI, called a strike because the local has yet to sign a plant-level contract with GM, despite what it claims have been months of negotiation. The plant assembles GM’s new generation of crossover utility vehicles, the GMC Acadia, Saturn Outlook and Buick Enclave. The Enclave and Acadia have been selling briskly.
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China's Chery: Moving Forward With Chrysler Despite Nissan Link
So now that Chrysler has cut a deal with Nissan to make its small cars, what’s up with China’s Chery Automobile Co., which was supposed to be providing Chrysler with a small vehicle platform by now?
There’s room for both, Chrysler Vice Chairman Thomas LaSorda said in a conference call Monday. In fact, he said, the deal with Chery is proceeding, but he gave no timeframe for introduction of Chery-built Chryslers.
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Cerberus’ Feinberg: “A Recluse Lifts the Veil a Little”
A rare interview with Stephen A. Feinberg, the founder of Cerberus Capital Management, which now owns most of Chrysler and much of General Motors Acceptance Corp., provides the ever-so-slightest glimpse of Feinberg the man, but provides not a morsel of what he’s got in mind for the much anticipated end game of Chrysler.
New York Times’ “Dealbook” columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin spent two hours interviewing the reclusive Feinberg -– “the money man some hope will save Detroit” as he describes him -- at his Manhattan office. It was Feinberg’s first interview in a couple of decades –- and he still refused a photograph. His yearbook picture is the one media outlets are forced to use.
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Chrysler, Nissan: Could More Product Swaps Be in Store?
By Michelle Krebs
When Chrysler and Nissan announced their latest model-sharing plans Monday, company executives hinted they were leaving open the door for further product discussions. The initial opening that led to the Chrysler-Nissan small-car-for-big-truck swap had been cracked in January when the two companies announced Nissan would supply Chrysler with a version of the Nissan Versa to sell in South America.
"We agreed to an open dialogue [in January] to continue to explore future product development and sharing opportunities," Dominique Thormann, Nissan's North American senior vice president for administration and finance, said in a conference call Monday. "And today is one milestone and a culmination of that intention."
One milestone? Could there be others? What could be next?
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Chrysler, Nissan Link To Share Models
By Michelle Krebs
DETROIT -- Chrysler and Nissan announced late Monday that they will link to supply each other with
products. Nissan will make a small car in Japan for Chrysler; Chrysler will sell to Nissan full-size pickup trucks it makes in Mexico to replace Nissan's Titan.
The move was not completely unexpected. The two companies had left the door open for further cooperation when they announced in January that Nissan would supply Chrysler with a version of its small Versa car for the Detroit automaker to sell in South America.
Still, this most recent revelation adds fuel to the buzz that the two companies may ultimately form a full-blown alliance. Company spokesmen in separate conference calls Monday evening, however, insisted the newest announcement was merely “an OEM product exchange," not a more far-reaching business arrangement.
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Peter Arnell Comes Back to Chrysler: Savior? Svengali? Or Both?
By Dale Buss
Two things are clear about Peter Arnell. He and his ideas are stepping on some mighty big toes at Chrysler. And he isn’t transgressing quietly.
But two other matters aren’t so certain – and, ultimately, they’re more important to the success of CEO Robert Nardelli’s recent move to bring in the controversial branding Svengali as the company’s “acting chief innovation officer.”
The first decisive question about Arnell: Can everyone get over the debacle that ended his first stint with Chrysler a few years ago? And the second is: Can Arnell really bring significant and quick improvements to the company now, with his broad edict to overhaul crucial areas including product design, passenger-facing technology, branding and dealerships?
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Chrysler Elbows in on Ford’s American Idol Action
Ford may own American Idol but Chrysler managed to uses the popular program to debut
its new ads for the Dodge Journey crossover.
Chrysler aired a 30-second spot it had unveiled to the media on Monday. Entitled Water Slide, the Journey crossover pulls up on a crowded city street on a sweltering day. From its flexible interior space and numerous storage spaces emerge various pieces that are used to build a 700-foot water slide, which Chrysler alleged is “the world’s largest.” Professional types quit their offices and come out to see what all the commotion is about.
