GM

NEW YORK -- "For years," said Charles ("Engine Charlie") Wilson to a Senate Committee in 1952, "I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors, and vice versa."The comment became an instant cliche, with at least enough feeling of truth that it has endured long after Mr. Wilson, a former defense secretary and GM president, has been forgotten.Whether it is still true today once again has become an issue as General Motors and the other two major domestically based automobile manufacturers shudder through troubled times.

DETROIT -- The United Auto Workers has selected General Motors Corp. to be the lead negotiating partner, also known as a strike target, in the national contract talks, leading workers, analysts and labor experts to believe the union has agreed - in principle - to establish the retiree health care trust that the nation's largest automaker so desperately wants. The union has agreed to indefinite contract extensions with Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC, those companies acknowledged. Either side can break off the extension with three days' notice, people familiar with the matter said.

DETROIT -- General Motors Corp. reduced its truck production plans for the third time in six weeks this week, and union leaders and analysts say they believe even more painful cuts are ahead because fears of a weakening U.S. economy may continue to depress demand for trucks through 2008. GM confirmed this week that it plans to eliminate more than 1,100 jobs at its Oshawa, Ontario, pickup assembly plant when it ends the third shift there in January. The news comes just a week after the automaker said it would not run overtime for the rest of the year at six of its pickup and SUV assembly plants.

DETROIT -- News that DaimlerChrysler AG was discussing the possibility of selling the Chrysler unit to General Motors Corp. cheered its mostly German stockholder base yesterday, but drew jeers elsewhere. Analysts and industry executives questioned why GM, whose own turnaround efforts are still under way, would use some of its $26.4 billion in cash raised by selling profitable assets such as GMAC to buy another unprofitable North American automaker. The companies declined to comment on the reports.

WARREN, Mich. -- On the floor inside a model of a future General Motors rear-wheel-drive car - perhaps the next Chevy Impala - a sculptor shaves away clay with a hand tool to create the shape of a dashboard. As curling strips of mud-brown clay fall around her, it's obvious this is methodical, precise, old-fashioned work. Nearby, inside GM's Virtual Reality studio, designers donned 3-D glasses and evaluated 300 to 400 sketches of the next-generation Chevy Aveo being projected onto three screens.

David L. Lewis remembers well the little snub-nosed compact car that Toyota Motor Corp. introduced in the United States in the mid-1960s, and he can recall the reaction of executives on the 14th floor of the General Motors Corp. headquarters, where he worked at the time. "We all figured, `It's just a little tin can.' We didn't give it any thought at all," said Lewis, now an automotive historian at the University of Michigan. "Well, they sure knew what they were doing. And now we all have to refer to Toyota as the leading automaker in the world."

DETROIT -- General Motors Corp., the world's largest automaker, completed its separation from No. 1 auto-parts maker Delphi Automotive Systems Corp. yesterday with the distribution of $9.3 billion in Delphi shares.GM, which handed its investors an 80.1 percent stake in Delphi and gave another 2.2 percent to a pension trust, now owns no Delphi shares. GM rose 50 cents to $69 on the New York Stock Exchange after being adjusted for the distribution, which was valued at $14.33 per GM share. Delphi slipped 87.5 cents to $19.625.

WILMINGTON, Del. -- At General Motors Corp.'s assembly plant just outside this city, the new midsize Saturns have begun rolling out.Although production is slow during the start-up phase -- about 30 units a day -- analysts say the new sedans and wagons represent GM's best hope of competing with the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord. Industry sources say the plant could eventually turn out as many as 200,000 vehicles a year.For Delaware and the Boxwood Road plant's 2,600 workers, the cars have proved a salvation, saving the plant from a death sentence.

General Motors Corp. has lost another scrimmage with the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation over the payment of unemployment benefits to workers at its Baltimore van assembly plant.A three-member appeals board of the department ruled yesterday against the automaker's request that workers at its Baltimore plant repay one week in unemployment benefits they received last year.About 2,900 hourly workers at the plant received unemployment benefits last summer when the factory was closed for 10 weeks as a result of strikes at GM parts plants in Flint, Mich.

General Motors Corp. Truck Group announced yesterday that it intends to keep open its van assembly plant on Broening Highway through at least 2001, promising another year of jobs to the plant's 2,800 workers.The company previously had said it would keep the plant -- the city's largest manufacturing employer -- open through next year, but decided to extend production because of a recent upturn in demand for the Chevy Astro and GMC Safari vans made at the plant."It's obviously a point of relief," said Charles R. Alfred, president of United Auto Workers Local 239, which represents the plant's workers.

