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.” Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »

At the Management Briefing Seminars on Friday, Chrysler LLC’s purchasing chief John Campi spoke about new approach to dealing with the automaker’s suppliers in order to maintain good relationships.

The purchasing chief also announced the automaker’s goal to cut its supply costs by 25 percent within three years with a new approach to launch a “supplier of choice” program in which Chrysler will have not more than ten suppliers. The suppliers will become partners of the automaker in the development for vehicles they supply. Read the rest of this entry »

Chrysler LLC plans to build the new Jeep Grand Cherokee in 2010, as said the company’s Vice chairman Tom LaSorda on Thursday. The new vehicle will get a unibody construction, variable valve timing and a fuel-efficient V6 engine.

The automaker also said that it will spend $1.8 billion in retooling the Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit. The plant will produce the Jeep Grand Cherokee which will use Chrysler’s new Phoenix powertrains. 

LaSorda said, “This investment in our future products and at Jefferson North will enable the Company to produce a future generation of vehicles more efficiently, with world-class quality and an improved environmental footprint,” “Furthermore, this commitment reinforces the long-standing partnership between Chrysler LLC, the City of Detroit and the State of Michigan.” Read the rest of this entry »

In order to reduce travel and energy expense, Chrysler LLC is on negotiating terms with United Auto Workers Union, to put all the factory employees on four-working days with ten hour shifts from a five, eight hour days shift.

The manufacturing chief of the company, Frank Ewasyshyn said that this new curriculum would certainly affect most of its plants excluding those who are already involved in overtime, like Belvidere assembly in Illinois and Sterling Heights assembly in suburban Detroit. “The remaining plants likely would qualify,” Ewasyshyn confirmed the statement at the Management Briefing Seminars. Read the rest of this entry »

Just two weeks after Chrysler Financial annunciate that it was exiting the auto leasing business, company’s two top executives stepped down from their individual positions.
Paul Knauss, who was the financial president and CEO of the company and William Jones, who was the COO, both declared their retirement immediately after the announcement made by the company.

Thomas Gilman will take the place of Paul Knauss as the CEO and vice chairman of the company. He has earlier served as the Chief Financial Officer of the company and was most recently a senior advisor for Cerberus, which is the private equity owner of Chrysler. Read the rest of this entry »

In order to settle a shareholder lawsuit, General Motors is planning to pay 277 million dollars pertaining to the fact that the automaker misled its investors which directly led to the inflation of its stock price.

The settlement also comprises of a 26 million dollar payment from Deloitte & Touche, which is the independent auditor for GM’s financial statements.

The cash-strapped automaker which is already involved in a number of cost cutting exercises wants to cover much of the charge through insurance. The automaker said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it will cover $200 million of the charge by insurance. The charge of the lawsuit is more than half the $445 million profit, that the company made in its second quarter for its operations in Latin America. Read the rest of this entry »