Free Republic

Incentives: Doubling down on industrial policy failure, the administration decides to bump up the taxpayer subsidy for Government Motors' touted electric car. Who said its range wasn't enough to drive us to the poor house? Tucked away in the recesses of President Obama's 2013 budget, a budget that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he will not bring to the Senate floor, is a nugget that speaks volumes about the troubles we're in: While delaying the Keystone XL pipeline, the administration plans to increase the subsidy for the Chevy Volt and other "new technology" vehicles to $10,000 per car. "We...

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping praised the partnership with GM and China yesterday, congratulating the auto company for returning to its position as the number one automaker in the world in 2011. "Here I wish to congratulate General Motors for becoming world champion in car sales last year," Jinping said, hailing cooperation between the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) and GM. "For two consecutive years, GM sales in China has exceeded its sales in the States," he added.

If you’ve learned anything from Super Bowl XLVI so far, it’s that driving a Ford will get you killed when the apocalypse comes. Unsurprisingly, this spot from Chevy is already generating the most controversy. In it, a man drives through a post-apocalyptic landscape and finds the only survivors are fellow Chevy drivers. Their friend, sadly, drove a Ford and is dead.

Washington - Lest anyone doubt his solidarity with the American blue-collar worker, President Obama left the office Tuesday afternoon and spent some quality time with a Camaro. He never cranked up the stereo and took it for a spin, of course, but rather admired it on the showroom floor of the Washington Auto Show. But the photo op with the classic American muscle car gave Obama the chance to brag that the 2009 bailout he pushed through Congress ended up saving the big automakers. “The U.S. auto industry is back!” Obama declared. Cars are becoming a regular talking point for...

On Thursday, General Motors announced an alert system under development that would instruct the Chevy Volt to charge only when a relatively high percentage of renewable energy was available. Being plugged in at those times would further minimize the carbon footprint of the plug-in hybrid. When a substantial percentage of the energy transmitted to the grid came from a renewable source like wind power, OnStar would receive a signal from P.J.M. Interconnection, a company that manages the electric-power transmission grid for numerous utility companies. The telematics system would then cue the vehicle to begin charging. “This demonstration shows that in...

- Some Chevrolet dealers are turning down Volts that General Motors wants to ship to them, a potential stumbling block as GM looks to accelerate sales of the plug-in hybrid. For example, consider the New York City market. Last month, GM allocated 104 Volts to 14 dealerships in the area, according to a person familiar with the matter. Dealers took just 31 of them, the lowest take rate for any Chevy model in that market last month. That group of dealers ordered more than 90 percent of the other vehicles they were eligible to take, the source said. In Clovis,...

With NHTSA's closure of the investigation into the Chevy Volt, General Motors is now trying to rebuild the plug-in hybrid's image . But a new stumbling block has appeared on the road to higher sales — dealers turning down Volts from GM. General Motors sold only 7,671 Volts in the United States in 2011, well short of its 10,000-unit target for the first year. GM spokespeople have attributed weakness in demand to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's investigation into the risk of fires in the car's battery pack. But I'm not entirely certain that can all be blamed...

Less than two years after emerging from bankruptcy,General Motors Co.has regained the title of the world's largest automaker. GM's worldwide sales rose 7.6% to 9 million vehicles in 2011. The Detroit manufacturer last held the top spot in 2007 before it was surpassed byToyota Motor Corp.the next year. Chevrolet, GM's flagship brand, set a record by selling nearly 4.8 million vehicles. That was more than what many entire auto companies posted in sales last year, including Nissan and Honda. "It is an accomplishment that GM has been able to reverse the tide in the U.S. and Asia, and they are...

General Motors Co will cut production of its Chevrolet Volt if sales of the plug-in hybrid fall short of estimates in the first half of the year, GM vice chairman Steve Girsky said on Tuesday.

As long as government remains in the position to attempt to pick winners and losers in the free market, they can apparently claim a 50% success rate. They don’t score too well in the category of picking winners (see Solyndra, etc.) but they do a bang up job in picking losers. As Seton Motley informs us, GM is racking up all sorts of awards this year. General Motors stock (NYSE: GM) finished 2011 down 46.1% – the absolute worst car or car-related product stock on the board. Besting (so to speak) the second worst by 4.5%.And GM’s unprofitable, unpopular, combustible...

