Tagged: auto sales

Enbridge may face record penalty for 2010 spill

Enbridge Energy is responsible for the pipeline rupture that spilled more than 843,000 gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River and Talmadge Creek near Marshall, MI.  EPA estimates that number is more than 1 million gallons.  Steve Carmody reports the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration  (PHMSA) has spent the past few years reviewing the events that led up to the oil spill.  

PHMSA’s investigation found multiple violations of its hazardous liquid pipeline safety regulations related to integrity management, failure to follow operations and maintenance procedures, and reporting and operator qualification requirements. PHMSA issued its notice and proposed civil penalty to Enbridge in a Notice of Probable Violation. The agency is proposing a fine for Enbridge of $3.7 million, which would be a record civil penalty. Enbridge has said the company expects to spend $700 million cleaning up the spill.

Michigan to receive $23.8 million from settlement of drug marketing case

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette says the state is in line to get $23.8 million as part of a $3 billion settlement of an improper drug marketing case against GlaxoSmithKline LLC, the Associated Press reports. From the AP:

The U.S. Justice Department said Monday that the British pharmaceutical giant agreed to the payment and is pleading guilty to promoting two popular drugs for unapproved uses. The federal government says the company also admits failing to disclose important safety information on a third drug. Michigan was among states that sued the company. Schuette says GlaxoSmithKline underpaid the rebates in owed for drugs paid through Michigan's Medicaid program. The Justice Department says the $3 billion combined criminal-civil fine will be the largest penalty ever paid by a drug company.

June auto sales 

Analysts say U.S. auto sales continued to buck the otherwise poor economic news in June. Tracy Samilton reports:

Larry Dominique of True Car Dot Com says June car sales should be up about 18% from last June.    That's a pretty healthy increase given worries about the recession in Europe and the barely moving unemployment numbers in the U.S. 

Dominique says he will be interested to see what kind of cars people bought toward the end of June -- when gas prices went down noticeably. 

"Typical of Americans we tend to have short memories, so as fuel prices go down we tend to go towards larger displacements and trucks."

Dominique says Honda and Toyota had especially good sales in June.  He says the two companies have largely recovered from the tsunami last spring.

U-S car sales rose about two percent in April from the same month last year.

That's better news than it sounds, according to Michelle Krebs of Edmunds dot com. She says there were three fewer selling days this April than there were last year.

Krebs says small car sales remained brisk in April, because of high gas prices. But she says sales of midsize cars like the Honda Accord and Chevy Malibu are also increasing.

Update 12:35 p.m.

Ford, Chrysler and General Motors all posted higher auto sales in February.

Ford sales were up by 14% compared with February 2011.   Chrysler sales soared by 40%.  GM posted a slight 1% increase.

Erich Merkel is an analyst with Ford Motor Company.  He says rising gasoline prices influenced which vehicles sold last month.

“What we saw was really strong momentum into more fuel efficient vehicles and toward smaller vehicles," says Merkel.

January was another good month for U.S. car sales. 

Analysts think most car companies will report they sold more cars in January than they did in the same month last year.

Part of the reason is pent-up demand.  Many people held onto their old cars during the recession, and month by month, those aging cars are giving out.  People are also feeling a bit more confident in the economy.

Also, it appears Toyota has for the most part gotten back to full production, after last year's tsunami in Japan.

Update:

GM sales rose almost 8% in July, while Ford sales rose 8.9% and Chrysler sales increased 20.1%.

From the Detroit Free Press:

The Detroit Three saw U.S. sales increase in July and gained market share, as a troubling economy and weeks of worries about the U.S. debt ceiling continued to hamper a recovery in auto sales.

Chrysler had its best July since 2007 to lead Detroit’s automakers with a 20.1% surge, off a 33% gain in sales to individual customers. General Motors’ U.S. sales rose 7.6% last month and Ford’s grew 8.9%. Japanese automakers continued to lose share to their American rivals as they recovered from the March earthquake and tsunami in their country.

GM forecast July industrywide sales of light cars and trucks were flat from the previous year and slightly better than June. Consumers stayed out of showrooms amid news of climbing unemployment and bitter debate over raising the U.S. debt ceiling to prevent the country from defaulting on its loans tonight. President Barack Obama signed legislation today to prevent that scenario after the Senate approved the bill.

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Original post:

From the Associated Press:

General Motors says its U.S. sales rose nearly 8 percent last month, led by fuel-efficient vehicles such as the
Chevrolet Cruze car.

Snyder Meeting with Fellow Governors

Governor Rick Snyder is in Washington D.C. for the annual National Governors Association winter meetings. The nation’s Governors had dinner last night at the White House where, the Associated Press reports, President Obama told them:

"Our federal system is a laboratory for democracy. In each of your states, you guys are trying all kinds of things. Oftentimes, your best ideas end up percolating up and end up becoming models and templates for the country."

Governor Snyder and other governors will meet today with President Obama and Vice President Biden.

February Auto Sales

Auto analysts are expecting to see an improvement in auto sales in February compared with the same time last year. That’s despite some interference from Mother Nature, Tracy Samilton reports. Samilton explains that it’s not unusual for auto sales to decline because of big snowstorms. But, one auto analyst told Samilton, auto sales still probably improved in February by 20 percent.

City Administrator Resigns

Eric Waidelich, Allen Park’s City Administrator, has resigned. The news comes less than a week after the Allen Park City Council voted to lay off the city’s entire fire department because of budget problems. As Rina Miller reports, “A movie studio-deal gone bad is getting some of the blame for Allen Park’s financial troubles. The Detroit suburb bought an old Visteon facility in 2008 for almost $25 million, banking on a plan to lease the property to Unity Studios. The deal flopped  and now Allen Park is broke.”

Most car companies had a better January than the same month last year, led by Chrysler and GM, which improved their sales 23%.

Ford sales improved 13%.  The company had a stronger January a year ago than Chrysler and GM, which were both struggling to rebuild inventories, so Ford's percentage improvement is not as great.

Ford also terminated its Mercury brand in December, and officials say the company is deliberately reducing sales to fleets like rental car companies.  A high volume of fleet sales can lower the residual value of a company's vehicles.

December auto sales numbers are due tomorrow. It’s expected to be another good month for Detroit’s automakers. 

After watching auto sales dwindle in the depths of the recession, auto companies have seen a surge in buying demand in recent months.  December is expected to be the third straight month of strong domestic auto sales.