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Now it's not the North American market and it's not the Detroit manufacturers, but there are signs that things may be turning a corner in the automotive market. Nissan will raise production in Japan in March compared with this month after lowering vehicle inventory levels to match demand. Toyota has said domestic production (again, in Japan) will rise in May, compared with April, as it introduces new models including a revamped Prius hybrid...

There's always something interesting to see at an auto show. Consider the Rinspeed E2, a reworked version of the Fiat Abarth 500. In Highway mode, the E2 delivers a fat 160 horsepower while returning fuel economy of around 34 mpg...

You know the old adage about politicians and their moving lips, so take this Reuters story with a grain of salt I suppose. WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - An Obama administration task force is carefully analyzing restructuring plans of General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC, but bankruptcy is not the panel's goal for them, a U.S. senator said on Tuesday...

I'm not sure what's funnier, the story itself or the fact that the media has to reach this far. An enterprising reporter at The Detroit News.com has dug up who drives what on the Obama administration's auto team. Among the eight members named Friday to the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry and the 10 senior policy aides who will assist them in their work, two own American models...

Chrysler LLC may be sending a message to President Barack Obama’s autos task force by saying the “best option” for survival is a merger with General Motors Corp. that both sides have labeled dead. Chrysler, in talks with Fiat SpA on an alliance, said in its Feb...

Why was I not surprised when I read  the following on freep.com this morning? WASHINGTON -- Add together all the billions on the table and this number pops up on the calculator -- $97.4 billion. Advertisement That's what the U.S...

Nissan's new all-electric car to be sold starting late next year will have 100 miles of pure battery range, a Nissan North America planning director said. The thing that bothers me the most about electric vehicles is that proponents of EV's never seem to talk about about where the electricity to charge the cars is going to come from or how much it's going to cost. How much is adding the load of charging vehicles to the grid going to affect pricing of electricity?..

Tomorrow is the day that GM and Chrysler will submit cost-cutting plans that call for shedding thousands of jobs, closing plants, paring union benefits and cutting their debts. If differences between the UAW, bondholders, and automakers cannot be hashed out, bankruptcy looms. Even if things get ironed out, President Obama still has 6 weeks to decide whether the automakers will get to keep the bailout money or will be forcibly restructured...

Talks between the United Auto Workers and General Motors Corp central to a turnaround plan for the struggling automaker have broken down over the issue of retiree healthcare costs, a person briefed on the talks said on Saturday. UAW negotiators walked away from talks being held near GM's Detroit headquarters on Friday night because of differences over how to pay the health care costs of retirees, the person familiar with the talks said. We know the UAW doesn't want to make these concessions, but you'd think it would be better to negotiate the concessions rather than  have no control over them in the bankruptcy proceedings that seem to loom larger every day the UAW continues to think it still has the power...

It's hard to see sometimes, but there's always a light at the end of even the darkest tunnel. Auto industry executives are seeing signs that the nation's automobile industry is beginning to stabilize, after months of free-falling sales that have threatened the viability of some of the sector's biggest players. Jim Farley, Ford Motor Co.'s global marketing chief, said Wednesday that seasonally adjusted retail sales demand has held steady for the past four months...