TOP 100 RACING SITES
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| Fisher reaps partnership benefits with Forsythe team Sarah Fisher Racing's deadline passed last week for fielding a second Indianapolis 500 car, but the team still could have help ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Caruso claims first V8 win Holden driver Michael Caruso says his drought-breaking win in a gruelling 69-lap second race at the Triple Crown V8 Supercar event in Darwin is "huge". foxsports.com.au |
NUMMI to close as Toyota reins in expectations Toyota Motor Corp. said that it will shutter its New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont, Calif, in 2010. The move came almost two months after General Motors decided to pull out of the 25-year-old joint venture. It should come as no surprise. NUMMI already had everything going against it when GM decided to kill Pontiac and pull out of the venture in July. Its United Auto Workers contract guarantees workers $28 an hour compared with $24 an hour in other Toyota plants. Higher electric rates in California made it undesirable. Throw in shipping costs to get parts from the Midwest and to send finished Toyota Tacoma pickups and Corolla compacts across the U.S., and it was one of the Japanese giant’s most expensive factories, if not the most expensive. Without the Pontiac Vibe, keeping the plant running full tilt would have been an even bigger challenge for a Toyota that already has too much production. Toyota will move Tacoma production to its underused Tundra pickup plant in San Antonio and the Corolla will go to Cambridge, Ontario. Both make strategic sense since the assembly lines can be quickly retooled to make the vehicles. But they also have cost advantages over a place like NUMMI. San Antonio has lower wages. It’s a newer plant, so not all of the workers are up to top wage scale. There are lower healthcare costs in Canada and both are near the I-75 corridor where the parts making infrastructure lies. Cambridge isn’t on I-75, but it’s just a jaunt down Canada’s 401 into Detroit to get on the highway. There’s one bigger point to be made. Toyota doesn’t close plants. The company hasn’t had to in recent times despite rapidly falling sales. Toyota has kept the dust flying with new plants going up and even has a shell of a new factory in Mississippi that is waiting for something to build. Shuttering NUMMI is an acknowledgement that Toyota overbuilt during the good times and even an economic recovery won’t justify all of its factories. Now, Toyota has to hang tight like everyone else. Its big growth days appear to be in the rearview mirror. rss.businessweek.com |
Whincup back on track V8 Supercar drivers have gone on the front foot after a potentially disastrous safety car blunder at the Phillip Island 300 on Sunday. foxsports.com.au |
More shakeup at GM. Chevy chief Dewar out. Here goes the merry-go-round. Two more executives are heading out at General Motors. Chevrolet General Manager W.W. Brent Dewar is quitting his job, the company said. He will be replaced by longtime Chevy hand James Campbell. Separately, a management source said that Buick-GMC general manager Michael Richards is out. What does it all mean? For starters, GM better start doing some hiring, and fast. With the CEO out, the CFO soon to be replaced and one brand manager job open, GM needs to start stabilizing its management ranks. This is a pivotal point for a company that is launching new models and trying to patch up tattered brands. With Dewar, GM loses a controversial figure within the company. Some GM managers thought he was intimidating and arrogant. Others thought he was brilliant. But he always exceeded objectives, according to one executive who oversaw Dewar’s work. To his credit, Dewar was giving other advertising agencies a crack at Chevy ad work. GM’s vitally important brand has relied on Campbell Ewald for decades. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz started bidding out the ad work, but Dewar played a key role in picking agencies for Chevy. That will fall in part on Campbell. A source close to Dewar says that he was tight with Henderson and was dismayed at his firing. The two worked together in Brazil. Dewar did not return a phone call and an email. In any case, Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre has already shifted executives around and more moves are coming. Even if Whitacre finds a CEO to replace Fritz Henderson--who was ousted as CEO last week, within the next six months--there are still a few key jobs to fill. His selections will be important, and closely watched. rss.businessweek.com |