General Motors has released a teaser picture of the 2010 Buick LaCrosse sedan on late Monday. However, the automaker confirmed that the new sedan would make its world debut at the upcoming Los Angeles Auto Show in November.

The teaser image reveals the logo and a portion of the grill of the car. The Buick LaCrosse is the smallest of all Buick sedans, which resembles the design of the Buick Invicta. GM vice chairman Bob Lutz said that the LaCrosse will use the FWD Delta II platform.

The production of the LaCrosse is expected to start at GM’s Fairfax plant in Kansas, in early 2009. The crossover vehicle will be a global car, which will also build in China with GM’s local partner, Shanghai Auto. (more…)

In an effort to boost the residual values of used cars, General Motor Corp. plans to add new warranty coverage to its used vehicles. The automaker will provide a fully transferable 12-month/12-mile ‘bumper to bumper’ warranty from the time of purchase with no deductible on all GM Certified Used Vehicles and Saturn Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles sold in the United States, announced the company.

The company believes that the new program will help expand sales of its used cars, while at the same time improving residual values. Reportedly GMAC the finance arm of GM has faced major losses in recent months due to plummeting residual values of its leased vehicles, caused by high oil prices, weak economy and shifting consumer preference towards smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. (more…)

Honda Motor Co. is all set to launch the 2009 Honda Fit that will hit the automaker’s dealers on August 26, 2008. Earlier, it was slated to launch on October 1.

The automaker decided to bump up the launch of the subcompact car, as the company is practically sold out of the 2008 model.

“We basically increased supply as much as we could to meet demand, and we were still going to be sold out of the 2008 model,” said Honda spokesman Chris Martin. “We had to do something so that our dealers would not be without the small cars that buyers are seeking,” he added. (more…)

In order to reduce the number of new car quality complaints, Nissan Motor Co. is increasing the number of its quality control inspectors and engineers.

The Japanese automaker has set the goal of cutting the quality complaints by half on new cars by 2012. Therefore, the company is putting the responsibility for quality improvements in the hands of 5,300 people.

According to the automaker’s spokesman, Pauline Kee “Quality commitment is one of the three commitments in our GT2012 business plan, and Nissan is putting in a lot of focus and effort to meet our commitments.” (more…)

Trevor Creed, the Senior Vice President- Design at Chrysler LLC, is retiring from the Auburn Hills, Michigan-based automaker on August 31, 2008, the company announced on Monday.

Creed, 63,  joined Chrysler LLC in 1985 as Director- Interior Design, after leaving Ford Motor Co. and he has designed some of the Chrysler’s most memorable concept and production cars. (more…)

In an attempt to boost the droping sales, General Motors Corp. plans to offer employee discounts on almost every brand of the automaker and cash-back on slow-selling light trucks such as the Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck.

The discount offer takes effect on August 20 and it will run through September 2.

GM spokesman John McDonald confirmed on Monday, “We are going to have an employee-discount-for-everyone program.” Further he added, “We are going to issue a press release tomorrow morning with the details.” (more…)

Toyota Motor Corp. is planning to convert U.S. into its export house as the company is looking forward to export its Tundra pickup and Sequoia SUV, in the face of the current declining scenario of the North American sales. Steve St. Angelo, who is the president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky Inc., told the Management Briefing Seminars today that the overseas buyers might get attracted towards light trucks that the company is going to offer them in the future.

The Tundra is manufactured primarily at the San Antonio assembly plant and on the other hand, the Sequoia is manufactured in Princeton, Ind. Because of the high inventories, the company idled the further production of these vehicles on Friday, Aug. 8. It has been said that Toyota will resume the production in mid-November. (more…)

Irvine-based Quality Systems Inc. named Steven T. Plochocki as its new President and Chief Executive Officer on Tuesday.

Plochocki, 56 has been on Quality systems’ board of directors since 2004 and a longtime local healthcare executive. He replaces the former CEO Lou Silverman. Silverman has been the Quality systems’ CEO since 2000.

Plochocki will take over as CEO on Saturday. He is the former chairman and CEO of air medical services company Omniflight Helicopters Inc. and he has also worked at health care billing company Centratex. Plochocki was also CEO of Lake Forest-based medical scanning provider InSight Health Services Holdings Corp. and was president and chief operating officer of Lake Forest-based home healthcare provider Apria Healthcare Group Inc. (more…)

General Motor Corp. announced that it is expanding its XFE (Extra fuel efficiency) line from Cobalt to Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, plus Chevy Tahoe and GMC Yukon full-size SUVs, starting in the fall.

The Cobalt was launched with XFE badge in March, 2008 which uses a combination of revised gear ratios, engine recalibration and low-rolling-resistance tires to improve highway fuel economy 9 percent, from 33 miles per gallon in highway driving from the base Cobalt to 36 miles per gallon highway for the XFE line. Reportedly, the Cobalt XFE accounted for about 8 percent of Cobalt sales since its debut. (more…)

As long as the present scenario is concerned, we can say that the days of  $4-a-gallon gasoline are gone, at least for now. Today the nation-wide price of gasoline is $3.81-a-gallon, as confirmed by AAA, of Heathrow, Fla. The current price is dropped by 16 cents in a week  The survey that was done by AAA is based on data, collected from as many as 85,000 filling stations nationwide.
 
Midgrade unleaded is selling the gasoline for $3.97-a-gallon, down 37 cents of the original price. The price of Diesel dropped by 27 cents from a month ago, to $4.53-a-gallon. (more…)