The Journey’s theme line is “if you can dream it, do it.” The ad is intended to demonstrate the Journey "is a car that lets you do anything.”
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Big Three Boost U.S.-Made Exports
Last year's landmark labor contracts and the weak U.S. dollar are breathing new life into U.S. auto plants as Detroit automakers boost exports of U.S.-made vehicles, the Wall Street Journal reports.
General Motors plans to export U.S.-made vehicles to Europe, China and Latin American markets such as Brazil; Chrysler is shifting production from Europe to the U.S. to take advantage of lower costs and available plant capacity; and Ford is considering ramping up exports if it can bring labor costs down, the business journal reported in Tuesday’s edition.
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Chrysler Launches Dodge Journey with ‘Value’ Messages
By Dale Buss
BIRMINGHAM, Mich. -- In the all-new 2009 Dodge Journey, Chrysler’s product-development pipeline has delivered what seems to be the right vehicle at the right time. Now, it’s up to the company’s marketing and sales chiefs, and its dealers nationwide, to get American consumers interested in Chrysler’s first true crossover product since the ill-fated Chrysler Pacifica.
Top Chrysler marketing executives unveiled their plans here Monday, combining confidence in Journey’s capabilities with positive reports about early sales and consumer reactions. They believe that the reasonably priced, relatively high-mileage new entry is perfectly aimed with a “value” proposition at Americans who are being made palpably anxious by belt-tightening at home and sky-high prices at the gas pump.
“If you can dream it, do it” will be the Journey’s theme line when the campaign breaks on Tuesday, spotlighting the vehicle’s combination of innovative features, versatility and flexibility.
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New Chrysler Tries to Win Over Consumers With Dream Ad Campaign
By Dale Buss
BIRMINGHAM, Mich. -- Faced with a public that remains skeptical about the nature of Chrysler’s rebirth, the company will break a new corporate positioning campaign on April 14 that is intended to help win over American consumers.
“We want to increase consideration, re-engage with customers, and target community influencers and current owners,” said Deborah Meyer, Chrysler’s chief marketing officer, in explaining the campaign to automotive press here on Monday. It will begin with both TV and print advertisements.
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March Sales: No Denying the Slump Is Real
By Dale Buss and Michelle Krebs
Automakers in March finally experienced the full brunt of two huge economic problems that had been nibbling at their market for months: rising gasoline prices, and American consumers’ falling economic expectations.
Sales for the industry dropped 11.9 percent in March, to 1,351,838 units, the worst performance for the month since 1993. Even more significant, the results accelerated a market deterioration that saw overall U.S. auto sales fall by 7.8 percent to 3,565,828 units for the first quarter. Annual sales rates, seasonally adjusted, slipped to near 15 million units.
A wicked combination of $3.50-a-gallon gasoline, higher prices for food and other necessities, mortgage woes and a shaky stock market left many American consumers more nervous and dispirited than anyone had expected them to be just a few months ago.
“We’re seeing new-car sales decline, not because people can’t afford them, but because there’s a lack of trust in the stability of the economy,” said Jesse Toprak, chief industry analyst for Edmunds.com. “There’s been a real erosion of wealth, and consumers are not in the mood to shop for a car. This is more of a psychological impact more than the inability to purchase a new vehicle.”
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Incentives To Rise Through the Spring and Summer, Reports Edmunds.com
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — The average automaker incentive was largely unchanged in March compared with February, but incentives generally are likely to rise for the next several months as automakers try to break the sales slump, Edmunds.com predicts.
"Incentives are likely to rise through the spring and summer," said Jesse Toprak, executive director of Industry Analysis for Edmunds.com. “We anticipate that this will be especially true for the European automakers, as long as the euro remains strong.”
