Ford Motor Company, Auto Industry | featured news

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

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

Ford's leaders have watched Mark Fields, a brash Harvard MBA, turn Ford's North American operations into a profit machine. Now the CEO job is his to lose....

General Motors Co, the largest U.S. automaker, reported a 1.5 percent increase in September auto sales on the strength of its passenger car sales, while Ford Motor Co posted sales that were on par with its results from a year earlier.

Pickup truck buyers are a stubborn lot, or so goes the conventional wisdom. What matters is payload and towing capacity; all else be damned. But recent trends suggest that’s not necessarily the case. The latest generation of full-size trucks now offer the sort of high-tech, high-touch features you might expect in a luxury car. And, perhaps most shockingly, Ford Motor Co. is now selling more than half of its F-Series pickups equipped with V-6s, rather than the classic, heavy-hauling V-8.

While the North American business performed well, the automaker reported a loss in Europe and now expects to lose more than $1 billion there this year.

General Motors and Chrysler reported double-digit sales of new vehicles, while Ford’s rose 7 percent. Toyota sales were up 60 percent.

Chrysler sales rose 20 percent last month, its strongest April in four years. General Motors and Ford reported slight dips for the month. Overall, the U.S. auto industry appears strong.

The recovery of the U.S. automotive industry got another shot in the arm Tuesday, when Fitch Ratings hiked its rating on Ford Motor and its credit arm to investment grade.