For the 8th year in a row, Ford Motors has kept in step with the consistent Japanese car manufacturers as far as brand quality is concerned. While many would think that Ford would have dropped due to the impending crisis and of course the celebrated “Bailout” issue, Ford is still up there with its Ford and Mercury brands.

Ford is in a statistical tie with Japanese car brands based on a study by J.D. Power and Associates. Overall the Ford brand improved by 10 points since last year’s study.

“It is gratifying to see our commitment to quality paying off,” said Bennie Fowler, Ford group vice president, Global Quality. “Ford has demonstrated consistent and continuous quality improvement. We’re now tied with the best of the Japanese automakers and we won’t be satisfied until Ford is the industry’s global quality leader.”

Among the cars that have contributed to Ford’s success included the Ford F-150, Mustang, Edge and Mercury Sable. But as far as Ford is concerned, that achievement is nothing. The goal, like any other car company to date, is to be the global leader in the car industry.

(Source) Press

Tags: bailout, brand quality, car brands, car industry, ford f 150, ford group, ford motors, impending crisis, industry source, j d power and associates, japanese automakers, japanese car, mercury sable, quality ford

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It was recently announced that the US government is, yet again, stepping in to help a US automaker from ceasing to exist. The latest news surrounds Chrysler who apparently has $6.9 billion worth of debt owned by banks like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase.

To make a long story short, the US Treasury is in talks with the creditors behind that debt to cancel it in exchange for $2 billion in cash.

Now this may not seem like a very good deal, but with the state of the economy and the seemingly grim future for Chrysler, this may be in the creditors best interest.

Read (NewYorkTimes)

Tags: bailout, debt, government, treasury department, US

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The German government is reportedly ready to bailout General Motor Euprope’s Opel with a whopping five billion euros to shore up the company and as a last resort take a temporary stake of no more than 20 percent.

The rescue plan was required by German authorities before any public aid could be granted to Opel, which has been hit by a global auto slump and massive financial problems at its troubled US parent General Motors.

GM employs around 55,000 workers in Europe, including almost 26,000 at Opel.

Opel would repay any state aid by 2014-2015, he said.

(Source) Asia One Motoring

Tags: bailout, Europe, five billion, General Motors, german government, Germany, global auto, GM, Opel

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Similar to other car companies that have been feeling the pinch of the economic downturn, Aston Martin is the latest casualty to give in to hard times as it has reduced factory operations to three days in a week.

The employees’ hours will be “banked” and claimed back by the firm later. The firm, which announced 600 redundancies in December, said it had consulted unions over the move. Three hundred employees have already left and it is in the final stages of consultation over the remaining 300.

The move comes as the government announced a potential £2.3bn tax payer bailout for the industry, which has been badly hit by the recession.

(Source) BBC

Tags: Aston Martin, bailout, car companies, economic downturn, recession, redundancies

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Similar to the setup of Ford in the much celebrated big three auto bailout, Jaguar Land Rover of Britain announced that they do not need government bailout. Rather, like Ford, they would need credit flowing again either from direct lending or state-backed loans.

The company, part of India’s Tata Motors , axed 450 jobs last week due to falling demand.

“We are clearly in very difficult times, in difficult trading conditions,” Chief Executive David Smith told Sky News.

Smith said he would also like the government to consider short-term funding to subsidise layoffs similar to those being requested in the Netherlands by Tata’s Anglo-Dutch steel production unit Corus .

Tata bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford in June last year for about $2.3 billion (S$3.4 billion). The company has four sites in the West Midlands region and one at Halewood, northwest England.

(Source) Asiaone Motoring

Tags: bailout, jaguar, Land Rover, landrover, layoffs, tata motors

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If you were in the shoes of Chrysler which months back declared that they may not have enough money to keep the company up, obtaining a bailout would include spending the funds wisely. However, it does not include spending part of it on a full-newspaper ad which is bound to cost them thousands to even millions as well.

Such a move gained the ire of most taxpayers. Though the intent was obviously to show gratification, it was something that shed a different light on the subject. Rather than spend on ads, why not offset the actual problems that contributed towards their downfall in the first place.

“It’s quite ridiculous to be spending that kind of money,” said Princella Smith, national spokeswoman for American Solutions, an organization headed by former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “Those ads are just a precise example of the fact that they do not get it … and it’s just in our faces.”

This is definitely a move in the wrong direction and not a great way to make use of hard-earned taxpayers money.

Source

Tags: bailout, Chrysler, enough money, gratification, house speaker newt gingrich, light on the subject, newspaper ad, taxpayers

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