Hyundai, the well known South Korean automaker gain the car-of-the-year award at the Detroit auto show on Sunday, marking a major step in its push to make a more upscale, mass-market vehicle for U.S. customers.

The Hyundai Genesis amazed some to beat out the Ford Flex and the Volkswagen Jetta TDI for the North American Car of the Year, while Ford’s F-150 come first Truck of the Year honors. Hyundai Genesis closely beat out the Ford Flex, a seven-passenger crossover vehicle. The Genesis is Hyundai’s first rear wheel drive car which is powered by a V-8 engine, another first for the car manufacturer. But Ford motor won top truck honors for its Ford F-150 in the awards presented on the first day of media previews for the North American International auto show in Detroit.

This year was the sixteenth year for the awards at the Detroit show, generally the global industry’s largest car show event. Last year General Motors won car-of-the-year for the Chevrolet Malibu and took both car and truck honors at the 2007 show.

Recently the financial division of General Motors Corp., GMAC, has disclosed their future plans to use a smart amount of its Government financial bailout aid to move vehicles especially car and truck inventories. GMAC has already said it is going to use money from the $700 billion bank bailout to present more affordable credit to customers. Among the future plans, GMAC will give 0% or very low-interest financing on a number of slower-selling 2008 as well as 2009 models as business policy of a year-end sales push.

On the other hand, many of the car industry’s sharp falls in sales, in recent few months, have been blamed on a lack of affordable credit. Various types of auto sales have dropped sharply in 2008, falling 37% in November to the worst level in over 26 years business history, and all major automaker reporting a slump of more than 30% in their car sales. In the circumstances, many hopes that the recent step of GM will help to boost their car sales.

Related Tags

General Motors Corporation (GM), the world largest automaker, wants to win over consumers wary of Detroit-built vehicles. GM is going to offer a one-year/12,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty on utilized vehicles. This offer is valid to all GM Certified Used Vehicles from Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, and Pontiac sold in the U.S. market going back to the 2003 model year. Moreover, Saturn licensed Pre-Owned Vehicles will be provided the similar warranty. GM informed the program starts 13 September and the corporation hopes it will aid to boost sales and make residual values of its vehicles. Although vehicles made by Japanese auto makers want to have better resale values than those sold vehicles by Detroit companies and it is an important competitive shortcoming for local brands. But Jamie Hresko, GM vice president of quality for North America, said:

We’ve upped our game and made significant strides in quality,” he also added, “This shows GM’s confidence.

In addition to say this warranty will cover all type of vehicle error outside normal wear and tear.

On the other hand, the company said GM certified used-vehicle sales are decline current year from the last year, at what time the auto manufacturer sold a record 451,000 used vehicles. Though used cars and trucks are falling victim to the similar sales crash driving downward sales of new cars and trucks to their lowest level points in above 15 years history. Most of the customers, hit by the fragile economy with record oil prices, make delay to purchase big-ticket for example new vehicles.

In the year of 2007, General Motors Corporation rolled out a five-year, 100,000-mile limited power train warranty for its used cars and trucks. The existing bumper-to-bumper warranty program lasts three months or 3,000 miles. But experts said the warranties may assist sell additional used cars and trucks but it will not improve expected residual values radically.

Related Tags

gm 5-year 100 000 mile warranty 2008 ny times

In this day and age, people are looking for small car. Most of the citizen prefer small car for their own purposes. Therefore, most of the auto makers have begun their operation for small cars. Recently Ford, the third largest automaker in the world, began manufacture of the new Fiesta. It is a small car destined and planed for overall sales and destined to serve as an outline and blueprint for future manufactured product development.

During the second quarter of the current fiscal year Ford, facing huge losses of $8.7 billion, as a result the company is looking to shrink both its manufacturing and development expenses for global operations. On the other hand the use of a worldwide platform helps bring down manufacturer, and development expenses along with purchasing expenditure at the same time as still allowing for the flexibility of varied interior and exterior treatments. The expectation of Ford manufacturing a million cars per year based on the new Fiesta platform to fulfill the increasing small car demand. The Fiesta was first introduced in the year of 1976 and that time it was sold well in Europe for the ensuing three decades in automobile markets and at this time it is being produced at the company’s facility in Cologne in Germany and roughly $718.4 million have gone into retooling the operation in Cologne with an estimated output of 148,000 unit Fiestas in this current year. At the time of full production the plant will turn out 1,900 Fiestas and fusions over three shifts per day. Experts think the new Fiesta will be vital to Ford’s automobile sales in North America when the company struggles with other top competitor companies such as Toyota Yaris, Nissan Versa and Honda Fit.

Given the importance in the high prices of gasoline and increasing environmental concerns, nowadays passenger small cars are projected to be in higher demand in the coming months. And that’s why all of the major auto manufacturers are scrambling to meet the rapid shift in customer preference. Now wait to see in coming months how can Ford make up its losses and make profit by its new one.

Related Tags

ford fiesta projected profits

General Motors Corporation (GM) is cracking down on a good number of employees, widows and retirees who it says have inappropriately extended worker discounts to non-relatives and GM has already declared the practices have prices the automaker over $450,000.

Attorneys said GM has filed minimum three lawsuits against corporation affiliates for giving discounts to non-relatives and the lawsuits filed by the corporation say company audits discovered the discounts had saved customers someplace from $1,000 to roughly $9,000 depending on the automobiles sticker value. Though the Detroit News reports it is unclear how many lawsuits have been filed by the company.

On the other hand the newspapers said on Saturday, 30 August that a number of the lawsuits were filed after this month’s notice by the company that it is temporarily extending such discounts to every single person on about all of its 2008 and a quantity of of its 2009 models.

One of the GM officials, Tom Wilkinson says the timing of the lawsuits and the extended discounts was coincidental. He adds that at the same time such uses of worker discounts might have been overlooked in the earlier period, GM now is strictly watching its costs.

GM, based in Detroit, already lost $15.5 billion in the second quarter of current fiscal year so company try to recover its losses and find out the reason of its losses. The company hopes that their current decision may help to protect its losses.

Related Tags

gm sues employees , , gm lawsuits against employees giving discounts to non relatives