There’s corporate silliness. And then there’s what happened at Chevy, er, Chevrolet this week. Chevrolet sales vice president Alan Batey and marketing vice president Jim Campbell sent a memo to employees asking that they talk about the brand as Chevrolet, not its shortened nickname Chevy, according to a New York Times report. They want the brand to be consistent, especially since General Motors is trying to push Chevrolet in global markets where some people may not know it as Chevy. The story took on a life of its own, with some observers thinking that Chevrolet way trying to ban the use of the nickname “Chevy.”
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It seems like Chinese workers want a bigger piece of the economic pie. The recent strike at a Honda transmission factory ended with workers getting 24 percent wage hikes. But don’t expect U.S. auto workers to start winning back work from China. The more likely beneficiaries are in Mexico. The rising wages in Chinese auto plants just about match the $7 an hour all-in cost, including benefits, in Mexican plants, says Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. If you add in the $1,200 to $2,000 per-car cost to ship vehicles across the Pacific, ‘Ole Mexico looks better all the time. Shipping auto parts is cheaper than sending a whole cars across the ocean, but you get the idea.
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Nissan Motor Co. CEO Carlos Ghosn made the rounds in the U.S. the last two days pumping up his electric-car plans. He said the automaker and its global partner, French carmaker Renault SA, will be able to build 500,000 electric cars a year by 2014. To back up his bold plan, he announced a $1.7 billion investment in a lithium-ion battery plant in Smyrna, Tenn. All told, Nissan is dropping $5 billion from 2007 to 2012 for its ambitious play to be the leader in electric cars. The U.S. government loaned Nissan $1.4 billion of the cash for the battery plant. So in essence, we all have a piece of his gamble.
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Surprise, surprise. After all of the nattering by Congressional Republicans and the anti-bailout crowd, General Motors’ image got a nice bump from the April 21 announcement that the company paid off its government loans. Recall that last month GM said they paid off $8.4 billion in loans to the U.S. Treasury and governments of Ontario and Canada. Then Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre touted the early payoff in some nationally-televised ads.
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Surprise, surprise. After all of the nattering by Congressional Republicans and the anti-bailout crowd, General Motors’ image got a nice bump from the April 21 announcement that the company paid off its government loans. Recall that last month GM said they paid off $8.4 billion in loans to the U.S. Treasury and governments of Ontario and Canada. Then Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre touted the early payoff in some nationally-televised ads.
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Youd think that General Motors Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre, who built AT&T with $200 billion worth of deals, would be a savvy poker player. Well, judging from the grousing over his recent television ad, in which he talks about paying off the governments loans ahead of schedule, he may have overplayed his hand. Yes, GM paid off $8.4 billion in loans to the U.S. Treasury and the governments of Ontario and Canada about five years early. But crowing about it in a television commercial has generated some controversy.
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Youd think that General Motors Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre, who built AT&T with $200 billion worth of deals, would be a savvy poker player. Well, judging from the grousing over his recent television ad, in which he talks about paying off the governments loans ahead of schedule, he may have overplayed his hand. Yes, GM paid off $8.4 billion in loans to the U.S. Treasury and the governments of Ontario and Canada about five years early. But crowing about it in a television commercial has generated some controversy.
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Well, I havent heard too many people say this since the late 70s: American cars are better than Asian cars. No, really. Associated Press and GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media conducted a survey of 1,000 adults in early March. The results showed that 38% of Americans said that they think American cars are the best-made vehicles and 33% said Asian cars are the best. The same survey done in December 2006 showed that 46% of Americans thought that Asian cars were the best and just 29% favored American cars.
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