Bringing suit against GM for not letting Saab live another day could be turning into a popular sport. Lars Holmqvist, former head of Europe’s automotive supplier body CLEPA, and as such an insider when it comes to the latest Saab dirt, says that spurned Youngman of China is also thinking of suing GM. (Read More…)

The Daily Caller says it has emails that prove that the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at Delphi were terminated “solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions.”

The emails, says the conservative website “contradict sworn testimony, in federal court and before Congress, given by several Obama administration figures. They also indicate that the administration misled lawmakers and the courts about the sequence of events surrounding the termination of those non-union pensions, and that administration figures violated federal law.” (Read More…)

Ford is attacking Toyota’s miserly image. The blue oval announced today that its 2013 C-Max Hybrid crossover gets better mileage than Toyota’s Prius V, Reuters says. (Read More…)

“There is no substance behind the rumors about Stefan Jacoby leaving Volvo Car Corporation,” a spokesman for Volvo Cars told Reuters. He had to, because Sweden’s Dagens Industri named Jacoby as a candidate for the dangerous job as Opel CEO. (Read More…)

Hybrids and minivehicles are still on top of Japan’s list of best-selling cars in July, only more. The Prius is ichi ban with 33,398 units sold. Last time we looked in May, it was 20,789. It  is followed by its compact sister, the Aqua (better known in the U.S. as Prius C) with 26,274.

Honda’s Fit is back in #3. (Read More…)

After three years of work, police in Germany concluded its probe into the affair surrounding the failed takeover of Volkswagen by Porsche. Former Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking and his then CFO Holger Haerter have been investigated for market manipulation.  According to Der Spiegel, the public prosecutor in Stuttgart, Germany, will charge the duo.  Reuters heard meanwhile that the trigger is not yet being pulled, and that the two have three suspense-filled months ahead of them. (Read More…)

After nine hours of talks with the union, and under considerable pressure from the Brazilian government, GM backed off from job cuts at its São José dos Campos factory near São Paulo. The politically sensitive decision (in Brazil and at home) to eliminate as many as 1,840 jobs was delayed until November. (Read More…)

“YES!!!!!!!”

That was the first comment  from the acolytes of the recently a bit depressed fansite Saabsunited, when it was announced that Victor Muller’s Spyker sued GM for $3 billion over Saab’s bankruptcy.

“It’s hard to believe. We have no comment until we see the lawsuit,” said GM spokesman James Cain to Reuters. The complaint is attached to this message. (Read More…)

GM’s U.S. sales get the headlines, GM’s volume is a Chinese import: In the first seven months of the year, GM sold 1.6 million cars in China, versus 1.5 million back home. GM’s Chinese sales data deserve more than a cursory look. Let’s look. (Read More…)

China’s most popular color

Forget the ATS. Now you can show that you are fiscally prudent and still project the Cadillac look.  All you need is a ticket to China and $6,700 in pocket money.  This will buy you the Guizhou Hangtian Chenggong (never mind) GHT6400. Says Carnewschina (buy Tycho a beer as a thank you for finding this Asian beauty): (Read More…)

Roger Pion, the man who rolled his monster tractor over seven police cars, was brought into court in Vermont yesterday. According to New England Cable News, the man is “accused of being a one-man wrecking crew. “ Apparently, that’s a criminal offense in Vermont. (Read More…)

Forget Mao suits: “Chinese youngsters know Justin Bieber, hamburgers and Middle East warfare,” reports the culturally clued-in Carnewschina. “They also know this thing called ‘Bikini Car Wash’, many Chinese websites are full with big-breasted American babes bikini washing big engined American cars.”

A car wash in Shanghai made it reality. Except, well, the babes are Chinese. (Read More…)

Nissan unveiled is 2013 Pathfinder in suburban Detroit and in downtown Manhattan’s Meatpacking District (just two blocks away from the PATH train, get it?) The fashionably rugged, but far from off-roadish locales were carefully chosen: (Read More…)

When GM bought seven percent of the moribund PSA Peugeot Citroen five months ago, the happy couple praised monstrous synergies and annual cost savings of $2 billion a year coming from the – ahem – tie-up. Hope springs eternal, but currently, the value of this dubious investment  is deflating faster than a popped balloon. Even GM is realizing it and tells the Treasury that it may have to write down that investment if things don’t get better soon.

The ever so vigilant Reuters actually went to the trouble of reading the complete 10-Q GM filed with the SEC in connection with GM’s recent quarterly report. In that filing, GM says: (Read More…)

Update: We are in touch with the ad network. and we were told they are stopping  the auto playing videos. Please report whether the auto playing videos have stopped for you. Please focus only on the auto playing part, i.e. video that begins to play when you bring up the page and you do not click on the video. This has stopped for me. Please comment: Stopped yes or no. And please say where you are, some ads are localized. Thank you.

Please let’s discuss other things, like in picture ads etc. later. Let’s solve this issue now. (Read More…)