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UAW Membership Falls to New Low; American Axle Strike Goes On
The United Auto Workers union reported its membership dropped below a half-million people for the first time since World War II.
In U.S. Labor Department filings, the UAW said it closed 2007 with 464,910 members, a decline of 14.7 percent or 73,500 members from the previous year and more than two-thirds below its peak of 1.5 million members in 1979. It marks the union's low-water mark of membership since 1941.
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March Sales: Consumers Not Compelled to Buy, Says Edmunds Forecast
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Despite an abundance of rich incentive deals, March
vehicle sales for the industry are expected to be lower than March 2007 and even lower than February when automakers report results Tuesday, Edmunds.com has forecast.
March new-vehicle sales, including fleet sales, are expected to total 1.33 million, a 13.2 percent decrease from March 2007 and a 13.9 percent increase from February 2008, according to Edmunds’ forecast on sales figures not adjusted for the difference in selling days.
The forecast is less dreary when adjusted for the difference in selling days. This March had 26 selling days, two fewer than last March 2007. When adjusted for this difference, sales decreased 6.5 percent from March 2007.
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Less Than a Week in Q1; Matching 2007 Sales an Impossible Dream
By Bill Visnic
Analysts and industry-metrics powerhouse J.D. Power and Associates already are predicting a heavy downturn in auto sales for March, based on sales figures from the first half of the month. Now, analysis from Edmunds.com is providing perspective on how bad not just March, but first-quarter sales are likely to be when announced next week.
Based on average sales for the first two months of 2008 compared with last year, the Detroit Three automakers have virtually insurmountable deficits to recover to match first-quarter sales from last year. But longstanding sales juggernaut Toyota Motor Corp. — and several other Japanese automakers — won't be likely to fare much better in what is shaping up to be the brutal retail-sales environment many had predicted.
Indeed, everyone predicted 2008 car sales would be worse than those in 2007; the analysis shows just how much worse in the early going. Some forecasts predict an uptick in the second half; others do not.
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Alfa Romeo: Returning to America
By Michelle Krebs
Alfa Romeo is returning to the U.S. next year, the Financial Times reports in
Tuesday’s edition.
Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne told the London newspaper Alfa would beginning selling cars in the U.S. next year and be producing them in North America by 2011 or 2012 — with a partner.
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March Car Sales Down, J. D. Power Report Says
Not surprisingly, major automakers saw retail sales drop in the first half of March compared with the same period a year ago, according to a report by research firm J.D. Power and Associates. The firm predicts total March sales will hit an annual selling rate of 15 million, dramatically lower than the 16.2 million rate of a year ago.
J.D. Power said in a report to its clients cited by Dow Jones that March saw year-over-year double-digit declines in retail car sales at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. Toyota's sales also were off in the early weeks of the month.
J.D. Power recently reduced its 2008 car sales forecast to below 15 million, which would be the lowest level since 1994.
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Chrysler Creates Online Customer Advisory Board
By Dale Buss
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Continuing its rapid-fire tempo of new marketing programs, devices and tactics, Chrysler LLC is launching what it calls a Customer Advisory Board that will attempt to tap visitors to the company’s Web sites for their feedback and ideas on product features and technologies.
Chrysler calls the Customer Advisory Board an industry first. “We have a new platform to engage our customers in two-way dialogue so we can harness their insights and vehicle dreams as we move quickly to develop and refine technologies and products,” said Deborah Meyer, a Chrysler vice president and chief marketing officer.
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New York Auto Show: The Good, Bad and Ugly
By Jane Nakagawa
NEW YORK — The New York International Auto Show opens to the public Friday, and what a difference a year makes.
Toyota is the nation’s second-largest brand not Ford. Jim Press is the vice chairman and president of Chrysler, not Toyota. Cerberus Capital Management, not Daimler, owns Chrysler. The national average price for a gallon of premium gas is $3.60, not $2.80.
And the most interesting cars at the New York auto show are diminutive and original, not colossal and extravagant.
