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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.

Volvo Emissions Equality Campaign – Great move

The Volvo V70 - less polluting than a Fiat 500 Whenever we get the opportunity – as regular readers will know – we complain about the current obsession with CO2 emissions on cars and call for car makers and Governments to act on the emissions which actually matter – NOx, hydrocarbons and particulates (and here, and here, and here and…). And it looks like Volvo agrees. Volvo are launching the ‘Emissions Equality Campaign to get car buyers to consider the whole picture when it comes to car emissions and not just look at the figure for CO2, which buyers have been brainwashed in to thinking matters (our view of CO2 – not Volvo’s).

Gorden Wagener on how Mercedes is "moving from a traditional luxury brand to a modern luxury brand"

Mercedes' 'home' design studio in Sindelfingen, Germany is housed in an expansive 30,000-square meter building designed by Renzo Piano. The lobby is unassuming, but we're soon through into what Mercedes' grandly calls 'the Vision Room.' It's here that strategic meetings are held with the firm's board, and where we meet Gorden Wagener, Mercedes' head of design since 2008. It's in the Vision Room that Wagener convinced the Mercedes board of the merits of his overarching design philosophy: 'sensual purity'.