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March 28, 2008
Chrysler, which has been scrambling to organize itself after being taken over by private Cerberus Management last year, lost a senior executive this week in a move that seems to reflect dissent at the top levels. The departure of engineering vice president Mike Donoughe was seen as a loss, according to thecarconnection.com.
In addition, the minivan market, which has long been Chrysler’s bread and butter, has fallen off, with sales down by double digits. All this against the backdrop of Consumer Reports’ poor ranking of Chysler in its annual automotive survey earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Ford finalized the sale of its Jaguar and Land Rover divisions to Tata Motors of India for $2.3 billion. But that included an agreement by Ford to inject $600 million into the two divisions’ pension funds, meaning Ford actually nets $1.7 billion.
This against the $2.5 billion Ford paid for Jaguar in 1989 and the $2.7 billion it paid for Land Rover in 2000, to say nothing of the billions it has spend on the marques since then, especially on Jaguar.
Finally, the five-week UAW strike at American Axle & Manufacturing might halt production on General Motors’s Chevy Cobalt and Pontiac G5 production lines in Lordstown, Ohio, according to Automotive News. The strike has already stopped GM’s light-truck production.
Silver lining? The weak dollar continues to play in Detroit’s favor by keeping prices of imports high.
- Peter C.T. Elsworth
Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth 
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