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Economy Grabs the Spotlight at New York Auto Show
You know the economy is bad when the endlessly thriving Toyota says it may not hit its sales targets.
Remarks by Toyota executives in South Korea on Wednesday about the economy echo those being made by other auto company executives during this week's press days for the New York auto show where the economy, more than the cars, grabbed the spotlight.
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Chrysler Chery Cars: For Emerging Markets Only
Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli mentioned in his keynote address during press days at the New York auto show the automaker's work with China's Chery Automobile was proceeding. But he gave no details or timetable.
The Financial Times, however, reports in Thursday's edition that Chery's work on a small car for Chrysler is taking longer than expected to meet North American and Western European quality standards, with the result that vehicles from the partnership will be sold only in emerging markets.
When Chrysler signed the deal with Chery in late 2006, it had said Chery's small cars would be on sale in North America in early 2008.
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Chrysler's Nardelli: Private Equity Can Rebuild Chrysler
NEW YORK — Chrysler President and CEO Robert Nardelli reassured his audience of automotive reporters, often skeptical of late about the automaker's future, that a private-equity firm such as Cerberus Capital Management can build a car company like Chrysler back to greatness.
Nardelli was the keynote speaker Wednesday at the International Motor Press Association's breakfast kicking off press days at the New York International Auto Show.
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Auto Shows May Pack a Marketing Punch, Says Edmunds.com Analysis
By Dale Buss
As the New York International Auto Show opens this week, automakers may be interested to know their investments in the Chicago Auto Show last month paid strong dividends in online activity by car shoppers, according to a new Edmunds.com analysis.
New-vehicle launches at the Chicago show produced an average lift in shopping consideration of 25 percent in the metropolitan area during the first week of the show, compared with the rest of the country, measured by consumer traffic on the models’ new-vehicle detail pages (NVDPs) on Edmunds.com. The new 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 ranked highest among all vehicles with a 39 percent lift in traffic.
Such results underscore the growing relevance of auto shows as marketing devices for OEMs, said Dr. David Tompkins, executive director of business solutions for Santa Monica, Calif.,–based Edmunds.com.
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New York Auto Show: Big Engines Not Dead in the Big Apple
By Bill Visnic
In relation to the mainly heavyweight environmental message emanating from the Geneva Motor Show, this week’s New York auto show practically delivers a let’s-dirty-a-little-air counterstroke.
After all, the 2008 New York show, bringing the international auto show circus back to U.S. domestic automakers’ soil, is headlined by seemingly desperate V8 volleys from General Motors Corp.’s Pontiac and Chrysler LLC, the latest twist on BMW’s V8-toting M3 and some big-bore but low-volume fireworks from the likes of Lamborghini and Toyota Motor Corp.’s Lexus.
V8s and V10s — yep, we’re back in the States.
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Chrysler: A Week of Whacking Costs
By Michelle Krebs
In the past week Chrysler has sold off a unit, closed down another and instituted a mandatory two-week summer shutdown to save money.
Chrysler’s moves could be read as merely a response to the deteriorating economy and slower vehicle sales, but are being seen by some as signs Cerberus Capital Management is whipping the automaker into shape to get it ready for sale.
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Chrysler: Not Reaching Buyout Goal?
United Auto Workers Vice President General Holiefield said Chrysler may not reach its top goal of trimming 10,000 workers by April 1, Dow Jones reported.
Chrysler announced in November it wanted to cut 8,500 to 10,000 blue-collar jobs and offered buyout packages to most of its U.S. workforce. But the economy is keeping people from taking the buyouts, Holiefield told reporters at a Detroit event to celebrate the assembly of the 25,000th Dodge Viper.
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Chrysler Sells Brazilian Engine Plant to Fiat
Chrysler will sell its engine plant in Brazil to Fiat, the companies announced Wednesday.
Fiat Powertrain Technologies, the automaker’s engines and transmissions unit, will buy Chrysler’s Tritec Motors plant in Brazil, the companies said in a statement. The price was not disclosed.
