Dit staat op de 'buy Saab back'-facebook:
En dit op een nieuwssite:News From Sweden!
" The closest to a swedish ownership at this time is swedish VATTENFALL as a new owner, with whom SAAB is currently developing a electrical vehicle. With this new potential owner, placing SAAB back in its "mother's hands" there could be grants from the swedish government of up to $ 4 billion." (Thanks to Mr. Johansson, Sweden, for this message)
http://www.freep.com/article/20090114/B ... /901140392Official: Saab can survive
Saab Automobile, the 61-year-old Swedish carmaker owned by General Motors Corp., will survive an industry slump if it sells attractive models, Sweden's government said, defying GM's view that Saab is artificially kept alive.
Advertisement
Saab, based in Trollhaettan, Sweden, needs "good model programs," Joeran Haegglund, state secretary in the Swedish industry ministry, told journalists from Detroit, where he spent the last days in talks with auto executives. Saab also needs to gain more independence from GM to be granted Swedish government guarantees for loans, Haegglund said.
"At the moment I don't have any other belief" other than that Saab will still exist in Sweden in a few years, Haegglund said. "Compared to the situation last year, the vehicle industry will be smaller, but more economic and more successful."
Visteon sales to fall
Auto parts supplier Visteon Corp. said Tuesday it expects to report lower product sales for the fourth quarter and full-year 2008 and is on track to cut 800 salaried employees by the end of the first fiscal quarter.
Visteon announced the job cuts in October, and those are expected to save about $60 million a year.
The company expects fourth-quarter product sales to total $1.55 billion, down from $2.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. Full-year sales are estimated at $9.1 billion, compared with $10.7 billion in 2007. Visteon attributed the drop to much-lower vehicle production by its global customers.
Penske: Dealers to shrink
Penske Automotive Group Inc. CEO Roger Penske said U.S. automakers need dealerships to consolidate as well as increased lending from banks to survive the industry slump.
"The financial community is going to have to support the loans, the floor planning, the underpinning of the industry," Penske said Monday during a Bloomberg Radio interview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
U.S. automakers are aiming to close dealerships because of reduced demand to compete with Toyota Motor Corp., whose namesake locations sell almost four times as many vehicles monthly as General Motors Corp.'s Chevrolet showrooms and almost six times that of Chrysler LLC's Dodge-brand retailers.
"With state franchise laws, it's very difficult in this environment to be able to take dealers out, based on numbers of dealers in a particular area," Penske said.
Unless the franchise laws are changed, it could take billions in capital from the automakers to shut down dealerships, he said.
Fuel prices get blame
General Motors Corp. Vice Chairman Robert Lutz said lower fuel prices are discouraging sales of small cars and gasoline-electric hybrids.
Fuel prices "are completely messing it up," Lutz said of sales of those vehicles in an interview Tuesday on Bloomberg Radio. All automakers are having difficulty in selling small cars and hybrids, he said. "We can't sell small cars right now. People are buying trucks again."
Free Press news services
