Vehicle interior and battery specialist Johnson Controls on Friday said it would book an additional pre-tax restructuring charge of US$200-$215m for its fiscal 2009 second quarter but expected a return to profitability in its third and fourth quarters with its interiors business expected to break even by the end of the fiscal year. The restructuring includes unspecified workforce reductions and the closure of 10 manufacturing plants expected to be completed in 2010 with a planned payback of 1.5 years.
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BMW is expanding the range of its vehicle models produced at the Avtotor plant in Kaliningrad to include the X5 and X6.
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Michelin is planning additional production furloughs to avoid layoffs affecting 9,000 employees in Spain this year.
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Striking electric sports saloon takes aim at Jaguar XF and BMW 5-Series
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Automakers will be forced to close more factories to align car production with falling new-car sales, Fiat Group CEO Sergio Marchionne said today.
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Mercedes-Benz South Africa plans to shut its East London production plant for four weeks next month and for a further four weeks from the last week in May, according to local reports, though it was not clear when in April the four-week shutdown would begin.
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The White House today will boost fuel-economy standards for light vehicles to 27.3 mpg for 2011, media reports said. Cars will be required to travel an average of 30.2 miles on a gallon of fuel, up from 27.
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Fuel-economy standards for all U.S. light vehicles will rise 8 percent to an average of 27.3 mpg for the 2011 model year and will cost the industry $1.46 billion to make the change, the government said today.
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Fuel-economy standards for all U.S. light vehicles will rise 8 percent to an average of 27.3 mpg for the 2011 model year and will cost the industry $1.46 billion to make the change, the government said today.
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Fuel-economy standards for all light vehicles will rise 8 percent, to an average of 27.3 mpg for the 2011 model year, under new U.S. rules issued today.
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French minister of finance Christine Lagarde has criticised Continental for its plans to shut down its production sites in Clairoix and Hanover.
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AvtoVAZ has said that it will raise prices on all of its 2009 Lada models by an average of 2.5% starting from March 30.
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The German scrappage bonus has triggered a boom in demand for Opel, the struggling German unit of General Motors that is looking for a new investor. "We forecast some 120,000 customer orders in the first quarter of 2009.
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Auto interiors and battery maker Johnson Controls Inc. said it would close an additional 10 plants and cut more jobs than planned as it expects no near-term recovery in global auto production.
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According to the National Business Daily, FAW-Toyota is likely to postpone its CNY4bn Changchun plant project due to financing problems.
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Racy new Insignia gets a 300bhp twin-turbo V6 engine and four-wheel drive
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Continental will move its next works council meeting from northern France to the Riviera because at the last one angry workers burst in and pelted managers with eggs.
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Magna International will continue to wind down its Syracuse, New York, New Process Gear plant because it would still be unsustainable even if it qualified for US government aid, according to a company memo to staff yesterday cited by a Toronto newspaper.
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Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne confirmed today the Italian industrial group's aim to reach a trading profit exceeding 1.0 billion euros ($1.36 billion) this year despite the crisis ravaging the car industry.
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