The Carlovers Magazine

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• Rail Car Shortage Delays Shipments of Domestic Vehicles
• Oil Prices Continue to Tumble
• Quake Has Cut 530,000 Units of Production in Japan
• Toyota to Cut Output in Europe
• Fiat Hikes Chrysler Stake to 30%
• U.S Trade Gap Narrowed 3%
• Opel Could Post A Profit This Year
• U.S. Budget Accord Includes Cuts to Auto Programs
• Visteon Hunts for Acquisitions
• GM Invests in New York Parts Plant

Rail Car Shortage Delays Shipments of Domestic Vehicles Posted: New vehicles made by Chrysler, Ford and General Motors are piling up in parking lots near their U.S. assembly plants as railroad companies scramble to find enough freight cars to transport them, according to today's Wall Street Journal. The newspaper says the shortage is delaying deliveries of new vehicles to dealers [...]

Oil Prices Continue to Tumble Posted: Crude oil futures traded as low as $105.62 per barrel yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange before settling at $106.25, down $3.67 for the day. Crude futures have fallen nearly 6% from last Friday's 30-month high. Goldman Sachs predicts a "substantial" correction in crude prices, which had surged nearly $16 [...]

Quake Has Cut 530,000 Units of Production in Japan Posted: Japan's seven largest carmakers have lost about 530,000 units of domestic output in the four weeks since the country's massive 11 March earthquake and tsunami, Automotive News estimates. The newspaper says losses over the past four weeks have totaled 260,000 at Toyota, 59,000 at Suzuki, 58,000 at Honda, 55,000 at Nissan, [...]

Toyota to Cut Output in Europe Posted: Toyota Motor Corp. says it will suspend operations at five plants in Europe for eight days in late April and early May because of shortages of Japan-made parts caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The move will affect assembly plants in England, France and Turkey and engine factories [...]

Fiat Hikes Chrysler Stake to 30% Posted: Fiat SpA boosted its equity holding in Chrysler Group LLC from 25% to 30% yesterday, as expected, by agreeing to sell Fiat-badged Chrysler vehicles through at least 90% of its dealers in Europe and Brazil. Fiat earned the additional equity from the U.S. Department of the Treasury under terms of Chrysler's [...]

U.S Trade Gap Narrowed 3% Posted: America's trade deficit shrank to $45.8 billion in February from a revised $47 billion in January as steep prices cut U.S. demand for imported oil 17% by volume, the Dept. of Commerce reports. Exports declined 1.4% to $165.1 billion, including a $1 billion drop in autos and parts shipped overseas. Imports [...]

Opel Could Post A Profit This Year Posted: Karl-Friedrich Stracke, who took over as CEO of Adam Opel GmbH  earlier this week, says the General Motors Co. unit may post a profit—excluding restructuring costs—in 2011. Stracke tells Bloomberg News that cost cutting and higher vehicle pricing already have enabled Opel to achieve breakeven this year. Opel reported a $1.8 [...]

U.S. Budget Accord Includes Cuts to Auto Programs Posted: The deal that the White House and Congress reached last weekend to cut $38 billion from the U.S. budget would reduce funding for two Dept. of Energy programs that aid the auto industry, The Detroit News reports. The budget slices $408 million from the DOE's $2.3 billion Energy Efficiency and Renewable [...]

Visteon Hunts for Acquisitions Posted: Visteon Corp. is "aggressively" seeking new acquisitions, CEO Donald Stebbins tells Automotive News. Stebbins says the company is interested in buying operations that would strengthen its four main product groups: lighting, interiors, electronics and climate systems. Visteon exited Chapter 11 last October. It posted a $1.1 billion profit in the fourth [...]

GM Invests in New York Parts Plant Posted: General Motors Co. says it will spend $100 million to retool a powertrain plant in Rochester, N.Y. The decision came after hourly workers there agreed to concessions to keep the company from closing the facility and moving the work out of the U.S. The United Auto Workers union wlll allow GM [...]

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