Posted on 10/26/2008 6:12:06 AM PDT by jalisco555
BERLIN (AFP) – German carmaker Daimler, hit by falling demand amid the global financial crisis, plans to suspend production for a month beginning in December, a newspaper said in report due to appear Sunday. The break in production would begin on December 11 and last until January 12, Frankfurter Sonntagszeitung reported, citing a company spokesman.
Daimler, the first luxury car maker to present its quarterly results, unveiled big falls in profits on Thursday and issued a new profit warning owing to the global banking crisis.
"The financial crisis is turning into an economic crisis," Daimler chairman Dieter Zetsche told a telephone news conference. It provoked "in recent weeks a dramatic slump on our major markets," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
That's what I say to people who blame GM's downfall on the UAW. Every word of every line of every contract is approved by management. It's management's job to say no to unreasonable demands, even if it means taking a strike.
You can’t look only at he US market. For example, General Motors is highly profitable outside the US. The reason GM is near bankruptcy is due to North American operations. If I owned GM and wanted to turn the company around immediately, I would just suspend US operations, layoff all US employees, and laugh all the way to the bank.
I’m not advising that. I’m just trying to illustrate that US sales are not the entire picture. Look at GM’s explosive growth in China. I think GM thinks the Chinese market may ultimately saver them. BMWs may sell well in the USA but Daimler-Benz sells well overseas.
How anybody can read articles like this one and then maintain the ignorant belief that this is just a “normal correction” is beyond me.
From what I've read so far, the critics overwhelmingly like the new Fiesta, and the public seems to like them, too (sales have been very strong since the car started to reach showrooms earlier this month). As such, this means the Fiesta--if Ford does a successful job translating it for the US market--could have a huge hit on its hands in the USA.
In the meantime I’ve read that GM will be pushing back it’s intro of the Cruze- it’s next attempt to break into the small car segment- until 2011, instead of 2010 as previously announced in order to save money. That’s assuming that there will be a GM in 2011.
Although I think you're right it's also true that many of Daimler's problems are self-inflicted. They took a bath on Chrysler and dropped the ball on quality in their Mercedes brand. And the car market is merciless these days.
Who needs cars? We should all use mass transit, right? After all if it works for Manhattan and DC it should work for Montana and Wyoming.
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I have actually seen people on TV who believed that! Some have lived such a big city life, isolated from “fly-over country”, that they cannot imagine that in much of this country it is nearly impossible to live without a personally owned and driven vehicle.
Actually, GM would have delayed introduction of the Cruze if they had to keep production of the Chevrolet Cobalt side-by-side with the Cruze. But if they could get guarantees from the Federal government I wouldn’t be surprised that GM drops Cobalt production altogether in favor of the Cruze at its Lordstown, OH assembly line by 2010.
Everyone is all excited about it. I haven't been over that way lately, though. It's being built about 30 miles or so south of me. I'm not sure if they've broken ground yet. I've heard it will be 3 years before it'll be completed. The sad news lately is the Techumseh small engine plant here in Dunlap is closing at the end of the year for good. That means about 180 or so jobs gone. One of the other major employers, Seymour, a Japanese auto parts manufacturing plant, has cut down to 3 days a week and rumors are that they might be closing up, too. They only opened about 3 years ago. Looks like the next several years are going to be one rocky road......
Small engines are a tough racket. I heard Briggs and Stratton in Rolla, MO closed recently. Not helping are some new emissions rules coming down from EPA.
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