Green Policy: A think tank crunches the subsidy and bailout dollars and puts the true cost of Government Motors' electric car at a cool quarter-million. And the few sold have been largely bought by the 1%. At a time when Democrats are blaming the GOP for blocking a payroll tax cut deal that will add $40 in the average paycheck, they have no problem taking that worker's tax dollars to make and subsidize what we once called an electric Edsel bought by a precious few with an average income of $170,000. "Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as...

In an unprecedented move, General Motors will lend Chevrolet Volt owners another GM vehicle for free until the automaker resolves a federal probe over three fires in Volt battery packs. Following Friday’s announcement by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it was opening a formal defect probe into the plug-in hybrid Volt, GM told reporters today it was standing behind the car and would do everything it could to ease any owners’ concerns — including borrowing a non-electric set of wheels. No other automaker has ever handed out free loaners simply because of a defect investigation which may or...

There are some ideas that, no matter how often they rise and how spectacularly they fail, just won't go away. Perpetual motion machines, for example. Passive exercise machines. Diets that work. These technologies sound great in theory, but don't seem to pan out in practice. Add to the list, electric (or largely electric) cars. People who have looked into the history of automobiles have noted that while electric cars have never managed to rival internal combustion cars for their performance, comfort, reliability, or customer-attractiveness, they persist in inspiring a small segment of the public. And would-be social engineers have always...

The federal government has lost another 72 million of your tax dollars. Here we go again. The feds have gambled with your money again, and they've lost it again; this time with a company called Beacon Power. You've probably never heard of this company. Candidly, before the announcement of its bankruptcy filing this week, neither had I. Just as you probably had never heard of Solyndra before its bankruptcy, neither had I. But your government has heard of both. Solyndra and Beacon received loans the government guaranteed -- $535 million and $72 million respectively. In each case, your tax dollars...

The White House’s green technology revolution is sitting in an auto lot in Butler, Pa., and nobody is buying. “Nobody comes in to ask, nobody comes in to look … The American people are smarter than the government — they’re not buying that car,” said Republican Rep. Mike Kelly, who owns the auto lot where one of General Motors’ combined electric-and-gasoline powered Volt autos sits unwanted, unsold and unused. The Chevy Volt would cost its buyer almost $40,000 — even after a $7,500 federal check — and that’s more than twice the price of a comparable Chevy Cruze, Kelly told...

In addition to being a representative from Pennsylvania, Republican Mike Kelly is also a Chevrolet dealer whose family has sold Chevys since 1953. But in recent hearings on government fuel economy ratings, he laid into his brand’s green halo car, the Chevy Volt with surprising zeal. Or, not-so-surprising, when you realize that he decided to run for congress in the wake of the bailout-era dealer cull. I’m a Chevrolet dealer… we have a Chevy Volt on the lot, it’s been there now for four weeks. We’ve had one person come in to look at it, just to see what it...

A new book chronicling the financial collapse of General Motors and Chrysler in 2008 reveals new details about just how desperate the situation was for the giants of the automobile industry. New York Times reporter Bill Vlasic's new book, "Once Upon A Car," relates the fiscal turmoil facing General Motors in the months leading up to the financial collapse.

Federal bailout funding may have prevented General Motors from going through a normal bankruptcy process, but it has come at a significant price in terms of reputation and potential buyers. Fifty percent (50%) of American adults are less likely to buy a GM car because of the bailout. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds just four percent (4%) are more likely to buy from the company that critics refer to as Government Motors. Forty-two percent (42%) say the bailout has had no impact on their buying plans one way or the other. The flip side of the data...

General Motor’s India arm and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation will develop common vendor base and go for cross-shipping of vehicles. US-based auto company General Motors India (GM) is increasingly looking at synergising operations with Chinese partner Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) to avail cost benefits and sustain operations profitably in two of the world’s fastest growing automobile markets. The alliance, a 50:50 joint venture, is looking at developing a common vendor base in India, to supply components to manufacturing units in China. Cross-shipping of vehicles may also be considered later. “There are opportunities to synergise our operations further. The vehicles...

General Motors Co and its Chinese partner SAIC Motor Corp signed an agreement on Tuesday to develop and build electric vehicles in the world's largest auto market. The agreement finalizes a nonbinding memorandum on cooperation for green-vehicle development SAIC and GM signed last November. At the time, SAIC agreed to buy a 1 percent stake in GM through an initial public offering held to make GM a public company again and cut the U.S. Treasury's stake in the company. The Shanghai GM joint venture builds Chevy, Buick and Cadillac vehicles in China.

