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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.

CAR Online: a model year facelift for our website

We're getting the new CAR branding, and a spruce-up here and there: a sophisticated colour palette, improved navigation and other tweaks to make CAR Online better By Tim Pollard Motor Industry 16 March 2009 15:05 Yes, we’ve finally launched our new-for-2009 facelifted website. We've rolled out v2.1 of CAR Online – a gently fettled, spruced-up version of your favourite motoring website. We’ve redesigned the site in harmony with the new-look CAR Magazine, so there’s a more sophisticated colour palette, new-look CAR logo branding and tidied-up layouts on most pages.

Contest: Mazda Design Challenge

The 'Mazda Design Challenge', launched September 27 exclusively through the social networking website Facebook, is enlisting help from Facebook users in the United States to compete to design a future Mazda 3. The winner of the contest will work with Franz von Holzhausen, director of Mazda Design in North America, and his team, to bring the concept to life, live on stage at the 2007 Los Angeles International Auto Show in November. Contestants submitted a 150-word description of their vision of the 2018 Mazda 3 including an optional sketch.