Archive » Automakers

**Written by Doug Powers Fisker Automotive, which was granted a $529 million US Dept. of Energy loan guarantee and then announced they would assemble the first line of cars in Finland, has announced layoffs at a Delaware plant that has yet to produce a single car: The company says 26 Fisker employees have been let [...]

Car Trek

**Written by Doug Powers Maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds. Technically a “call back” is a notch below a recall, and it only affects 8,000 vehicles — which is a mere, um, 100% of all Volts sold in 2011. Lucky sales didn’t catch fire or the fixes would have been a more massive [...]

Lots of green

Recall on the way?

**Written by Doug Powers In January of 2010, a “green” automotive startup called Fisker, the recipient of a $529 million US Dept. of Energy loan, purchased a former GM plant in Wilmington, Delaware. Almost immediately there were suspicions of a possible quid pro quo deal involving Joe Biden. For now, though, those allegations can be [...]

GOP House Oversight and Government Reform chair Rep. Darryl Issa has questions for Ford CEO Alan Mulally about the White House Ford fiasco. In a new letter Mulally received today, Rep. Issa requests more information and notes that he is “deeply concerned about undue political pressure exerted by the White House on public companies. Issa [...]

Media progs and Soros monkeys are working overtime to discredit yesterday’s Detroit News report on alleged White House intimidation of, and pressure on, Ford Motor Company over its popular ad critical of the government auto bailout. As I pointed out yesterday, it’s just another one of those Chicago coincidences that the Attack Watch goon squad’s [...]

Your Chicago Way read of the day comes from the Detroit News, where columnist Daniel Howes brings news that a few calls from the White House have led to Ford Motor Company yanking ads that spotlighted its refusal to take government auto bailout money. Nice car company ya got there, fellas. Would be a shame [...]

They keep spending, and spending, and spending, and…

If you paid attention here last fall, you know all about how Obama Treasury officials screwed over non-union white-collar workers at Delphi, a leading auto parts company spun off from GM a decade ago. See my September 2010 Special Report– The Delphi disaster: An economic horror story Obama won’t tell. (More background links below.) A [...]

Emission Accomplished

**Written by Doug Powers The Reverse Midas Touch has claimed another victim: TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio restaurant mentioned last week by President Barack Obama as an indirect beneficiary of the government’s Chrysler bailout will go out of business Sunday after a more than 70-year history. Co-owner Richard Lawrence of New Chet’s Restaurant in [...]

**Written by Doug Powers While you were being encouraged to trade in your gas guzzler and buy an expensive electric golf cart, the size of the government’s limo fleet was almost doubling: The number of limousines owned by the U.S. government increased by 73 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration, according [...]

Subtle salesmanship

Stuck with 8 to 10 miles a gallon?

**Written by Doug Powers A fairly nice day in Las Vegas will mean that I’m out wandering instead of in the hotel writing where I should be, so here’s an open thread for discussion. Possible topics: In February, GM sold just 281 Chevy Volts. That number is actually down from January. Sure, only 281 were [...]

“Doesn’t really make a lot of sense”

**Written by Doug Powers In 2009, when Barack Obama announced that the federal government was assuming a 60% stake in General Motors, the president called the American people “reluctant shareholders” in that company. As shareholders, when might we expect a dividend check? The general taxpaying public will probably see Justin Bieber on the cover of [...]

**Written by Doug Powers A couple of months ago: U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood Unveils New DOT Webpage on ‘Buy America’ Yesterday: (CNSNews.com) – U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said today that he told his daughter to buy a Japanese car–a Toyota Sienna–and that she did so. “Mr. LaHood, there are some UAW people here and [...]

**Written by Doug Powers Just to make the story I’ll get to in a minute a little more nauseating, if you haven’t seen it already, view the latest GM ad thanking you, the taxpayer, for helping the company get back on its feet: You’re welcome, GM. When might we expect our first dividend check? Helping [...]

You like me! You really like me!

As you all know, President George W. Bush is on his book/rehabilitation tour — hitting every MSM and cable news show from the Today Show to Hannity, plus Oprah, Rush Limbaugh, and beyond. His candor, decency, self-effacement, and clear love of country stand in stark contrast to the current antagonist-in-chief at the White House, so [...]

Here’s the latest update to my reporting on the Delphi disaster — the economic horror story Team Obama won’t tell. As you know, the White House auto team and Treasury Department cut a backroom deal with the UAW to cover union workers’ pensions while shafting non-union salaried workers who were deemed politically expendable. The Delphi [...]

Good news today for the Delphi salaried retirees who were screwed over by Team Obama’s auto task force and the UAW. As I reported Wednesday, the Delphi white-collar workers were in court today for a hearing on their federal lawsuit challenging the backroom deals that led to massively slashed pension benefits for non-union workers while [...]

Recovery summer!

Making pledges is easy. Keeping them? Not so much. Just ask Mr. Hope and Change. The new GOP pledge is fine as far as it goes — especially the upfront acknowledgment that government’s powers derive from the consent of the governed, not from the penumbras emanating from the fingertips of all President Obama’s czars. But [...]

Last month, I mentioned the plight of the Delphi salaried retired workers on the Hannity Show (starts at 4:00 minute mark) during our segment on the Obama Beltway Chainsaw Massacre. Today, my column delves further into the economic horror stories of these forgotten victims of Obama’s auto bailout/union payoff. I’ll be telling more of them [...]

Road scholars?

**Written by Doug Powers This is just their way of saying “thanks for the second chance, American taxpayers”: General Motors will invest $500 million to produce a new vehicle and eight-cylinder engines in a plant in northeastern Mexico, a company spokesman said on August 4. The decision was announced at a meeting on August 3 [...]