Free Republic

Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler's profits slumped by almost two-thirds in 2019 as the legal costs of the "dieselgate" scandal and heavy investments in electric technology took their toll. The German carmaker's net profit fell to €2.7bn (£2.3bn) for 2019, it announced on Tuesday, almost €5bn worse than the previous year's performance. It also slashed its dividend from €3.25 per share to only 90 cents to help preserve cash to plough into electric vehicle technology. Daimler is carrying out swingeing cuts to its global workforce as it tries to save more than €1bn in costs. In November it said it would cut...

A downturn in China's car market has wrong-footed some of the world's biggest automakers, saddling them with factories they no longer need and that are costly to retool, according to a report from the Dow Jones Newswires supplied to EFE on Tuesday. Ford Motor, Peugeot and Hyundai Motor especially mistimed recent expansions, opening new plants just as the seemingly unstoppable growth of China's auto market went into reverse.

The United Auto Workers union said Friday it was creating a chapter at the only factory within auto giant Daimler’s global manufacturing system where workers lack union representation. The local chapter aims to represent the 3,400 US employees at a Mercedes-Benz plant outside of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in the southern United States, and is being formed with help from German trade union IG Metal.“This is the formation of a local union that will become the bargaining agent for workers at this facility,” said Gary Casteel, UAW secretary treasurer and vice chairman of the Daimler workers committee. “This isn’t a petition for...

Updated at 7:31 p.m. ET: Ernesto Suarez, who organized the online petition calling for Mercedes Benz to withdraw the altered image of Che Guevara, says he welcomes the apology from Daimler AG, Mercedes' parent company. "I'm very satisfied with the reaction from Mercedes Benz," Suarez, a Cuban-American who lives in Kansas City, Mo., told msnbc.com Thursday evening. "I believe that they have done the right thing. "The victory, if there is one, is not mine, but belongs to the descendants of (Guevara's) victims (and) the survivors, to common sense and to civility," he said. Updated at 6:15 p.m. ET: In...