Ford, Automaker | featured news

March is turning out to be the best month for auto sales in at least six years. Major automakers including Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, General Motors and Nissan all reported increases, with some reporting their best monthly totals since the start of the Great Recession in December of 2007.

Ford is joining with Diamler and Renault-Nissan to speed the development of cars that run on hydrogen. The three companies expect their alliance to bring affordable hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to market as early as 2017. Fuel cell vehicles run on electricity generated from hydrogen and oxygen. The only byproduct is water.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally netted $34.5 million worth of company shares as a reward for leading the auto maker's turnaround.

October was a relatively good month for the auto industry, which is trying to build momentum in what has been a slow recovery.

The most problem-free cars and trucks are made by Honda and Toyota, but Ford is closing in fast and General Motors is making big quality improvements, according to Consumer Reports magazine's 2010 reliability rankings.

Ford Motor Co. is on a roll. Its popular new cars and trucks are grabbing a bigger share of the U.S. market. It's about to erase a big portion of its health care debts. And Ford is adding a significant number of jobs for the first time in years.

General Motors and Chrysler are beginning to make some headway after getting a financial and operational overhaul compliments of the U.S. bankruptcy court.

Ford Motor reached an agreement to sell its Volvo subsidiary to a Chinese conglomerate for $1.8 billion.

Ford, the only U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy court, clawed its way to a $2.7 billion profit in 2009 and expects to stay in the black in 2010. It was the automaker's first annual profit in four years.

Automaker says earnings were fueled by cost cuts and Cash for Clunkers rebates.