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Ford Motor Co. shareholders are again rejecting a proposal to dilute the Ford family's control over the company. At its annual meeting in Wilmington, Del., Thursday, Ford said 67 percent of shareholders voted against the proposal to make each Ford share worth one vote. Thirty-three percent supported it. That was slightly less support than the same measure received last year.

The head of Italian automaker Fiat is considering a plan to hold a public stock offering after the company buys 100 percent of Chrysler, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The automaker, which continues to struggle overseas, posted first-quarter net income of $1.6 billion, beating Wall Street expectations.

Auto buyers in what is the world’s largest car market are shifting away from compacts and subcompacts and buying more midsize cars and sport utility vehicles.

Chrysler has issued an unusually dire warning to some owners of its Dodge Challenger muscle car warning them to park the vehicles until it can make repairs due to a risk of fire. According to Chrysler, the wiring harness is the source of the problem due a batch of potentially mis-wired electrical components.

Barack Obama will use a visit to a Chicago-area lab on Friday to call on Congress to set aside $2bn over the next decade to fund research into a next generation of electric cars. The White House said the Energy Security Trust, which Obama first proposed in his state of the union address, would use royalties from offshore oil and gas drilling in public waters and would not add to the deficit.

German carmaker BMW says 2012 was the best year in its history after it posted a rise in profits and record revenues.

This week in Geneva while Ferrari joined the hybrid race with McLaren and Porsche, Lamborghini unveiled its latest prototype, the $3.9 million Veneno. The 750-horsepower car is a one-off model made to coincide with the company’s 50th anniversary. Its multi-million-dollar price tag makes it one of the most expensive cars ever made, putting it in the same echelon as the $2.4 million Bugatti Veyron and the $1 million McLaren F1.

Ford is recalling 230,000 minivans in cold-weather states to fix rust problems that can cause the third-row seats to come loose.

Cars will soon be so linked into wireless networks they will be like giant rolling smartphones — with calling systems, streaming video, cameras and apps capable of harnessing the unprecedented trove of data vehicles will produce about themselves and the humans who drive them.