Free Republic

The Canadian government said on Tuesday it had a deal to sell nearly a quarter of its common shares in General Motors Corp (GM.N), part of a longer-term plan to shed the stake it acquired when it helped bail out the automaker. It said the shares were sold at the closing market price on Tuesday, minus a small discount. GM shares finished the session at $37, putting the value of the stake at about $1.11 billion. The governments of Canada and the province of Ontario, the heartland of the country's auto sector, became shareholders of GM in 2009 when they...

As much as electric car builders hail their vehicles as the future of transportation, one question they couldn't answer fully was just how well their vehicles would withstand a crash. Automakers have spent decades finessing their chassis; what happened when an engine-less vehicle went head-on into a barrier wasn't clear, and as the post crash-test smoldering of a Chevy Volt demonstrated, the batteries posed new challenges. Leave it to Tesla to provide the first hard evidence — with data from U.S. government tests showing the Model S sedan may be the most crash-proof passenger vehicle on the road today. Normally,...

Listen up folks, after you read the bankruptcy filing for Detroit. 1. Right now, the City cannot meet its basic obligations to its citizens. 2. Right now, the City cannot meet its basic obligations to its creditors. 3. The failure of the City to meet its obligations to its citizens is the primary cause of its inability to meet its obligations to its creditors. 4. The only feasible path to ensuring the City will be able to meet obligations in the future is to have a successful restructuring via the bankruptcy process that recognizes the fundamental importance of ensuring the...

DETROIT (AP) -- Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder says some Detroit creditors are not sure they will be repaid. Snyder was speaking Friday, a day after Emergency Financial Manager Kevyn Orr made Detroit the biggest ever U.S. city to file for bankruptcy.

A Michigan judge ruled today that Detroit filing for chapter 9 bankruptcy on Thursday was unconstitutional. Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said the filing must be withdrawn and that, according to the Detroit Free Press, the governor and city emergency manager “must take no further actions that threaten to diminish the pension benefits of City of Detroit retirees.”The reduction in those particular benefits is at issue here, due to a portion of the Michigan Constitution that reads [PDF]: “The accrued financial benefits of each pension plan and retirement system of the state and its political subdivisions shall be a...

What are you going to say? Nothin', that's what. What is there to say? This is just the socialists attempting to avoid the natural consequences of the monstrosity they have birthed and called "the New America."

Bankruptcy: The fundamental transformation of Detroit is complete, as socialism's theme park succumbs to government run amok, a reminder that government isn't the solution to our problems but their cause. The wisdom of President Reagan's words have been lost under an administration that believes government is the entity from which all blessings flow. So has Margaret Thatcher's observation that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. Last Oct. 13, President Obama boasted in a weekly address about the bailed-out auto industry that, "We refused to throw in the towel and do nothing. We...

Electric car sales hummed along in May amid a solid month for the auto industry. But the surprise story this year was May's strong full-size pickup truck sales – not exactly a sign an endorsement of efficiency and alternative fuels. Nissan sold 2,138 Leafs in May, up 319 percent over last year. In March, the company sold a record 2,236 units of its all-electric vehicle. General Motors sold 1,607 Volts in May, down 4.3 percent from a year ago. In the first five months of 2013, the company sold only 100 more Volts than during the same period last year.

A recent search for new Chevy Volts on cars.com unearthed 9,254 vehicles currently at dealerships for sale. There were another 258 late-model, used Volts available. About half of those had less than 5,000 miles on them. Considering the abysmal sales rate for the self-proclaimed electric wonder-car (1,306 in April for those keeping track), the unofficial inventory numbers point to about a seven month supply of Volts available. Ideal inventory levels are considered to be in the two month range. It may be near time for General Motors to halt production, yet again, for the floundering Volt. The inventory numbers for...

Great news for consumers who are considering buying General Motors' green wonder car, the Chevy Volt. I know how excited those environmentally conscientious Volt enthusiasts can get, but a little patience can pay off big time if potential buyers hold off for a year or so on their purchase. According to GM CEO Dan Akerson and following another dismal month of Volt sales (1,306 in April), the car that defies logic will soon be available for up to $10,000 less money. The good news extends to shareholders of GM as the next generation of the Volt will supposedly be profitable...

