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GM investing $131 million in Corvette factory

Filed under: Coupe, Performance, Government/Legal, Plants/Manufacturing, Chevrolet, GM, Luxury

2012 Chevrolet Corvette

2012 Chevrolet Corvette – Click above for high-res image gallery

There are plenty who feel about the Chevrolet Corvette, ‘may you live long and prosper,’ and General Motors is aiding that sentiment with a $131 million investment in the Bowling Green, Kentucky plant that builds the Chevrolet halo car. Apparently, though, the reason GM feels that way is because, in April, the state of Kentucky offered $7.5 million in tax incentives in order to hold on to production.

The investment begins this summer as the plant retools to produce the upgraded 2012 model line, and continues as it gears up to build the next-generation Corvette said to bow in 2013. Part of the funds will pay for 250 new workers to join the 400 that currently assemble the five different variants. GM’s press release is after the jump with more information.

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GM investing $131 million in Corvette factory originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 04 May 2011 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fast Five ushers in summer with $84 million opening weekend

Filed under: Videos, Earnings/Financials, Celebrities

fast five trailer

Fast Five trailer – Click above to watch the video after the jump

We were hoping Universal’s Fast Five would be a watchable installment to the Fast and Furious franchise, and while we didn’t see the flick ourselves, it appears many Americans did. According to Hollywood Reporter, the movie raked in $83.6 million over the weekend, easily giving the fifth installment of the franchise the top opening weekend of all the Fast and Furious flicks to date. The movie fared especially well at 243 Imax theaters nationwide, with sales of $8.3 million. The blockbuster film also hit the jackpot overseas, with $45 million in receipts.

The film also garnered an A from CinemaScore, which means audiences are leaving the theater satisfied. The film brought in plenty of young moviegoers, with 53 percent of viewers under the age of 25. If Universal wasn’t sure what The Rock was cooking before, we’re thinking they’re catching a whiff now. Hit the jump to watch the Fast Five trailer one more time, and if you went and saw the movie, let us know what you thought about it in the Comments.

Continue reading Fast Five ushers in summer with $84 million opening weekend

Fast Five ushers in summer with $84 million opening weekend originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 02 May 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kia earnings up 91% to $890 million in Q1

Filed under: Kia, Earnings/Financials

Kia logo

Automaker earnings have been mostly impressive so far, and Kia is no different. Reuters reports that the Korean automaker has posted earnings of $890 million for the first quarter of 2011, up 91 percent compared to the $466 million profit from Q1 2010. Overall revenue for the quarter was $10 billion, up 37 percent year over year. Kia’s healthy earnings come as sales rose 30 percent to 619,089 units. The automaker fared especially well in South Korea, China and the United States, where new models like the Optima and Sportage have really taken off.

Kia’s profit surge comes one day after Hyundai announced earnings of $1.7 billion. Hyundai shares are up 44 percent on the year, while Kia shares are up 16 percent.

[Source: Reuters | Image: Drew Phillips/AOL]

Kia earnings up 91% to $890 million in Q1 originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Saab loses $107 million in Q1, looking for a Chinese partner

Filed under: China, Saab, Earnings/Financials

Automotive News reports that Saab lost $107 million during the first quarter of 2011. The automaker says that it is unlikely to meet its 2011 production target of 80,000 units, which is hardly news when considering that the automaker can’t even make vehicles right now. The automaker sold only 9,674 vehicles in the first quarter of this year.

Saab is still looking for funding to jump-start production, and the company is reportedly in talks with three Chinese automakers in hopes of finding a partner. Spyker CEO Victor Muller reportedly said in a statement that Saab is looking for alternatives for funding operations, including “discussions with Chinese car manufacturers.” Bloomberg reports that a deal could be made with one of the companies within the next few days.

[Source: Automotive News – sub. req.]

Saab loses $107 million in Q1, looking for a Chinese partner originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: GM CEO Dan Akerson earned $2.5 million in 2010

Filed under: GM, Earnings/Financials

Despite only holding the reins of General Motors for the last four months of 2010, company CEO Dan Akerson received $2.5 million in compensation last year. Akerson took over the post from Ed Whitacre on Sept. 1, after Whitacre stepped down. According to The Detroit News, Akerson was paid $566,667 in salary from GM and a further $1.76 million in stock awards. Not bad for four months’ work.

Akerson’s earnings are subject to review by the federal government, since they still own a 32 percent share of the company. For 2011, Akerson won’t get a raise, which means he’ll earn $9 million this year, the same amount Ed Whitacre would have been paid had he made it an entire year.

Akerson was at the helm for GM’s IPO in November, and helped the company close out 2010 posting its biggest profit in ten years.

[Source: The Detroit News]

Report: GM CEO Dan Akerson earned $2.5 million in 2010 originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 23 Apr 2011 17:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PSA: Japan automakers have lost half a million units since quake

Filed under: Etc., Japan, Plants/Manufacturing, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Suzuki, Toyota

Damaged Suzuki vehicles

According to Automotive News, Japanese automakers have seen their production drop by over 500,000 units since the March 11 earthquake struck the island nation. In the month since the disaster, the country’s seven largest automakers lost around 516,000 units of production due to damage to production facilities and supplier delays. Toyota has been the hardest hit, with a loss of 260,000 units as of April 8. The automaker has a total of 18 domestic manufacturing facilities, and while two of those are back online, the remainder won’t open their doors until at least April 18. Even then, the plants may shut down again after April 27.

Honda, Suzuki, Subaru, Nissan, Mazda and Mitsubishi are all operating on some level, though production is an on-again, off-again affair. As an example, Nissan has managed to re-open all five of its Japanese facilities, though production has been scaled back to half-pace for the time being. There’s no word as to when full production will ramp up once again.

