Midsummer Automotive News

Two stories from the automotive world:

General Motors is planning on closing more plants and eliminating more white-collar jobs in light of weak sales. GM has been relying on sport utility vehicle sales for so long, they have virtually nothing to fall back on. The basic, low-tech Chevrolet Cobalt isn't exactly wowing customers these days. And euro-dollar exchange rates have rendered the Opel-built Saturn Astra a nonstarter, despite its sophistication and European heritage.

GM is merely marking, not celebrating, its one hundredth birthday this year. Ironically, it's in the same unformed mess it was in when founder William C. Durant ran it. And Rick Wagoner doesn't seem to be another Alfred E. Sloan.

Volkswagen, meanwhile, is taking the U.S. auto market more seriously these days. It has announced plans to open a factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where it will build a new Passat-sized model designed to compete economically with the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord. This announcement came virtually twenty years to the day after VW shut down its only U.S. factory built to date, the Westmoreland facility in Pennsylvania. While this new family car is expected to raise vw's profile in the States, some dubbers are afraid that it could turn Volkswagen into a colorless mass-market brand much like the Toyota and Honda are.

No chance. The cars may be American, but the engineering will still be German - the Volkswagen way.

This is the best news I've heard all week. :-)