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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.

GM to build Cadillac ELR in Detroit

General Motors confirmed Tuesday that it will build the Cadillac ELR extended-range plug-in hybrid at the same plant that builds the Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera hybrids. GM said it will spend $35 million on the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant to add the Cadillac. GM North America president Mark Reuss said production of the ELR is set to begin in late 2013.

Mercedes S-Class Grand Edition launches

Mercedes S-Class Grand Edition - AMG cosmetics to garner the last sales It’s usually a fair assumption that when Mercedes launches a car with a ‘Grand Edition’ badge attached to its boot that the end for that model is nigh. And so it is with the Mercedes S-Class Grand Edition. So before the 2012 S-Class arrives with its Magic Sky and Magic Body and Magic everything else, Mercedes has bolted a lot of its high-end cosmetics to the more lowly S-Class models to try and wring the last few sales out of a car that is long in the tooth and no longer as good as the BMW 7 Series, Audi A8 or Jaguar XJ.