[Source: Automotive News – sub. req.| Image: Wally Santana/AP]

PSA: Japan automakers have lost half a million units since quake originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Autoblog Podcast #225: Best interiors, Subaru XV, Jaguar SUV, a million Prius sales

Filed under: Podcasts, Ford, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Subaru, Volvo, Shanghai Motor Show

Autoblog podcast logo

Click above for the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes, RSS or listen now!

Autoblog Podcast #225 features Chris Shunk, Zach Bowman, Chris Paukert and Dan Roth. We start with Ward’s Auto‘s ten best interiors for 2011, speculate about the Subaru XV concept and a Jaguar SUV before contemplating what one million U.S. Prius sales means. Your feedback in our Q&A module winds us up, and we’ve embedded that in the post below, as well. Thanks for listening, we’ll see you next week!

Autoblog Podcast #225: Best interiors, Subaru XV, Jaguar SUV, a million Prius sales

Ward’s picks the best interiors
Subaru XV
Jaguar SUV rumor
One million US Prius sales

In the Autoblog Garage:

2011 Nissan Juke SV AWD
2011 Volvo S60 T6
2011 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG
2011 Ford F-150 Harley Davidson

Hosts: Dan Roth, Chris Shunk, Zach Bowman, Chris Paukert

Runtime: 01:20:38

Get the podcast:
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes
[RSS] Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator
[MP3] Download the MP3 directly

Feedback:
Email: Podcast at Autoblog dot com
Voicemail: 734-288-8POD (734-288-8763)

Review the show in iTunes and take our survey

Autoblog Podcast #225: Best interiors, Subaru XV, Jaguar SUV, a million Prius sales originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Milestone Accomplished: Toyota sells one million Prius hybrids in U.S.

Filed under: Hybrid, Plants/Manufacturing, Hatchback, Toyota

2011 Toyota Prius

2011 Toyota Prius – Click above for high-res image gallery

California Toyota dealers may or may not be running out of Priuses, but the hybrid is most certainly still popular. How else to explain the news that one million of the iconic fuel-mizers have been sold in the U.S., as Toyota just announced.

Back in mid-2008, the company said it had sold one million Priuses around the world, which was a big enough deal. To reach that landmark, it took around five years; the first Prius was introduced over a decade ago, but it was the second-generation Prius, introduced in 2003, that really sparked sales. It took Toyota only two more years to sell another million Priuses, and Toyota has sold over three million total hybrids as of October 2010. That sounds impressive, but Charlie Sheen got 3.4 million followers on Twitter in, like, a minute, so let’s keep things in perspective.

Gallery: 2011 Toyota Prius

2011 Toyota Prius

[Source: Toyota]

Continue reading Milestone Accomplished: Toyota sells one million Prius hybrids in U.S.

Milestone Accomplished: Toyota sells one million Prius hybrids in U.S. originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video: Walter Röhrl spins a million-dollar Porsche 904… with us inside

Filed under: Classics, Videos, Porsche

Walter Rohrl spins a Porsche 904

Walter Röhrl spins a Porsche 904 – Click above to watch video

We’re currently bombing around Mallorca, Spain on the launch of the Porsche Cayman R, and to make up for the massive monsoon that’s coated the roads and nearly made a glorified go-kart track undrivable, our gracious hosts from Stuttgart brought out a legend. Actually, two of them.

None other than Walter Röhrl was flown in to show us “professionals” how a proper racing driver does it, and in between laps in the hotter, lightweight Cayman, the German racing legend took us for spin in something far more exotic.

According to Porsche, if there’s a vintage, racing equivalent of the Cayman R, it’s the historic Porsche 904, and this 911-powered 1965 example is one of only 20 ever made and came right from the personal garage of one of Ferdinand Porsche’s progeny. This particularly immaculate 904 is probably worth over $1 million, but that didn’t matter to Röhrl, who flung the featherweight (and seatbelt-less) coupe around the track with the kind of sideways fervor we’d expect from a World Rally Champion. Oh, and when we said “spin” we meant it. Follow the jump for the in-car footage, and excuse our incessant cackling – we’re still trying to pry the grin off our face.

Continue reading Video: Walter Röhrl spins a million-dollar Porsche 904… with us inside

Video: Walter Röhrl spins a million-dollar Porsche 904… with us inside originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 19:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mazda MX-5 Miata hits 900K… next stop, one million

Filed under: Convertible, Performance, Etc., Plants/Manufacturing, Mazda

20th anniversary Mazda MX-5 Miata live in Geneva

20th Anniversary Mazda MX-5 Miata special edition – Click above for high-res image gallery

Mazda has announced that the automaker has turned out 900,000 units of its MX-5 Miata since the car first put tire to pavement in 1989. Of that astronomical number, a staggering 45 percent were sold here in North America, which means that 388,000 of the droptops have been shipped to our continent over the past 22 years.

Mazda attributes the vehicle’s success to its ability to adhere to what made the convertible a sales winner in the first place – offering basic sports car appeal with one of the highest fun-per-dollar ratios of any vehicle out there. Since 1989, the convertible has undergone two complete redesigns and a slew of minor updates along the way. The MX-5 crested the 500,000 unit mark back in 1999, and sales of the winsome roadster continue to march on impressively. Click past the jump to check out the full press release on the occasion for yourself. Thanks for the tip, The Typical Guy!

Gallery: Geneva 2010: Mazda MX-5 20th Anniversary

[Source: Mazda]

Continue reading Mazda MX-5 Miata hits 900K… next stop, one million

Mazda MX-5 Miata hits 900K… next stop, one million originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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