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A team of 45 designers, sculptors, design engineers and scientists are working in the EFlex Systems Design studio to continue work on the Chevy Volt. It will be dedicated to designing a variety of vehicles that will use the electric plug in concept for cars.

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Auto sales in the U.S. reached 1.33 million vehicles in May, a 25% increase over the previous year, with the previous years figures skewed by the tsunami in Japan and shortages for Japanese manufacturers. The seasonally adjusted annual sales rate was 13.8 million vehicles. Employment increased to 644,000 workers in the U.S. auto industry, an increase in the first quarter of 2012 of 6% over the prior year, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. The basic reason for the increased demand is the aging of cars on the road to about 10.8 years, according to vehicle registration information.

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The mysterious disappearance of $1.2 billion from customer accounts at MF Global. Jan Corzine, CEO of MF Global, former governor of New Jersey, former senior executive at Goldman Sachs, tell the U.S. Congress he has no idea what happened to the money.

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Peugeot plans to shut down its plant at Aulnay-sous-Bois near Paris in 2014. About 3000 jobs will be lost at the plant. In all Peugeot plans to cut 8500 jobs, about 8% of its workforce in France. Peugeot says the pace of losses is unsustainable, with Peugeot losing 200 million euros in cash each month, putting the entire enterprise in peril. This also raises more questions about France's competitiveness as 400,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the last ten years according to government data. Peugeot is seeing declining sales because of slowing sales in southern Europe, a critical market for Peugeot. Overall capacity utilization for Peugeot dropped from 86% in 2011 to an average of 76% in the second half of 2012, with sharper declines in the small car segment on which the company has focussed. The Aulnay plant produced 300,000 cars 2007, by 2011 this came down to 135,000 cars. Peugeots strategy of making smaller economy style cars with higher French labor costs presents a challenge say analysts, and its slower move into Asian markets has not given it the advantage enjoyed by German manufacturer VW. In addition to the 3000 jobs lost at Aulnay, Peugeot plans to cut 1400 jobs at its Brittany plant in Rennes, and 3600 corporate jobs. To assure unions the company will build a new car at the Rennes plant in 2016, and could move 1500 jobs from Aulnay to another plant near Paris....

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When a Saturn crossover with one name Outlook, and the same crossover with another name Traverse sells at a Chevy dealership does it take sales away from another GM brand. What happens wen marketing budgets and campaigns focus on a car like the Chevy Malibu does it take something away from the Saturn Aura which isn't the focus of marketing efforts and doen't have the financing package of the Chevy Malibu which is part of the marketing focus on the Malibu. The new Pontiac G8 doesn't get much marketing as GM focusses on the Malibu. So the question is whether it helps Toyota to have the Camry one car which benefits from a focussed marketing effort as opposed to the distributed and diffused markeing effort on a coupple of nameplates and brands.

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Management role of Wagoner shifts as Henderson assumes more operating role at General Motors.

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This report in the Economist says that the days of double digit increases in the car market are a thing of the past. Future increases will be in the mid to high single digits, according to McKinsey consulting firm. China's economy is slowing and official estimates of GDP growth of 7% are described by experts as overstated, with real estimate of growth for the 1st quarter of 2015 by Citi, Conference Board and Capital Economics all below 5%, as reported in the WSJ. A sign of the change in the market is the need for higher use of incentives. The growth in the used car market offers buyers other alternatives. The new plants being added will increase production by 5.3 million light vehicles a year and come online in 2015 and 2016, this is in addition to the 22.8 million in sales in 2014. Average Chinese auto plants operate at 70% of capacity and the added volume will lower capacity utilization further. China's local automobile companies, with the exception of companies in joint ventures with foreign companies, have failed to gain customer loyalty. Many of these companies may be absorbed by foreign car makers or shut down as the industry consolidates. Foreign companies will find doing business less attractive as sales decline. ...

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Even if optimism rules, macro-economic forces in financial markets such as the Dublin crisis will also have a significant influence on the IPO price.

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The glass ceiling facing women as they face hurdles to reaching top management positions in China, India, Japan, S. Korea and other Asian countries. The need for proactive efforts and programs to develop women for top and middle management positions. The figures show women represented at levels as low as 1-3% at board level and senior management positions in China and Japan. Cultural attitudes, women's tendency not to push themselves forward when they feel they lack all the skills needed, and a lack of programs to develop women, lead to this lopsided situation where skills of talented women are not utilized.