Auto Industry, Automaker | featured news

After three years of settling for second place, General Motors reclaimed its title as the world’s largest automaker in 2011, a year when its sales grew in every region of the globe while Toyota sales were hampered by major natural disasters.

Welcome to an unlikely beacon of hope for the global auto industry -- Detroit. Executives arriving this week for the Detroit auto show find a U.S. car market that has morphed from meltdown three years ago to a safe haven as concerns grow about the stability of other big economies, from Europe to China.

Chrysler says its U.S. sales rose 26 percent last year as its turnaround gained traction. The company ended the year with a 37 percent increase in December sales on strong demand for the Jeep Wrangler and Chrysler 200 sedan. Chrysler is among the first carmakers to report sales Wednesday.

After hitting a 30-year low in 2009, U.S. auto sales are poised for a second straight year of growth - the result of easier credit, low interest rates and pent-up demand for cars and trucks created by the Great Recession....

General Motors Co. said on Friday that it is recalling more than 4,000 of its 2012 Chevrolet Sonic subcompact cars to check for missing brake pads.

China will impose punitive duties of up to 22 percent on large cars and SUVs exported from the United States, China's Commerce Ministry said on Wednesday, the latest in a series of trade disputes between the world's two largest economies.

General Motors will buy Chevrolet Volts back from any owner who is afraid the electric cars will catch fire, the company's CEO says.

U.S. auto sales rose sharply in November as more confident American consumers spent more on the average showroom purchase, extending a recovery trend for the industry to a sixth month.

Car companies say a sales slowdown in China will likely make competition there more cutthroat as more makers pile into the top auto marketplace.

Toyota over the weekend broke ground for a technical center near Shanghai that will prepare for shifting production to China of tightly guarded technology used in its hybrids and other alternative-energy vehicles—but not its latest technology.