We’re not sure if this report should be filed in the Good News folder or the Bad. Harley-Davidson shares jumped an impressive six percent today to their highest level in more than four months. Why? Apparently, the increased activity was spurred by speculation of a possible takeover by private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.
We’re [...]
Tesla Model S – click above for high-res image gallery
For the first time in more than fifty years, a U.S. automaker is holding a public offering. Henry Ford made shares of Ford Motor Company public back in 1956. Tesla, the Elon Musk-owned Silicon Valley electric car company, filed to do so today. There’s no word [...]
No one likes to bandy on with clich??s, but in some cases avoiding a clich?? is to ignore a long history of facts and experience that brought it into existence. The clich?? we speak is the one about hurling good money after bad. After the government hosed down GMAC with another $3 billion, Uncle Sam’s [...]
The United Auto Workers is many things to many people. To some, it’s the reason why all of our manufacturing hasn’t been shipped over to China. To others, UAW added costs are the reason why American cars can’t compete with imports. Whatever your opinion, the facts are that the UAW is not nearly as strong [...]
One needn’t be an Autoblog regular to be aware of the fact that the car industry has taken quite a drubbing over the past few years. The slump in our nation’s economy has slaughtered sales, leading automakers to shutter thousands of dealerships nationwide. Chrysler Group LLC slashed 789 franchises in June of this year. General [...]
Renault has found a way to appease Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that didn’t involve writing a check for $850 million. The French company took a 25% stake in Russian carmaker Avtovaz, and when Avtovaz started having a hard time of it earlier this year Renault looked content to see how things turned out. Putin [...]
Tesla Roadster – Click above for high-res image gallery
Rumors about Tesla’s plan to go public have been circulating since 2008, but a down stock market seemed to put a damper on the start-up’s IPO. Now, the word on the street from Reuters is that Tesla is planning to go public “soon.” When might that be, [...]
Go to Frankfurt, get $82.5 million. That’s sort of what happened to Tesla Motors, which is at the big Frankfurt Motor Show this week and received an “opportunistic” equity investment in that amount from a group led by Fjord Capital Partners. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that his company was “not looking for money,” but [...]
Zipcar’s $1 billion ambition – Click above to watch the video after the break
How many cars do you think Zipcar owns around the world? Did you know it was 6,500? How big could Zipcar one day become? How about a $1 billion company?
These are two of the numbers mentioned in an interview that [...]
Bertone Mantide – Click above for a high-res image gallery
You could say that Fiat’s on a bit of a spending spree lately. While everyone else is struggling to trim expenditures and sell off divisions, Fiat’s been buying them up. So after moving in at Chrysler’s headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan, and making offers for GM’s [...]
Hertz Fun Collection Chevrolet Corvette ZHZ – click above to enlarge
The economy is in one of the deepest recessions in decades, and one pleasant side-effect of fiscal woes is that many companies are offering huge discounts to get you off the consumer sidelines. One industry that hasn’t gone that route so far is the rental [...]
Almost all the sales numbers are in for the month of February, and it appears the good and bad news has been spread fairly evenly across the industry. Ford Motor Company and the Chrysler Group received the brunt of bad news, with sales down 13.5% and 8%, respectively. In Ford’s defense, sales to rental fleets [...]
The UAW has been hearing a lot about how the 2007 labor talks will involve tough concessions. Ballooning health care costs and twice as many retirees as active employees result in a $1,500 per-vehicle disadvantage for the Detroit automakers — these are among the major factors cited for GM’s $10.6 BLN loss in 2005 and [...]
A report released by Bamp;D Forecast revealed that Porsche made more money per car it sold than any other manufacturer. Not only that, it’s reported profit of euro;21,799 per vehicle dwarfed that of second place BMW, which reportedly earns euro;2,475 per vehicle. When we first heard about this report, we thought something might not be [...]
After doubling production over 2005 totals, Spyker is reporting that it should show a profit for 2006. Although coming in just shy of its target of 100 vehicles, the 94 cars sold last year should be enough to get them in the black. The number of orders written has grown from 191 at the end [...]