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co is recalling 16,198 Chevrolet Impala and Buick LaCrosse cars in the United States and Canada to address sensor and power steering problems, the automaker said on Friday. [Snip] GM is recalling 11,905 2012 Impalas to inspect for proper installation of the power steering hose. The company said the hose, if misrouted, could be damaged and spray fluid onto hot engine parts to create a potential for a fire. [Snip] GM also said it is recalling 4,293 2012 LaCrosses to reprogram the electronic brake control module because an incorrect calibration may cause the electronic stability...

To help American carmakers stay in business, autoworkers grudgingly gave up pay raises and some benefits four years ago. Now that General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are making money again, workers want compensation for their sacrifice. Just how much they get is the central question hanging over contract talks that start this week between Detroit and one of the nation's largest and most powerful unions. The negotiations, the first since Chrysler and GM took government aid and emerged from bankruptcy, will set wages and benefits for 111,000 members of the United Auto Workers, including those at Ford, which avoided bankruptcy...

Continuing a campaign initiated by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) addressed the Telematics Detroit 2011 conference with harsh words on the growing trend to integrate infotainment technology into cars. David Strickland told those assembled, “I’m just putting everyone on notice. A car is not a mobile device. I’m not in the business of helping people tweet better. I’m not in the business of helping people post on Facebook better.” That’s not to say that the NHTSA and DOT are opposed to all telematics applications. In fact, the agencies support systems...

Are GM sales in the tank?? Is GM in big trouble?? I walked by a GM dealership today. A few months ago I had been checking out a Chevy Volt, and the dealership seemed a bit odd, but basically OK in appearance. Now the dealership site is a mess. Evidently the lot went from being a new Chevy-GM dealership to a generic warranty pre-owned car lot. There still is one Chevy Volt there. There are many pre-owned GM cars there along with the usual sprinkling of non GM used cars that one would normally expect. What caught my eye is...

"Republican" CEO admits taxpayers may lose $12B USD on bailout It was almost two years ago this month that General Motors Comp. (GM) became the largest bankruptcy in U.S history and the largest nationalization. Taxpayer money was spent restructuring the company, removing unprofitable segments. The approach worked. The company has since been profitable and enjoyed a successful initial public offering of stock. The only real issue for the company has been leadership turnover. The company has seen string of CEOs come and go -- Rick Wagoner, Fritz Henderson, and, most recently, Ed Whitacre. I. GasTaxes++ The current CEO, Dan Akerson...

"Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Mao Zedong and Chevrolet." That could be GM's new slogan if recent comments by CEO Dan Akerson are taken to heart. Akerson shared a somewhat bizarre vision for GM in an interview with the Detroit News when he stated, "Whoever comes after me; it's going to be a more important appointment than mine because he or she will have to carry on a cultural revolution here. It's just like the Communist Party in China in the 1960s, there has to be a cultural revolution here." These comments come just weeks after the Washington Times...

Detroit — General Motors Co. CEO Dan Akerson wants the federal gas tax boosted as much as $1 a gallon to nudge consumers toward more fuel-efficient cars, and he's confident the government will soon shed its remaining 26 percent stake in the once-bankrupt automaker. "I actually think the government will be out this year — within the next 12 months, hopefully within the next six months," Akerson said in a two-hour interview with The Detroit News last week. He is grateful for the government's rescue of GM — "I have nothing but good things to say about them" — but...

the company’s increasing dependence on the still-Communist-ruled state for new sales can create some discomfiting moments. One of them will come on June 15, when a new “documentary” whose English title translates to The Birth of a Party, will premiere in China – with sponsorship by GM China, which is GM’s Shanghai-based automotive joint venture. China may have become a bare-knuckled capitalist giant, but the Communist Party in charge believed it was time to produce a propaganda film celebrating the 90th anniversary of the nation’s rebirth as a socialist political entity. Now, it’s one thing for GM to have accepted...

In late 2010, General Motors agreed to sponsor a propaganda film celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). ... set to premiere all over the Communist nation on June 15 ... The auto website adds: "According to an announcement posted on Shanghai GM’s official web site yesterday, whose title reads "joining hands with China Film Group, Cadillac whole-heartedly supports the making of the Birth of a Party..." The report goes further: "As the CCP marries totalitarianism with capitalism and fools the people with entertainment, only the "politically correct" or stupid–or those who pretend to be so–can get...

