According to dealers and others who are in-the-know, Chrysler is planning on not only changing the “look” of the Sebring (halleluiah), but also the name. Nassau will be the new name and was the name of a Chrysler concept vehicle at the 2007 Detroit auto show. The Sebring’s image has been greatly tarnished because of its cheap interior and poor quality (I’d even throw in exterior styling). Every other automaker has a competitive mid-size sedan in the marketplace; therefore it is very important for Chrysler to get the Nassau right – as younger buyers upgrade from smaller cars, they look at this segment.
The Nassau and the new Dodge Avenger are expected to have completely new exterior styling, new fuel efficient powertrain options (2.4 liter four cylinder or the new V6 Pentastar), and vastly improved interior quality. The new vehicles are expected to launch towards the end of this year – they cannot come soon enough!
Read the full news story at the Detroit Free Press.
John McCain (the 2008 Republican Presidential Candidate – for those who don’t know who that is) doesn’t believe that Chrysler will survive. He thinks that the $80 billion in government aid given to General Motors and Chrysler is a waste and that Chrysler should have filed for bankruptcy from the beginning. McCain blames the unions and their generous contracts as a reason for the government putting so much money into the automakers (maybe because the unions support Pres. Obama?).
John McCain put up some interesting things on his Twitter account:
“Chrysler finally filing for bankruptcy! Wish they would have done it months ago as I called for — could have saved taxpayers $26.7 billion!”
“President (proposes) government/union takeover of GM and Chrysler — Lenin would be smiling.”
“UAW eventually owning 55% of Chrysler stock and the U.S. Gov owning the rest — if that isn’t socialism, what is?”
Dude, give it a rest! First of all, you’re a hypocrite; you were in favor of the bailout at the very beginning. And, you’re just bitter because you lost.
Read the article at The Detroit News.
On a day when GM posted a 4% increase in sales for October, GM also announced that it is backing out of its sale of Opel. GM cited an improvement in the economy and the importance of Opel’s compact car technology as reasons for reconsidering the sale.
GM had been in discussions to sell Opel with Magna and Russia’s Gaz since May, but finally settled on keeping Opel and restructuring it. A restructuring of Opel will cost GM as much as $4.5 billion and may additionally cost thousands of jobs.
Opel is important to GM because it has excellent penetration in the European market and a lot of expertise in compact cars, both of which are important to GM as it strives to be a global company. Good choice on GM’s part…
Read the full article at The Washington Post.
An Edmunds analyst is predicting that GM’s market share could increase to 22.4% during the month of October. Since emerging from bankruptcy in July, GM has been seeing increases in market share month-over-month. It’s four brands, Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, and Cadillac, have seen a market share increase of 2.9% in September over July. The sales increase can be attributed to strong launches of the new Cadillac CTS wagon, GMC Terrain, Buick LaCrosse, and Chevrolet Equinox.
Unfortunately, GM is going to have to make up the sales that it will loose from the four brands that it is getting rid of, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab, and Hummer. I foresee this not being a major issue as long as GM keeps on developing exciting vehicles.
GM’s overall market share was 19.7% at the end of September, which is ahead of the April bankruptcy plan prediction of 18.4-18.9%. Good stuff.
Read the full article at the Detroit Free Press.
GM has supposedly narrowed its negotiations two to possible parties interested in the Saab brand, according to Saab’s chief executive, Jan-Ake Jonsson. Jonsson says that the deal should be sealed within a maximum time frame of two weeks. Hopefully that is true because it’d be nice to start tying up all of the loose ends in the mess known as the global auto industry.
According to undisclosed sources (is anyone ever disclosed?), the two potential parties interested in Saab are Koenigsegg, a Swedish luxury carmaker, and U.S. financier Ira Rennert and his Renco Group.
Interesting news…but I just have to make some comments about Reuters, the source of this story. Why does Reuters have to refer to Saab as a “loss-making” brand? What the hell is that? Couldn’t the author just refer to Saab as Saab? I never liked Reuters, here’s another reason why. Thanks for the article guys.
Read the full article here.
Jon Stewart provided his opinion on GM’s recent filing for bankruptcy on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart Tuesday night. Check out the video for his take. It’s also pretty funny, if nothing else.
While I’m not a big fan of Jon Stewart and his super-liberal-viewpoints, he did make a good point: banks that made nothing, nothing tangible, were given cash with no questions asked and few strings attached. General Motors and Chrysler make a product!
I don’t agree with him saying that GM could have filed for bankruptcy a while back for “free.” Many things GM has done until now has been in preparation for bankruptcy, which will hopefully make it a quicker trip through the courts.
And I am still dumbfounded by the ignorant comments I hear and read about why we (the taxpayers) are giving money to these companies. Well, the way I (and well-educated individuals) look at it is as so: if the US government allowed the companies, or more specifically GM, to fail, the cost would be a lot greater than that already incurred. Significantly greater! I am no economist, but the tax base of the millions of people becoming unemployed has got to be worth something. So to all of the naysayers: SHUT IT! Until you can provide a better solution, don’t speak.
News media reporting that Chrysler is certain to file for chapter 11
According to numerous news outlets, Chrysler is heading to bankruptcy. The reports say that negotiations between the treasury department and a small number of creditors broke down.
Take this with a grain of salt, since the media headlines seem to change every second. If this is true though, I hope almost everything has been figured out in terms of agreements between Chrysler, Fiat, the UAW, treasury department, bondholders, etc., allowing for a (relatively) quick chapter 11 filing.
Read more at CNBC.
Visteon coming down (Brighton Sign)
According to a new study by consulting firm A.T. Kearney, more than half of all current automotive suppliers are at risk of going into bankruptcy protection in 2009, resulting in at least 1 million job loses. The most optimistic scenario would have 35% of all suppliers going under, while some put that number as high as 70%! Head on over to Autoblog for the full story.
Chrysler
According to a recent CNNMoney story, Chrysler LLC won’t need additional federal funding to run it’s operations if it succeeds in securing $5 billion in low-interest loans by the end of the month. The money would be used to help Chrysler get through the crucial July shutdown period, when the automaker traditionally idles plants for up to two weeks. This loan would be in addition to the $4 billion they have already received from the government to avoid filing for bankruptcy. For more, head on over to CNNMoney.
