Fremont's NUMMI plant has further trimmed production this month and next, reflecting the slowdown in vehicle sales nationwide. Sales plunged 36.7 percent in November from the same month last year to the lowest rate in 26 years. They are down 16.3 percent so far in 2008. New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. will halt car and truck production four days in December and eight days in January, spokesman Lance Tomasu said Tuesday.

This is the thanks you get for creating the middle class, Henry. In the throes of the biggest auto swoon since 1931, the headmen of Detroit go hat in hand to Washington to try to keep their once mighty industry upright for a couple of months and are treated as if they had invented the four-wheel-drive subprime mortgage. AIG torpedoes the entire economy and gets a $150 billion handout; Citigroup takes risks no sane manufacturing company would even contemplate and is rewarded with a $20 billion federal bailout. And the car guys?

A loud and incessant car alarm is going off in the American economy, warning of the potential loss of more than 2 million jobs, and Congress and the President are the only ones who can shut it off. We suggest they do so by extending to the troubled auto companies a $25 billion bridge loan that requires a detailed plan of "innovation, accountability and viability," as called for by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

For four months now, the Detroit Three automakers have been fumbling their pitch for a federal cash infusion to help them survive the nation's financial crisis.

This week is their critical chance to get it right.
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Detroit’s automakers are focused this week on convincing Congress to provide them $25 billion in federal aid. But there is another $25 billion auto industry loan program, set up by the Department of Energy to quicken the development of fuel-efficient cars.

Does anyone care about manufacturing? In "Factory Man," a new autobiography to be published in February 2009 by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), James E. Harbour says it doesn't appear to be the financial community, the White House, or even Congress but rather Japan, Korea and Europe.

Design Victoria together with Design Institute of Australia and Society of Plastics Engineers are pleased to present the Design Ready seminar Plastics & Innovation.

Coinciding with the plastics trade show, Ausplas 2008, Plastics & Innovation will provide an overview of polymer material emerging technologies, strategies for converting innovation into commercial products and the role of design in plastics innovation.

Society for Women Engineers 2008 Conference. For more information visit: http://www.biospace.com/calendar_event_details.aspx?CalendarEventEntityI...

Ford's Lincoln luxury brand will build a version of its MKT concept vehicle next year.

The MKT takes its name and styling from a concept car Lincoln revealed at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January.

While the production MKT will use the same architecture and come from the same Oakville, Ontario, assembly plant as the Flex, it will have unique styling like the futuristic concept, which bore no resemblance to the boxy Flex.
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Hyundai is working on a hybrid version of its solid-selling Sonata sedan and plans to show a concept at the Los Angeles auto show in November.

The car would use lithium-ion battery technology but would not be a plug-in hybrid, said John Krafcik, Hyundai's vice president of product development.

The L.A. show car will be a rolling chassis, with a production version to come to the United States in 2010--the same year the lithium-ion-powered Chevrolet Volt is set to launch.
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The grey-haired man in the straw hat carries a teetering bowl of potato salad to the back yard. His hosting duties have been reduced to an endless relay of food and drink, house to porch. Out back, his son tends two sizzling barbecues, barely keeping up with guests' appetites.

General Motors Corp. will spend more than $US500 million ($569 million) to build a new small car in Ohio, part of a campaign to replace slow-selling trucks with more fuel-efficient models just as oil prices begin to retreat from record highs.

Chrysler LLC has announced that Ralph Gilles will head its design division once Trevor Creed retires on August 31. Gilles, the new vice president of design, most recently served as the vice president for Jeep, truck and advanced interior design. Current senior vice president of design Creed joined the company in 1985 as the director of interior design.

The recommendation of the Bracks review into the automotive industry to halve the tariff to 5% was at once both almost meaningless and yet potentially lethal for the industry. For historic reasons, the tariff has become a flashpoint in the debate. At 10%, it is almost invisible compared with tariffs levied by other car-making nations and, therefore, barely worthy of comment.

Auto makers are angling to carve out their own niches in fuel-efficient design, from expansion of the gasoline-electric hybrid technology already available in the Toyota Prius to the new plug-in hybrid vehicle known as the Volt under development by General Motors Corp.

Hot off its success with its Prius sedan, Toyota Motor Co. said Friday that it would make hybrid engine systems available on all of its models by 2020. Ford Motor Co., which has few hybrid options among its vehicles, plans to double its hybrid-vehicle lineup and production next year.

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