Ford has wrapped up some much-needed financial wrangling today, as it struggles with with its monstrous pile of debt. According to Automotive News [sub], Ford transferred $13.2b in debt and about $4b in cash to the UAW-run health care trust fund, completing a long-awaited liability consolidation. $1.4b of the transfer was a scheduled payment on a $6.7b note, while $500m more was a prepayment on that note. Ford paid $610m (cash) on another $6.5 billion note, transferred $620m from a temporary account and $3.5b from an internal VEBA fund and handed over warrants to purchase 362 million shares of Ford common stock at $9.20 per share. All together, the move reportedly adds $7b in debt to Ford’s balance sheet.

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First, they sold the most amount of cars in the world, then, they started cost cutting and now, Toyota are taking another big step towards becoming GM. The Charleston Daily Mail reports that the managers of Toyota’s manufacturing plant in Buffalo, West Virginia have allowed workers to distribute union literature during breaks at the plant. There’d been grumblings about unionisation for some time. Last month, some Toyota employees, (with the backing of the UAW, naturally), filed a grievance with the National Labour Relations Board’s regional office in Cincinnati. They wanted to distribute union material but were stopped by Toyota managers. Jeff Moore, a Toyota vice president at the West Virginia plant, reversed that policy.
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UAW Boss Ron Gettelfinger plans to retire next year, and the search is on to replace the man who led the union through the political minefield that was the auto bailout. But the union’s support for Bob King, who led negotiations with Ford, could open up divisions within the union, reports Automotive News [sub]. King followed the Gettelfinger line, offering Ford many of the same concessions it granted GM and Chrysler during the government bailout that transferred large stakes in those companies to the union’s VEBA fund. Those concessions to Ford, which would have preserved the UAW’s decades-long policy of treating the Detroit automakers equally, were rejected by the same union rank-and-file that must now ratify King’s nomination.

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The Detroit News reports that Senator John McCain (remember him?) has declared Chrysler unlikely to survive. Mr McCain, who was serving as grand marshal of the NASCAR Sprint Cup series race at the Phoenix International Raceway, even went as far as to argue

No, I don’t think we ever should have bailed out Chrysler and General Motors. We should have let them go into bankruptcy, emerge and become viable corporations again. It was all about the unions. The unions didn’t want to have their very generous contracts renegotiated so we put $80 billion into both General Motors and Chrysler, and anybody believes that Chrysler is going to survive, I’d like to meet them.

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Although Toyota was a 50% stakeholder in the NUMMI facility in Freemont, California, it may end up carrying 100% of the closure costs. The LA Times reports that Liquidation Motors, the company which took over GM’s assets won’t fund any of the severance pay or other expenses to the closure of NUMMI. “Motors Liquidation is not contributing at all” (to the closure costs), said Tim Yost, a spokesman for Detroit-based Motors Liquidation Corp., “We don’t believe there will be a requirement for us to do so.” Paul Nolasco,  a Toyota spokesperson in Tokyo said that “Although we cannot provide any figures at this time, it is something for which we plan to make allowance in our earnings report.” Toyota was planning for a smaller-than-expected loss for this financial year, and the addition of these extra costs (should they happen) will affect the company and its stock price. On the other hand, it also puts Toyota in the exact same boat as the American taxpayers.

Well, the “what makes an American car American” debate just got a little more interesting (and a lot more interesting than the “who ‘won’ the CTS-V Challenge” rigmarole). Automotive News [sub] reports that Ford’s Oakville, Ontario plant and GM’s Delta Township plant have ceased production of Flex, Edge, MKX, MKT, Acadia, Traverse and Enclave as supplier Rico Automotive is unable to supply key transmission components. The reason for the parts stoppage: labor violence… in India. Turmoil at Rico’s plant in Gurgaron (30 miles from New Delhi) came to a head on the 18th, when clashes between temporary workers and factory staff left an employee dead. Now GM stands to lose 7,200 units of production, while Ford admits “several thousand” units won’t be built over the next week. This striking illustration of how globalized the auto industry is, is causing some analysts to question the wisdom of using Indian suppliers. They argue that labor unrest like this is common in the subcontinent, compounding already-challenging logistical and shipping-cost issues. But GM and Ford aren’t exactly about to stop investing in Indian firms and production capacity either, since that market shows more growth potential than the US. One thing is for sure: there’s no such thing as an “American car,” let alone an “American car company” anymore. Government ownership notwithstanding.