US: Feds lend Chrysler cash (MEM)
Chrysler has received a US$4bn loan from the US government, days after larger rival General Motors also received help to get it through the current financial crisis.
JAPAN: Toyota freezing plant expansions - paper (MEM)
Toyota has declined to comment on a Japanese newspaper report it is to freeze plans to build new factories in Thailand and Russia as demand falls world-wide.
JAPAN: Auto sales hit 34-year low (MEM)
Japanese sales of new vehicles, excluding minivehicles, fell to a 34-year low of 3,212,342 units in 2008 - nearly half of the 1990 peak.
Fender and Defender
5th January 2009 18:33
I'm a big fan of analogies and metaphors to help make points or draw lessons from history. The more creative or unusual they can be, still hanging together, the better (though you have to be carefu...
White House draws on TARP for 'bridge to a bridge' Detroit bailout
US: GM and Chrysler get fed loans
President Bush has announced that his administration will provide US$13.4bn in short-term loans to GM and Chrysler. The money will come from the US$700bn Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP), originally intended to provide financial institutions with emergency liquidity.
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What a year! Business as usual it was not. The economy took the headlines and there was no getting away from that. Maybe we should simply be grateful that the banks still function and that complete international financial meltdown was apparently avoided. Let’s just say that at the beginning of the year things looked under control – we were looking at a ‘managed slowdown’ for the global economy and the auto industry was very much a part of that. But by the end of the year, major companies were struggling to keep their heads above water in the face of collapsed automotive markets. Read Dave's review of one of the most significant years the auto industry has experienced.
Advance information on new vehicles for North America's 2010 model year
Production Life Database, your one-stop, instant-access source for all current and future global vehicle programmes, is updated daily, with data checked, new vehicles added, out-of-production models moved to the historic section, cancelled or scaled down new model programmes noted, and commonalities between future car, crossover and light truck development programmes made in the textual analysis section.
Data for vehicles due to be launched or updated for North America's 2010 model year are constantly being added to PLDB, whilst new vehicle premieres for the Bologna motor show (3 December) can also be found within PLDB, as well as many for Detroit (January) Chicago (February), Geneva (March) and even Seoul, Shanghai and New York (April).
PLDB lists 2039 current and future global models from 152 OEM groups, spread across 228 brands, with data for 224 vehicles having been checked or revised in the last month. Simply click on the link below to take a tour and see pricing.