And so we get another example of government efficiency at work. The still taxpayer funded General Motors has just announced it will spend $109 million to keep and add 96 jobs. This amounts to $1.135 million per employee.

TOKYO (AP) — Toyota Motor Corp., which is likely to lose its spot as the world's No. 1 automaker to General Motors Co. later this year, reports its fiscal fourth quarter results Wednesday. WHAT TO WATCH FOR: Toyota's production capacity was sorely hurt by a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11. The twin disasters nearly washed away Japan's northeastern coast, home to a network of key auto-parts suppliers. The maker of the Camry sedan and Prius hybrid overtook GM as the world's biggest automaker in 2008, a distinction that the American car manufacturer had held since 1932....

Here is how the genius of Obama Incorporated works: Fire the head honcho because Obama knows best and knows the direction that this company and all companies should take, pump $50 billion dollars into GM and keep promising America that it will all pan out and that this "investment" will be good for America. Next, toss the company under the bus when it looks like things will never turn around so that this issue of GM being a bust will not be raised in 2012. Finally, sell low at around $29 dollars a share. IOW, retreat and declare victory, even...

~ EXCERPT ~ The U.S. government plans to sell a significant share of its remaining stake in General Motors Co. this summer despite the disappointing performance of the auto maker's stock, people familiar with the matter said. A sale within the next several months would almost certainly mean U.S. taxpayers will take a loss on their $50 billion rescue of the Detroit auto maker in 2009. To break even, the U.S. Treasury would need to sell its remaining stake—about 500 million shares—at $53 apiece. GM closed off 27 cents a share at $29.97 in 4 p.m. trading Monday on the...

David H Relkin, Esq. is out to make his name by bringing an action against George Soros and Donald Trump, Deutsche Bank and more than a dozen others claiming USD4.2 milliard in damages based on a civil court case alleging "Money Laundering, Bankruptcy Fraud, and Bid Rigging (sic)" arising out of a deal relating to "The General Motors Building in New York City." In a long press release published in the USA yesterday, Relkin says he acts for plaintiff Leslie Dick Worldwide Ltd. The release purports to quote from filed Court papers in which the plaintiff claims that the actions...

Imagine turning your car’s steering wheel, or giving it a gentle tug, and having it break away from the steering column. Now you’re speeding along holding the suddenly useless wheel. It sounds like a vision from a cartoon, or every driver’s nightmare. And it happened to at least one driver of a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze compact car last month, and General Motors Corp. is recalling 2,100 of the cars as a result. While the recall affects a relatively small number of vehicles, it is an unpleasant development for Chevrolet, which has been riding high on the success of its new...

General Motors Co. on Monday is halting some production and temporarily laying off workers at a Buffalo, N.Y., engine plant. ... GM spokeswoman Kim Carpenter Carpenter said Tonawanda has the parts it needs to make the engines, but it's not producing the engines because Shreveport doesn't need them. She said GM doesn't know when production will resume at either plant.

Although Government Motors proudly claims to have paid back all of the TARP funds sunk into the company by George Bush and Barack Obama, Sen. Chuck Grassley has already pointed out that they only paid back their loans using OTHER bailout money. Back in April of 2010 we learned: Sen. Chuck Grassley’s charge was backed up by the inspector general for the bailout — also known as the Trouble Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Watchdog Neil Barofsky told Fox News, as well as the Senate Finance Committee, that General Motors used bailout money to pay back the federal government. “It...

General Motors...will pay more than $189-million in profit-sharing to 48,000 hourly workers and millions more in performance bonuses for salaried employees ... The company needed a $49.5-billion government bailout to survive a 2009 bankruptcy.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara's famous beret is gone. His iconic beard is filthy and matted against skeletal cheekbones. One bushy eyebrow arches over his half-open eyes. As a Bolivian country surgeon methodically saws off his lifeless hands, Che appears vaguely amused. Gustavo Villoldo, a stocky figure in green army fatigues, stands just inside the tiny laundry room where the Cuban revolutionary's corpse rests atop a sink. For five months, the CIA operative has led soldiers hunting Guevara through the rough crags and valleys of southern Bolivia. Less than 24 hours ago, his team had captured and executed him in a village...

