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Crunch watch Mar 09: the auto industry in crisis

By Ben Pulman and Tim Pollard Motor Industry 31 March 2009 13:48 Tuesday 31 March 2009• Porsche said that its earnings before tax rose to €7.3 billion in the six months to the end of January – including a €6.8bn windfall from its VW share options (Financial Times)• Fritz Henderson, GM's president and chief operating officer, will step up to replace Rick Wagoner, who was ousted on Sunday as CEO of General Motors (Financial Times)• President Obama is essentially CEO-in-chief of GM – despite not owning a single cent of stock, says Detroit News commentator (Detroit News)• German chancellor Angela Merkel gives assurances that any would-be investors in GM's European arm will be given state support. Opel is asking for €3.3 billion in aid – and up to 25,000 jobs in Germany depend on it, with up to 300,000 jobs across Europe including Saab and Vauxhall (BBC News)Monday 30 March 2009• General Motors' chief executive Rick Wagoner has been ordered to resign by US president Barack Obama with immediate effect. It's part of Obama's administration's critique of GM and Chrysler's turnaround plans – he's understood to be unhappy with the plans submitted (BBC News)• New GM non-executive chairman Kent Kresa has admitted that at the company's next general meeting it will have 'a majority of new directors' (General Motors)• Chrysler will receive US government aid for the next 30 days, but the Obama administration has said that if the company cannot secure a tie-up with the Fiat Group within that time period it will not receive any more money from the taxpayers and could go into liquidation.

Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4: The Commercial

Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 takes on the landscape There was a time in the dim and distant past (well, the 1980s) when advertising cars was easy – you just made them look as dramatic as possible and hoped viewers would think that buying the car being advertised would imbue them with endless cool. But then the world was made to feel guilt by a new religion which was even better than the Catholic Church at making its followers feel bad for anything in life that feels good – the ‘Global Warming’ believers. These descendants of the ‘Hole in the Ozone Layer’ brigade and the ‘New Ice Age’ predictors’ have managed to frighten a big chunk of the West’s population in to believing they are somehow to blame for our climate change, and in doing so have terrified car makers in to making anything other than fluffy-bunny adverts.

Citroën C4 Picasso

The all-new Citroën C4 Picasso will come as no surprise to anyone who saw the Thechnospace concept at last month's Geneva motor show as it's essentially identical, bar some color and trim details. This five-seat, C-segment MPV/minivan is shorter than the car it replaces by 40mm at 4,430mm, meaning it's closer to the old Xsara Picasso in size. It is a little wider than the old C4 at 1,830mm and its wheelbase spans an extra 55mm at 2,785mm, which Citroën says means it boast more interior and luggage space than before.