Detriot, MI, United States (AHN) – Chrysler reported a $225 million profit on Wednesday. The company capped its first profitable year since its government bailout and bankruptcy in 2009.

The fourth quarter results were fueled by $15.1 billion in revenue, a 41 percent increase from the same period a year earlier.

For the full year, the struggling automaker on the way to a dramatic turnaround, reported net income of $183 million, compared with a $652 million loss in 2010. Annual revenue for 2011 rose 31 percent to $55 billion.

Giving gas to the turnaround was surging sales of its Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge vehicles. Worldwide sales of its cars and trucks increased 22 percent to 1.85 million vehicles in 2011.

Even better and more encouraging was that Chrysler guided higher for 2012, a move that suggests its turnaround has wheels.

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Wolfsburg, Germany (AHN) – Volkswagen AG announced it had record sales of 5.1 million cars and sport-utility vehicles worldwide in 2011.

Sales were up worldwide by 13.1 percent in 2011 from 2010, company officials said.

Volkswagen is Europe’s largest carmaker.

Although much of its growth came from gains in China, India, Russia and the United States, its two largest markets were Europe and China. The Wolfsburg, Germany-based automaker sold 1.72 million vehicles in each of those markets.

However, company officials said they expected challenges in the market environment for 2012.

VW officials credited new versions of some models, such as the Passat, Jetta and Beetle for helping to boost sales in “difficult market conditions.”

The only region that didn’t record strong growth was South America, where sales increased by only 2.2 percent.

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Torrence, CA, United States (AHN) – Japanese automaker Honda has expanded its previously announced recall of vehicles with dangerous air bags to include almost 900,000 vehicles.

The recall affects only vehicles sold in the United States and includes model years 2001 to 2003 of the affected cars.

The recalled vehicles now include certain 2001 and 2002 Accord, 2001 to 2003 Civic, 2001 to 2003 Odyssey, 2002 and 2003 CR-V, 2003 Pilot, 2002 and 2003 Acura 3.2 TL and 2003 Acura 3.2 CL models, Honda officials said in a statement.

Honda first said the driver’s airbag inflator needed to be replaced because it had a risk of deploying with too much pressure and could rupture, which might result in injuries or death.

The company will begin sending out official notices to owners. However, owners can find more information online and also take an affected vehicle to their dealer for inspection and repairs.

“When Honda identifies concerns of this nature, nothing is more important to the company than fulfilling our obligation and responsibility to alert our customers,” Honda officials said in a statement posted on the company website. “To this end, in addition to contacting customers by mail, in late December, owners of these vehicles will be able to determine if their vehicles require repair by going on-line or calling. Honda owners can go to www.recalls.honda.com or call (800) 999-1009 and select option 4; Acura owners can go to www.recalls.acura.com or call (800) 382-2238 and select option 4.”

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – General Motors reported better than expected earnings in the third quarter on Wednesday, but CEO Dan Akerson said the quarter “isn’t good enough,” a signal that more cost cutting lies ahead.

GM, the U.S.’s largest automaker, earned $1.7 billion, or $1.03 a share in the third quarter, down from $2 billion earned in the last full period before its initial public offering.

While better than analysts’ estimates of 96 cents a share, Akerson said in the company’s earning statement Wednesday “Solid isn’t good enough, even in a tough global economy.”

The company did not give specific guidance on net income in the fourth quarter or lay out any specific measures to improve margins.

The lack of fourth quarter guidance, and the sinking Dow, helped send shares of GM down almost 8 percent shortly before noon.

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Stockholm, Sweden (AHN) – Struggling automotive icon Saab will change hands again in a proposed deal to save it from bankruptcy by selling it to two Chinese companies.

Swedish Automotive will sell its Saab unit to Chinese distributor Pang Da Automobile Trade and auto manufacturer Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile. The two will pay a mere $142 million for the 62-year old auto manufacturer.

General Motors sold Saab to Swedish Automotive only 2 years ago as part of GM’s restructuring to avoid bankruptcy itself.

Since that sale, Saab has had extreme economic woes that it has not manufactured a car since April and it has been in court trying to avoid bankruptcy.

China has become the world’s largest market for automobiles.

Chinese automakers bought another iconic struggling automaker last year, Volvo.

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Detroit, MI, United States (AHN) – United Auto Workers approved a new four-year labor agreement with Ford Motor, UAW officials announced on Wednesday.

As recently as this weekend, 53 percent of the 41,000 Ford UAW rank and file members were voting no to the contract.

However, that changed when the locals voted. The final tally was 63 percent of production workers and 65 percent of skilled-trades workers voting yes to the deal.

UAW President Bob King had urged the members to approve the deal, saying they could not expect anything any better. Moreover, he said it was important to approve the deal because it brought jobs back to the United States that currently are held by nonunion labor in Mexico and overseas.