Starting production of the all-electric Leaf in Tennessee helped Nissan sell more Leafs in the US in March 2013 than in any other month. April wasn't quite as sunny, but the 1,937 Leafs sold last month were still good enough for second place. Ever. April also marked the second month in a row that the Leaf beat the Chevrolet Volt. It's not that General Motors had a bad month. The 1,306 Volts sold last month were roughly in line with March and February (but it's a downward trending line, with 1,626 sold in February and 1,478 in March).

Earlier this year, I reviewed General Motors' first quarter earnings report and annual results . My take-away from the report was that GM relied upon shady accounting techniques and a build-up of US dealer inventories to produce some rosy-looking results. Channel stuffing to the tune of an over 20% increase in inventory from year end 2011 provided for GM's revenue growth. The trend continues as GM has further pumped-up inventory for quarter one. The reason that dealer inventory figures are so important is that automakers record revenue when vehicles are shipped to dealerships, not when they are actually sold to...

General Motors Co. says the new diesel version of the Chevrolet Cruze gets 46 miles per gallon on the highway, making it more efficient than some hybrids. … It starts at $25,695. That’s $7,755 more than the base price on a gas-powered Cruze. …

General Motors will invest €4 billion ($5.2 billion) in its troubled German subsidiary Opel and its British sister brand Vauxhall by 2016, the US auto giant has announced. “As a global automotive company, GM needs a strong presence in Europe, in terms of design and development as well as manufacturing and sales,” GM chairman and chief executive Dan Akerson said at Opel headquarters in Rüsselsheim near Frankfurt late on Wednesday. … The German car maker has been making losses for years as it has been slow to react to the crisis in demand for cars in Europe, by far its...

It appears that the Mainstream Media folks may finally be starting to expose one of the worst cases of taxpayer abuse that this country has ever seen. Kudos to Deepa Seetharaman who wrote a piece for Reuters which questions the feasibility of the government-subsidized, lithium-ion based battery technology behind electric vehicles (EVs) like the Chevy Volt. While Seetharaman acknowledges the limitations of lithium-ion batteries, what remains unchallenged is the continued waste of billions of taxpayer dollars to support the failing, pseudo-green technology. The evidence that the Obama Administration's EV subsidization has been a costly fiasco (particularly regarding the Chevy Volt...

Former half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who often attacks Democrats for hurting small businesses, slammed American automakers Tesla Motors and Fisker Automotive for being "losers" on her Facebook page. Palin attacked Fisker Automotive for laying off 75 percent of its employees last Friday, reports the Los Angeles Times. Palin also accused the Obama administration for supposedly attempting "to pick 'winners and losers' in the free market," but did not mention that for decades the federal government has made loans to businesses. She showed additional contempt for hybrid electric cars by slamming General Motors' Volt, which tripled its sales in 2012,...

The Chevy Volt has inarguably been the poster child for President Obama's push to electrify America's auto fleet. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to produce and subsidize the plug-in electric car. For years we have heard about the supposedly amazing technology for the Volt which would lead America to energy independence, be a "game-changer" for General Motors and provide a multitude of new green jobs. Proclamations were made that supply for the wonder-car could not keep up with the demand. Well, March's sales figures are in and give further confirmation that the lofty claims were all lies. March's...

There has been an important story brewing over the past several months regarding General Motors' flawed bankruptcy process that has been widely ignored by the media. GM may have to readdress its 2009 bankruptcy settlement due to a lawsuit by a group of GM creditors against hedge funds over a settlement involving the company's Nova Scotia debt. The creditors brought to light the fact that the company did not have its ducks in a row at the time of its 2009 bankruptcy filing and allege that GM was still in the middle of backroom negotiations with hedge funds beyond the...

The U.S. government has sold another chunk of its stake in General Motors Co., the Associated Press reported. The Treasury Department said in its February report to Congress that it sold $489.9 million worth of GM common stock last month. The report said the government has recovered about $29.8 billion of its $49.5 billion bailout of the Detroit automaker. That means the government has yet to recover $19.7 billion of its investment in the automaker, AP said. That means it still owns about 277 million shares. Those would have to sell for around $71 each for the government to break...

The Federal Reserve's latest round of stress tests for the banking industry showed only one bank remaining on a shaky financial foundation . That bank was government-owned Ally Financial (the bailed-out company formerly known as GMAC), which also happens to be General Motors' prime source for financing. GM divested itself of GMAC so that the struggling lender could be classified as a bank holding company and receive billions of taxpayer dollars. In a move to distance itself from GM, the company was renamed Ally Financial. The government maintains majority ownership of Ally Financial, which in turn has helped GM by...