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Commentary: Detroit Back to Its Old-School Tactics
By Bill Visnic
Despite stock prices and market shares nosediving toward near-historic lows, Detroit scions General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. once again are doling out bonus cash to blue- and white-collar workers alike — but the implied justification that “turnaround” goals are being met is, in the grandest tradition of car-town back-slapping, a bit self-serving.
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Chrysler Resumes Minivan Production with Supplier Strike Settled
By Joseph Szczesny
WINDSOR, Canada — Chrysler has resumed production of its 2008 Chrysler Town & Country and 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan now that one of its key suppliers of minivan parts has settled a strike by its workers.
The Canadian Auto Workers and supplier TRW Automotive have settled a contract dispute that had halted production of minivans at Chrysler’s Windsor, Ontario, assembly plant since last week. Workers received higher pay from the deal.
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February Sales Leave Automakers Trying To Find the Bottom
By Dale Buss and Bill Visnic
February was an awful sales month for the U.S. auto market. If the
industry isn’t in its own recession against the backdrop of general
economic uncertainty, it’s surely looking for the bottom.
Overall sales dropped by 6 percent compared with February 2007,
following a year-over-year decline of 4 percent in January. The pace
represented a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 15.5 million to 15.8
million vehicles, General Motors said. In the first two months of the
year American consumers bought about 2.2 million cars and trucks, or
about 126,000 fewer than in 2007.
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Posted by at 11:42 AM under Business , Chrysler , Companies , Ford , GM , Toyota | Comments (3) | digg this | del.icio.us
The More They Learn, the More Automakers Eye Internet
By Dale Buss
Automakers will always do brand building via traditional advertising media such as TV, radio, outdoor and print. But in an ever-toughening marketplace, they’re more and more intent on obtaining solid sales leads and on buttressing relationships with existing customers — so they’re putting their marketing resources into the channels that best deliver on those goals.
That’s the main reason the Internet will be vacuuming up a much bigger share of vehicle-advertising dollars in the U.S. market in 2008.
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Strike 2: Strike at Supplier TRW Halts Chrysler Minivan Production
By Joseph Szczesny
WINDSOR, Ontario — Strike fever is spreading in the auto industry.
On Thursday, 175 members of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 444 employed at a TRW Automotive plant in Windsor, Ont., went on strike after contract negotiations reached an impasse.
The TRW plant supplies suspension frames used on the 2008 Chrysler Town & Country and 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan. Chrysler’s Windsor assembly plant, which produces the minivans, was forced to shut only hours after the CAW strike began.
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Daimler’s Zetsche: $13 Million Man
Daimler AG Chief Executive Officer Dieter Zetsche received the equivalent of
$12.9 million in compensation in 2007, according to the company’s annual report issued Wednesday.
Total wages, bonuses and benefits for Zetsche and the rest of the 10-member Daimler management board amounted to $37.6 million.
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Edmunds.com Forecast: Better Car Sales in February than January
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — February car sales likely will be off some from year-ago levels but improved from dismal January when automakers report them Monday, according to a forecast by Edmunds.com.
February’s new-vehicle sales are expected to be 1.22 million units, a 2.3 percent decrease from February 2007 but a 16.8 percent increase from last month.
"The month is proving better than some industry watchers may have expected," observed Jesse Toprak, Edmunds.com’s executive director of Industry Analysis. “This month should exceed the typical 10 to 15 percent boost in sales from January, historically the slowest car-sales month of the year.”
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GM, Chrysler Supplier Takes a Strike
By Joseph Szczesny
More than 3,650 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) began a strike early Tuesday against American Axle & Manufacturing Holding Inc., a key supplier to both General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, which could quickly feel the impact of the walkout.
The strike began shortly after midnight when the company and union negotiators reached an impasse over wage cuts for employees at American Axle plants in Michigan and New York.
