News watch Feb 2010: today's auto industry news

Tuesday 2 February 2010
• Spyker has outlined its plans for Saab, which include a new 'all Saab' 9-3 to be launched in 2012. Read the full story here (Saab)
• EuroNCAP has named the VW Golf as 'Safest Car of 2009' after ranking all the 33 models it crashed last year (Volkswagen) 
• Toyota's massive recall to fix fault accelerator pedals could cost the company £1.25bn in lost output and sales (BBC)
• Ford will unveil an Edge SUV at next week's Chicago auto show with a turbocharged four-cylinder Ecoboost engine, but the extensive visual mid-life facelift has been made economically possible thanks to Ford's worldwide consolidation of its model ranges (Detroit News)
• Toyota has denied that it ignored warnings and acted slowly over reports of unintended acceleration in its vehicles (Detroit News)

Monday 1 February 2010
• Lotus's vehicle engineering director Roger Becker announced his retirement today. Becker, 64, joined Lotus in 1966, worked alongside Colin Chapman and helped develop every single model since (Group Lotus)
• Tata Motors' total sales last month hit 65,478 vehicles – a rise of 77% over January 2009. That includes 4001 Nanos and Jaguar Land Rover sales were also up (Tata)
• Spyker Cars has called an extraordinary general meeting on 12 February to ratify its takeover of Saab (Spyker Cars)
• PSA Peugeot Citroen is recalling some of the 107 and C1 models it makes in Europe with Toyota, over fears the accelerator can jam. Peugeot said it will reall 'under 100,000' cars – on top of the 1.8 million cars Toyota is recalling across Europe (BBC News)
• Recalls are in vogue; Honda too is recalling 646,000 vehicles globally to fix a switch problem that can cause a fire (BBC News)
• New Saab owner Spyker promises not to cut the dealer network immediately and is working on a long-term financing agreement with GMAC to be the primary lender (Automotive News)
• Tesla papers reveal that it will stop building the Elise-based Roadster in 2011 – because a new Elise/Exige line is due at Norfolk (Motor Trend)
• Porsche Automobil Holding SE, the holding company, has appointed 31-year-old His Excellency Sheikh Jassim Bin Abdulaziz Bin Jassim Al-Thani onto the supervisory board. Qatar Holding LLC holds 10% of the ordinary shares in Porsche (Porsche)

By Tim Pollard and Ben Pulman