MEXICO CITY — US giant General Motors will invest $540 million to produce two low-emission motors in central Mexico, the company announced here Thursday, accompanied by President Felipe Calderon. The latest project for GM in Mexico would create 500 direct and another 500 indirect jobs in its plant in Toluca, Calderon said. GM has four plants in Mexico, and has invested some $5 billion here since 2006, Calderon said.

Further evidence that General Motors (GM) has made significant gains in rebuilding its business emerged Monday: Its long-anticipated Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric hybrid hatchback was named North American Car of the Year at the Detroit auto show. The Volt was joined by Ford Motor's (F) Explorer midsize sports-utility vehicle, which took the North American Truck of the Year honor. After about a 20-year run largely unchanged, the Explorer was redesigned for the 2011 model year, making it more car-like and fuel-efficient. Both vehicles went on sale in December. The Volt's selection for the Car of the Year award wasn't much...

The luxury automobile maker, Cadillac has noted the potential of small cars and has now come out with a concept car for urban driving. It will still be a spewing with luxury from all angles, including scissor doors and a very spacious cabin. Which brings me to one very troublesome fact - the small Cadillac isn’t very small. In fact it is only a couple of inches shorter than a sedan! As far as specifications go, the small Cadillac, Urban Luxury, will have a 1.0 litre petrol engine with 3 cylinders and an electric motor. It will be equipped with...

General Motors Co. is recalling almost 100,000 vehicles to fix two problems that could cause the rear axle to lock and the passenger-side airbag not to work.

GM's recent public offering has been touted as a huge success by the administration. The president announced that the tough decisions made during his administration were beginning to pay off. He also indicated that the "American taxpayers are now positioned to recover more than my administration invested in GM, and that's a good thing." In analyzing the use of proceeds of the two securities offered by GM (GM), the common stock and the mandatory convertible preferred stock, it is interesting to note that the company will not receive any funds from the offerings and, in fact, will deplete its current...

Even if they aren't always terribly accurate, EPA fuel economy estimates have at least made it easy to compare the gas mileage of one car to another. But now that plug-in cars are entering the market, things are about to get much more complicated. How do you compare the fuel efficiency of a car that runs on gasoline to one that plugs into an outlet? ... Q: So what's the fuel economy for the Chevrolet Volt? The question is, which fuel economy are you talking about? The Volt gets 93 MPGe when running on plug-in electric power. The EPA estimates...

General Motors says it will hire 1,000 engineers and researchers in Michigan during the next two years to work on the development of new electric vehicles. The car maker says its plans include vehicles ranging from hybrids to electric models with extended-range capability, such as the Chevrolet Volt that is to go on sale shortly.(Snip)“We have to stay invested in this technology because we’re not sure where it’s going to go,” he said.

The automaker plans to announce Monday that Cadillac will sponsor the World Golf Championship in Doral, Fla... GM also is working to bring a PGA Tour stop back to Michigan... The company shed much of its debt and ...

General Motors Co.'s recent stock offering was staged to start paying back the government for its $50 billion bailout, but one group made out much better than the taxpayers or other investors: the company's union. Thanks to a generous share of GM stock obtained in the company's 2009 bankruptcy settlement, the United Auto Workers is well on its way to recouping the billions of dollars GM owed it — putting it far ahead of taxpayers who have recouped only about 30 percent of their investment and further still ahead of investors in the old GM who have received nothing. The...

In November 2010, GM sold stock in a public offering. At the same time, the President announced that the tough decisions made during his administration were beginning to pay off. He also indicated that the “American taxpayers are now positioned to recover more than my administration invested in GM, and that's a good thing” I do not know whether to be amazed or appalled. First, contrary to popular administration folklore, GM did not survive bankruptcy. The name did but that is all that happened. A new company acquired the name and assets of GM and is now the company being...

Failure is supposed to be a fact of life in business. And although it gets scant appreciation these days, failure has its virtues. Like ecosystems, industries undergo cycles of loss and renewal that make them stronger in the long run, promoting efficient practices that meet the challenges of the future. We have a robust mechanism for dealing with failed companies and moving that cycle along: bankruptcy. Instead of following the law that applies to less-favored companies, the government intervened in GM's bankruptcy and went on to pick winners and losers: GM bondholders, for instance, probably would have gotten a better...