News Center, Top Automotive News, Latest Vehicle Data, Digital Media

DETROIT — Fall in this city has always felt a bit like spring elsewhere. It is traditionally the season of fresh starts for the hometown industry, a time when the auto companies get a jump on the calendar and begin shipping next year’s models to dealers.

Workers at a Chrysler plant in Warren, Mich. General Motors and Cerberus, the parent of Chrysler, are in merger talks.

There were some new bright spots this fall, too — or at least brighter ones. The once-gra...

Read More...

DEARBORN, Mich. — With United States vehicle sales down nearly 13 percent this year, most car companies have been cutting production rather than increasing it.  Workers at Ford’s River Rouge plant were told that 1,000 laid-off employees would be rehired.

But with 1,200 hourly workers cheering them on, top executives of the Ford Motor Company said Thursday at the ceremonial introduction of a new version of Ford’s most important product, the F-150 pickup, that the...

Read More...

DETROIT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Six U.S. governors and a group of chief executives on Thursday urged the Bush administration in a letter to aid the embattled auto industry while the White House rebuffed a request for direct support of a merger between GM and Chrysler.

An administration official said the focus instead would be on speeding of $25 billion of low-interest loans for factory retooling, a step the industry's allies say does not go far enough to reverse a deepening industry cr...

Read More...

The Federal Reserve (The Fed) cut interest rates by a half percentage point, lowering the interest rate to 1%. This will go along way towards enabling businesses like Apple, Starbucks, and Google be able to borrow money from banks like Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citi, and Wells Fargo.

The economy continues to slow down, making it harder for businesses to keep in the black. Job losses continue to mount and people are slowing down on their spending. The Fed had no choice ...

Read More...

With car sales across the country slowing to a dead stop, America's carmakers could soon find themselves running on empty, CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports.
By some estimates, General Motors is burning through $1 billion a month, and both it and Chrysler could be broke by next summer.
How bad is it? So far this year:

NEW YORK - Investors are watching what role the U.S. government will play in any merger among automakers as downgrades from credit ratings agencies indicate their financial condition is weakening.

Reports continued to surface Monday over the possibility of a marriage between General Motors Corp. (nyse: GM - news - people ) and Chrysler LLC. The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site that the U.S. Department of Energy is trying to free up $5 billion of a $25 billion federal loan ...

Read More...

The Bush administration is working to release to General Motors Corp. a portion of the loans Congress approved for the auto industry, according to a person familiar with the matter, a move that could help ease the way for the company's discussed merger with Chrysler LLC.

WSJ Detroit Bureau Chief Neal Boudette and WSJ reporter John Stoll discuss the very real possibility of a General Motors Corp.-Chrysler LLC merger amid increasingly poor sales that could send the automakers to the poo...

Read More...

Obama has also said the loan program should to be doubled to provide $50 billion.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's economic adviser, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that the funding for the loans "needs to get out the door, and the top priority should be to get it out quickly, not take 18 months."
The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Center for Automotive Research has estimated that General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC may need a $15 billion bailout to su...

Read More...