General Motors Co.'s deal to sell Saturn to the Penske Automotive Group has fallen through, forcing the automaker to shutter the brand altogether. The sale had been expected to be completed as soon as this week. "Penske Automotive Group ... has decided to terminate discussions with General Motors to acquire Saturn," GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson said in a statement. As a result, "we will be winding down the Saturn brand and dealership network." The news is a blow to GM, which had made selling three of its brands, along with shutting Pontiac, a key component of its post-bankruptcy restructuring efforts.

The pending closure of Chrysler and General Motors dealerships in Maryland will mean job losses and financial hardships for sales associates, mechanics and other workers directly involved in the business. But the closings also could hit the rest of the Baltimore region's economy, hurting other local businesses and communities that benefit from the auto retailers. For Sean Lloyd, a barber at Theo'z Barbershop on Liberty Road in Randallstown, the shutdown of Antwerpen Dodge across the street means losing customers.

Legendary automaker General Motors Corp. on Monday became the largest U.S. industrial company ever to file for bankruptcy-law protection, in a restructuring that puts it under unprecedented government ownership and jump-starts a plan that will include plant closings and thousands of job losses, but that the company hopes will return it to profitability. The transmission plant in White Marsh will remain open, but a Wilmington, Del., plant that has many workers who live in the Baltimore area will shut down July 31. The bankruptcy reflects the downfall of what was once an icon in the auto industry whose management problems were exacerbated so badly by the global recession that the Obama administration stepped in to take over.

Amid swirling rumors about the fate of the U.S. auto industry, Ford Motor Co., the only domestic carmaker not to rely on federal aid, reported a first-quarter loss of $1.4 billion, bettering analysts' expectations. Although Ford's results were received enthusiastically on Wall Street, they were in great part overshadowed by reports that the Obama administration was preparing a bankruptcy filing for Chrysler and that General Motors Corp. was considering ending its Pontiac brand. In addition, the Treasury Department confirmed Friday that it had given GM an additional $2 billion in funding, raising the company's total federal loans to $15.4 billion to date.

Hospitals, insurers unveil price plans As consumers and employers struggle with soaring health costs, hospitals and insurers unveiled sharply contrasting proposals for hospital price increases Wednesday before the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission. Hospitals proposed an average increase of 3.84 percent for the year beginning July 1 while insurers want 0.8 percent. There is always a gap between the two sides' proposals, "but rarely one of this magnitude," said Robert Murray, the commission's executive director.

Each of the largest automakers reported today U.S. sales declines in excess of 36 percent for March, as the slumping economy continued to keep buyers out of dealerships, deepening the industry's woes. General Motors Corp. said its monthly sales declined 45 percent compared with March 2008; last month, it sold 156,380 cars and light trucks. Chrysler's sales of 100,001 vehicles marked a 39 percent drop, the same decline as at Toyota, which delivered 132,802 autos. Ford Motor Co.'s sales were down 41 percent, with 125,107 vehicles moving in March, while Honda Motor Co. said its numbers were down 36 percent, to 88,379.

President Barack Obama says he is committed to a reorganized and downsized American auto industry, but whether that goal is doable remains to be seen. The president's auto task force, which demanded and received the resignation Sunday of Rick Wagoner, General Motors chairman and CEO, is expected to recommend more short-term aid for GM and Chrysler on Monday with a 60-day deadline on getting needed concessions from union workers and creditors. Continuing to pursue a plan to save GM short of bankruptcy is the right course.

After more than a year of declining sales, February provided a glimpse of even worse times to come yesterday as General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Chrysler reported declines of at least 40 percent in the U.S. market. Despite record incentives from carmakers, worsening economic conditions kept dealerships quiet and consumers in their older cars, making the past month the worst February since 1967, according to GM. GM said U.S. sales were down 53 percent for the month, with 127,296 cars and light trucks sold, while Ford's declined 48 percent, with 99,060 sales.

Slammed by crashing sales, General Motors Corp. said yesterday that it lost $9.6 billion in the fourth quarter and $30.9 billion for all of 2008, its second-worst year on record. The results, which more than doubled dismal analyst expectations, were further evidence of the dire situation the Detroit automaker finds itself in. It has received $13.4 billion in government loans to stay afloat, and this month requested an additional $16.6 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout cash. The money is needed, the automaker said, because it is losing money at such a fast rate that it would soon be unable to fund operations and become financially insolvent.

Increased demand for some General Motors trucks has helped General Motors' Powertrain Baltimore Transmission Plant avert a weeklong shutdown that was to have started Monday, a local spokesman for the plant said yesterday. The spokesman, John Raut, had said last month that the plant was planning to shut down and temporarily lay off all of its hourly workers for the week. The plant employs 238 people. But demand for some company vehicles has improved, including the Chevy Silverado and Sierra pickup trucks, for which the Baltimore plant makes six-speed automatic transmissions, Raut said yesterday.