Chrysler cars and Fiat cars

  Chrysler under control of Italy's Fiat

Chrysler car

Chrysler has officially come under the Italian flag with Fiat announcing it had obtained a majority share after buying out the US government's stake.
The takeover comes two years after Fiat took a 20 percent stake in exchange for sharing its technology and providing trusted leadership as Chrysler emerged from a government-backed bankruptcy.
President Barack Obama celebrated the news with a visit to a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, where he told workers that the government's unpopular decision to bailout Chrysler, General Motors and their suppliers had paid off.
Just two years ago, Toledo and other cities across the country came perilously close to learning what life would be like if Chrysler's plants shut down.
The deepest recession in decades had already cost the US auto industry 400,000 jobs and millions more jobs could have been lost if Chrysler and GM had failed.
"Today, all three American automakers are turning a profit. That hasn't happened since 2004," Obama said.
"Today, all three American automakers are gaining market share. That hasn't happened since 1995."
The Detroit Three are also expanding production, which has helped the auto industry recover 113,000 jobs in the past two years, according to the president.
"And today, I'm proud to announce the government has been completely repaid for the investments we made under my watch by Chrysler because of the outstanding work that you guys did," he told the plant workers.
But while Chrysler may have repaid the loans extended after Obama took office in January 2009 six years earlier than planned, US taxpayers still took a hit.
The US Treasury estimates that it will not recover $1.3 billion of the $12.5 billion of taxpayer funds injected into the struggling automaker beginning in December 2008 under then-president George W. Bush.
Chrysler, which got back in the black in the first quarter of this year for the first time since emerging from bankruptcy, has completely revamped its product offerings and was one of the only big carmakers to post a sales gain last month.
Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive officer of both Fiat and Chrysler, said in a statement that the deal reached with the US Treasury will permit the acceleration of the integration of the two companies.
He aims to create a giant capable of rivaling the world's biggest automakers -- Japan's Toyota, GM and Germany's Volkswagen.
Fiat's purchase of the US Treasury's six percent share increased its stake to 52 percent. It had increased its

fiat car

stake to 46 percent last month after refinancing Chrysler's debts.
Fiat plans to expand its share to as much as 70 percent by purchases the stakes of the Canadian governments and the United Auto Workers union.
Chrysler seems to have finally found a "home" after the disastrous marriages to Germany's Daimler and the investment group Cerberus, said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with IHS Global Insight.
With Fiat's controlling stake and the exit of government capital, Chrysler is also less pressed to launch an initial stock offering.
"We haven't made a decision" on timing, Marchionne told Bloomberg TV, adding that there's "no emergency to get that done in 2011."
source: yahoo news

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BMW m5 2012 "new car"

 BMW m5 under test for speed "video"

The BMW on a new product's speed test car BMW m5, which will be the first production company to 2012

The company has now made public a video of the car being tested. The new official video captures the high speed testing conducted at the Nardò Ring in Italy. We have been expecting to see the vehicle at the Frankfurt Motor Show, but then the new videos suggest that it could be unveiled at the M Festival soon.

Though full details haven’t come by as yet, we have managed to know that the car will be pushed out of the assembly line with an aggressive body kit, a sport-tuned suspension and a twin-turbo 4.4-liter V8 with approximately 575 PS (423 kW / 567 bhp) and 720 Nm (531 lb-ft) of torque.

The car will also sport a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and might offer all-wheel drive at a later stage.

cars in 2012 "vehicle sales in the future"

Auto sales in 2012

 The world has passed this year, with severe crises, particularly in Japan and is expected to affect production, especially in cars where many world automakers in Japan, therefore, this article presents the expected auto sales in 2012

When new-vehicle sales for May begin rolling in today, the overall numbers are likely to drop dramatically as automakers absorb the double whammy of fewer cars to sell, and lower incentives cutting into demand.

Reuters estimates the annualized rate for sales in May will check in around 12.6 million units, a strong increase over 2010, month over month--but the first month this year in which sales didn't clear the 13-million hurdles.

Of the major factors affecting sales, the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan are hitting some automakers particularly hard, notably Toyota and Honda. Reuters also cites slimmer rebates and incentives as a root cause-they're down by more than 25 percent this year, giving consumers reason to delay new-car purchases as they wait for better deals.

While Toyota and Honda lose share from tight availability, domestic automakers such as GM (NYSE:GM) and Ford (NYSE:F) are expected to pick up share, as are Korea's Kia and Hyundai. Even so, some popular small cars not built in Japan are still in tight supply. The 2012 Ford Focus has a 34-day supply on hand, Reuters reports, while the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze is down to a 39-day inventory--in an industry where a 60-day supply is judged normal.

Without small cars to sell, automakers may actually move more SUVs and pickup trucks, even though gas prices are still near $4 a gallon. Along with minivans, trucks and utes could approach 47 percent of new-vehicle sales for May.

Toyota's Japan production will near normal in June

toyota's car used old new modern future

TOKYO – Toyota production in Japan will recover to 90 percent of pre-disaster levels in June, faster than the world's biggest automaker had projected and highlighting its power to bounce back from the supply disruptions caused by the March earthquake and tsunami.

The disasters in northeastern Japan had damaged the plants of key parts suppliers, disrupting production at all Japanese automakers. Even with production increasing, some vehicle models could be in short supply for months.
Toyota Motor Corp. gave its good news to suppliers in a meeting Tuesday, company spokesman Keisuke Kirimoto said. It previously said global production would be at about 70 percent in coming months and was not expected to return to normal until late this year.
By the end of May, the crisis had cost the company production of 550,000 vehicles in Japan, and another 350,000 overseas. Production had been back recently at about 50 percent.
Toyota was initially missing 150 kinds of parts because of the supplier problems, and that was reduced to 30 parts earlier this month.
Other automakers are also suffering. Nissan Motor Co. expects worldwide production to be back at pre-disaster levels by October, and Honda has said normal production levels weren't expected until late this year.
Auto production in Japan plunged 60.1 percent in April from the previous year, according to Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association data released Tuesday. The 292,001 vehicles was a dramatic drop from 731,829 vehicles the same month a year earlier and marked the seventh straight month of on-year declines.
Toyota already said it will return to a faster-than-expected 70 percent of normal production in June in North America. It had cut North American production to about 30 percent of normal in May by idling factories for days or reducing workers' hours.
Some buyers of the new spacious "Prius a," or "Prius alpha," a revamp of the hit gasoline-electric hybrid, will have to wait until next year for deliveries.
That's because a key part, the lithium-ion battery, whose production was expected to be limited even before the disaster, will be even harder to keep making because of shortages, according to Toyota.
Japanese automakers are also facing another possible production problem in Japan — power shortages.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant was heavily damaged by the disasters and is being decommissioned. A second nuclear power plant, Hamaoka in central Japan, is being shut down while its tsunami defenses are strengthened. Many of Toyota's plants are in the region Hamaoka powers.
It is still unclear how serious the power shortage might be for Toyota because electricity will be transferred from other areas.
Japanese automakers are planning to make Thursday and Friday off-days and have employees work over the weekend, when power demands are lower, to avoid a power crunch and blackout rollouts during the peak use months of July, August and September.

source:  Yahoo