- GM recall becomes case study in how bad news gets to the CEO – Automotive News: GM CEO Mary Barra faced incredulity from Washington lawmakers over a deadly flaw that by GM’s account took more than a dozen years for the boss to hear about.
- Nader’s advice for Barra: Create an ombudsman for engineers – Automotive News: Consumer advocate Ralph Nader says General Motors CEO Mary Barra should create an independent ombudsman for engineers ‘who have been muzzled by their cost-concerned bosses.
- Stung by Ram win in March, Chevy further juices Silverado incentives – Automotive News: Within hours of a General Motors spokesman saying it was easy to ‘buy market share’ after the Ram pickup outsold the Chevrolet Silverado in March, GM opened its wallet to buy it back.
- GM will take $400M charge over Venezuela currency rate issue – DetN: General Motors Co. said Thursday it will take a $400 million pre-tax charge to its first-quarter earnings due to a currency exchange rate re-measurement in Venezuela. Special charges now are expected to top more than $1 billion for the three-month period.
- US: GM hires another outside crisis manager – paper – Just-auto: General Motors has hired an outside crisis manager, Jeff Eller, to deal with the company’s response over its ignition switch recall, The Wall Street Journal reported.
- New GM ignitions slowly trickle in; some dealers out of loaners – DetN: Fewer than 2 percent of ignition switches needed to fix 2.59 million recalled General Motors Co. cars will be available next week at dealerships — and dealers are unsure when and how many replacement parts they will get.
- GM hires crisis manager Jeff Eller: NYT – Reuters: General Motors has hired Jeff Eller as a crisis management adviser, the New York Times reported, as the automaker faces investigations over ignition switch defects linked to deadly crashes and mounting recalls.
- GM turns over 200,000 pages of recall records to feds – DetN: General Motors Co. said Thursday it was submitting more than 200,000 pages of records to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and answering almost 65 percent of the questions the agency asked.
- GM boosts truck discounts in April after sales lag Chrysler – Reuters: General Motors Co again boosted discounts on its full-size Chevrolet Silverado pickups after being outsold in March by Chrysler’s Ram 1500.
- GM Says Venezuela Exchange Rate Will Hurt Profit – WSJ: General Motors Co. expanded to $1.15 billion the amount of unexpected charges it will now take against its first-quarter results.
- Senate committee approves extending tax credits for Delphi retirees – DetN: The Senate Finance Committee on Thursday approved a series of tax provisions to extend breaks to encourage energy efficiency, economic development in struggling communities.
Other news:
- Datsun debuts in Russia – Nissan: Russian customers striving to own their first Japanese brand car got closer to that goal today with the launch of the Datsun brand and the introduction of the Datsun on-DO model. This marks the first time ever that the Datsun brand has been marketed in Russia.
- Mitsubishi Motors recalls Outlander plug-in hybrids for the third time – Reuters: Mitsubishi Motors Corp said it is recalling over 6,000 Outlander SUV plug-in hybrids in Japan because of three software programming glitches, in the model’s third recall since going on sale in January last year.
- TrueCar files plans to go public with stock – Automotive News: Online auto-shopping service TrueCar said today it has filed a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell shares in an initial public offering.
- Krafcik joins TrueCar board – Automotive News: John Krafcik, former CEO of Hyundai Motor America, has joined the board of directors of TrueCar. Krafcik, 52, will be a director and a member of the board’s operating committee.
- Report – Hybrid cars more fuel-efficient in India than in USA – Indian Autos Blog: Hybrid vehicles return a bigger saving on fuel in countries like China and India than in the US, a study confirms.
- Infiniti mulls Q50 Eau Rouge production as Vettel joins testing – Autocar: Infiniti bosses explore whether to make the V6-engined, F1-inspired concept car a production reality as F1 champion takes the wheel,
- Infiniti brings 560hp Q50 Eau Rouge prototype to life – Wards: Infiniti is pressing ahead with the evaluation of the Q50 Eau Rouge high-performance vehicle and will show footage of the testing of a prototype version, at the hands of Infiniti’s Director of Performance Sebastian Vettel.
- Unifor delays union vote at Toyota’s Canada plants – Automotive News: The union pushing to organize workers at Toyota’s Canadian plants said on Thursday it would delay a union vote after Toyota said some 7,500 employees would be eligible to join the unit, nearly 1,000 more than the union had believed.
- Ontario Toyota Motor Workers Delay Union Vote – WSJ: A planned vote by workers at two Toyota Motor Corp. plants in Ontario on whether to join Canada’s largest union was put on hold late Thursday.
- BMW Reveals All-New M4 Convertible – thedetroitbureau.com: BMW is about to add another new model to its rapidly expanding line-up of performance M cars. And, little surprise, the 2015 BMW M4 Convertible will have plenty in common with the coupe model, as well as the new BMW M3 Sedan. The Bavarian automaker is debuting the new model in New York. To see more, click on TheDetroitBureau.com.
- BMW M4 convertible revealed with 425bhp – updated with video – Autocar: Hot new performance-orientated 4-series convertible goes on sale in the UK this September, following New York debut. It will be priced from £60,730BMW’s new 425bhp M4 convertible has been revealed in a series of official photographs, ahead of a planned public premiere at the New York motor show later this month.
- U.S. launches distracted driving crackdown – DetN: The U.S. Transportation Department kicked off the first-ever national distracted driving awareness month, and will fund nationwide advertising and law enforcement on texting and other dangerous behavior behind the wheel.
Sales:
- SOUTH KOREA: Korean domestic sales up 3% in March, global sales rise 8% – Just-auto: Domestic sales among South Korea’s five main automakers increased by 2.7% to 121,416 vehicles in March, from 118,212 units a year earlier, according to data released by the country’s mainstream vehicle manufacturers.
- UK car sales zoom to decade high – FT: Demand shows no signs of decelerating, standing out in an otherwise depressed European market as it records 25 months of consecutive increases
- New car sales hit highest level for a decade – Autocar: A total of 464,824 new cars were registered in March, the biggest single sales month since March 2004
- UK: Bentley Q1 sales up 17% – Just-auto: Volkswagen group’s Bentley saw first quarter sales rise 17% year on year to 2,580 cars.
- GERMANY: March marks Mercedes milestone – Just-auto: Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz said March 2014 was the best month in the company’s history as it boosted sales 13.3% year on year to 158,523 vehicles.
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