Porsche Ponders Future of Its Electric Concepts On Wednesday, July 28, Porsche announced that the 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid concept will go to a production model and that a field test program is being developed for three battery-powered versions of the popular Boxster .
Volt and Leaf set to Compete this Fall In October, the Chevrolet Volt will debut for $41,000 plus shipping, while Nissan will offer its Leaf in December for $32,780. Buyers of either will qualify for a federal tax credit of $7,500, but General Motors insists the higher-priced Volt comes with greater peace of mind.
GM Rumored to File IPO Registration in August Reuters reports that General Motors Co. will file registration papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public stock offering at some point during the week of August 16, most likely in the wake of the publication of its second quarter earnings figures.
Chrysler Financial Rumored to Be Returning to Lending According to a report by Bloomberg, Chrysler Financial Co. could soon begin offering loans to consumers and dealers again after losing its status as the primary lender to Chrysler dealers last year at the height of the crisis in the automotive industry.
Mercury Production to Be Ended by Early October Out of a desire to shutter Mercury and its dealer network by December 31, the Ford Motor Co. will begin the process of winding down production of the 71-year-old brand in late September and early October.
Intel Developing Automotive Black BoxIn the wake of recalls like Toyota's recent issues with unintended acceleration, tech companies like Intel are hard at work on "black box" data recorders for automobiles, a safety measure backed by many members of Congress.
Toyota Increases Development Time to Address Quality Toyota Motor Corp. has announced it will extend its development time for vehicles by approximately a month in an effort to ensure consistently high levels of quality and to avoid the kind of disastrous recalls that have plagued the company's public relations and damaged consumer confidence over the last few months.
Sales of GM Premium Cars in Brazil Growing Quickly As General Motors continues to climb back to profitability and contemplates its initial public stock offering as early as August, the company predicts Brazil will become one of its most important overseas markets by 2014.
BMW Envisions Future Mega City Car In anticipation of the emergence of the massive cities of the future, engineers and designers at BMW are at work on an urban electric car, the Mega City Vehicle or MCV, with a planned introduction date of 2013.
Modest Auto Sales Numbers Point to Sluggish Recovery Although light vehicle sales for June increased by 14 percent, the numbers represented the smallest gains of the year for automakers, indicating flagging consumer confidence and renewed concerns that the economic slump in the United States is far from over.