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GM, Chrysler Watch Supplier’s Union Tallks
General Motors and Chrysler undoubtedly are paying close attention to labor negotiations taking place at Detroit supplier American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings, as their truck production is at stake if workers strike. The contract between American Axle and the United Auto Workers union expires at midnight Monday.
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GMAC Cuts Jobs, Offices
GMAC, the financial services group owned by General Motors and Cerberus Capital Management, said it would close 15 of its 20 offices and eliminate 930 – or 15 percent – of its jobs in North America.
The cost-cutting moves come on the heels of GMAC reporting a loss of $724 million in the fourth quarter of 2007, compared with a $1-billion profit a year earlier. GMAC’s troubles are due to the crisis in the housing and subprime lending businesses. In addition, delinquencies on car loans are rising.
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Help Wanted: Autoworkers at $14 an Hour
By Michelle Krebs
New labor contracts negotiated between Detroit’s automakers and the United Auto Workers union last fall, combined with upcoming buyouts and retirements of aging baby boomers, may lead to a healthy hiring spree of engineers and hourly workers by auto companies nationwide, according to a new study.
The overall employment level for workers at auto companies in 2016 will be about the same as in 2007 — about 355,000 people — well off this decade’s peak of nearly 500,000, says a study on automotive hiring trends released this week from the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.
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Automakers Still Moving Cautiously on Mobile Advertising
By Dale Buss
Auto-marketing executives know they’ll be advertising more on cell phones and other mobile devices in the coming months. But they still have a “prove-it” attitude toward the medium, as mobile-service providers work through issues such as image enhancement and platform standardization.
“The biggest issue with mobile is still that we have to do everything different for each different carrier,” said Gregg Benkendorfer, Toyota’s national manager of media and digital. “Until they really sort that out, I don’t think you’re going to see tremendous growth.”
Christine MacKenzie, Chrysler’s executive director of multi-brand marketing and agency relations, said mobile-advertising providers still can’t “provide us enough data to justify a major move into mobile yet.” She added, “it’s still an area where we’re learning, and we’ll continue to learn.”
But carmakers clearly are moving into mobile in a significant way nonetheless, encouraged in part by the booming popularity of Apple’s iPhone and the richness of its interface.
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Delphi’s Steve Miller Publishes Memoir, Turnaround Lesson Book
The turnaround of Delphi Corp. is far from complete. The latest chapter in that saga came last week when the banks were unable to find funding that would allow the nation’s largest auto-parts supplier to emerge from bankruptcy.
Nevertheless, Delphi executive chairman Robert S. “Steve” Miller, a former Chrysler executive and a veteran of a dozen turnarounds, has written a book, The Turnaround Kid: What I Learned Rescuing America's Most Troubled Companies (Collins, $25.95, 272 pages). It is due out in April.
Fortune magazine’s Editor-at-Large Allan Sloan reviewed the book in an article picked up Tuesday by the Washington Post, entitled “Self-Portrait of a Turnaround Artist.”
Sloan said he got hooked immediately on the book, not only because the autobiography talks about Miller’s 30 years of corporate troubleshooting but more because it shows him to be a human being, “a business man in full” and “not a calculator with legs.”
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Cerberus Dragged Reluctantly into Spotlight by Chrysler, GMAC Stakes
If Stephen Feinberg, the ultra-secretive founder of Cerberus Capital 
Management, which owns 80 percent of Chrysler and 51 percent of GMAC, hates the public spotlight now, he’s seen nothing like what he will if the automaker goes under, according to a column in Tuesday’s New York Times.
“If Chrysler, which has $18 billion in pension and health care liabilities for at least the next two years, winds up sinking into bankruptcy, it would be a watershed event,” wrote Andrew Ross Sorkin in the paper’s Dealbook column. “Such a failure might take down the entire private-equity industry — everyone in the business, bystander or not, would be tarred. It would be on the 6 o’clock news. Mr. Feinberg would be hauled in front of Congress. It would be considered a national crime. Remember the outcry when Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought RJR Nabisco for $25 billion back in the 1980s? That was just a dress rehearsal.”
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