Ford is the most profitable automaker in the country. Ford CEO Alan Mulally received stock from the company in 2010 worth an estimated $54.5 million, which drew criticism from King. Auto workers, like many other Americans, are angry over the income disparity in the nation.

Although the new deal does little to raise worker’s pay, along with bringing some jobs back to America the contract also calls for Ford to invest an additional $4.8 billion in new products and equipment at U.S. plants.

The contract is worth nearly 6,000 more jobs on top of the 7,000 jobs that Ford officials had already announced they would add.

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Detroit, MI, United States (AHN) – Ford has reached a tentative labor contract with union workers in more than two dozen plants nationwide.

The agreement with the United Auto Workers, which still requires ratification from members, will add 12,000 new jobs in the company’s facilities, 5,750 more than what Ford previously committed to the union.

The additional jobs includes positions in China, Japan and Mexico that Ford will bring back into the United States.

The UAW was also able to raise entry-level wages to $19.28 over the term of the contract, which will end in 2015. In addition, the union won a $6,000 settlement bonus for workers with a year or more of seniority, and $5,000 for those with less than a year.

John Fleming, Ford’s executive vice president for global manufacturing and labor affairs, said in a statement the tentative contract is “fair to employees” and “improves [the company's] competitiveness in the U.S.”

“UAW members sacrificed when the company was struggling, and this agreement ensures that our members will now share in Ford’s prosperity,” said union vice president Jimmy Settles.

Ford pledged $16 billion in total domestic investments, $6.2 billion of which will be used to produce upgraded vehicles and components in plants nationwide by 2015.

The investment also includes $1.1 billion in Kansas City, which Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon called a “historic development for next-generation manufacturing in the state.”

Dearborn-based Ford, the only American automaker not to receive a government bailout, was the second of Detroit’s Big Three to reach an agreement with the United Auto Workers.

General Motors ended negotiations with the union mid-September. The union ratified the contract that resulted in those talks by a 2:1 ratio.

The union, which represents more than 41,000 hourly and salary workers at 27 domestic Ford plants, now turns its focus to Chrysler, which Fiat acquired last year as part of the carmaker’s government-sponsored reorganization.

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Detroit, MI, United States (AHN) – General Motors announced on Tuesday that it has entered into a joint venture with a Chinese automaker to develop electric cars. The deal also involves transfer of battery and other electric vehicle technology.

The 50-50 joint venture is between GM and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., the largest vehicle manufacturing company in China. The combined firm, Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center, is based in Shanghai and has already helped develop the Buick LaCrosse eAssist model now being sold in both countries.

China is a growing market for new cars because of the rapid pace of the country’s economy, which provides the Chinese people with money to purchase vehicles. The Chinese government is encouraging the entry of electric cars and other vehicles run on new energy and even offers national and municipal subsidies of up to $19,300 a unit.

To further give electric cars a boost, Beijing is exerting pressure on foreign carmakers to bring their electric car technology to China through joint ventures. However, GM Vice Chairman Stephen Girsky said its joint venture was not linked with the Beijing government initiative.

The joint venture can also been seen as a move by GM to lower production costs by having some of the vehicles manufactured in China where there is abundant and cheap manpower.

To further curb costs, GM entered into a four-year labor agreement this week with the United Auto Workers union to encourage the highest-paid hourly workers to retire so the carmaker could employ new workers at lower wages.

The buyout packages of up to $75,000 would be offered by GM to about 10,000 skilled-traded workers. GM would also pay other workers eligible to retire $10,000 if they would stop working in the next two years. GM then would replace them with new hires at the rate of less than $16 an hour.

GM is expected to save $30 an hour for every skilled-trade worker replaced with a lower-paid employee or up to $57,000 yearly per worker, according to the Center for Automotive Research.

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Tokyo, Japan (AHN) – Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co. is set to voluntarily recall close to a million car models to repair troubles with power windows and computer equipment.

The global recall will be done in two categories. Some 936,000 units of the Fit subcompact, CR-V crossover and Fit Aria in North America, Asia, Europe and Africa are part of the first category. The Fit is called Jazz in some overseas markets, while the Fit Aria is also known as City.

The second category, meanwhile, will involve 26,000 CR-Z compact hybrid models in Japan, the United States, Canada and other markets.

Both overseas recalls will cost the Japanese carmaker $16.8 million.

In a statement, Honda said the recalls are necessary to fix programming problems with the engine control unit, as well as in the driver’s-side power window switch units, which the carmaker said could potentially melt and catch fire.

Honda Motor Co. is Japan’s third-biggest car maker by volume.

The company had recalled more than 2.3 million vehicles in early August, citing problems with automatic transmissions.

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Detroit, MI, United States (AHN) – U.S. automaker General Motors Co. and top Korean battery manufacturer LG Corp. have entered into a partnership to design and create future electric vehicles.

The strategic partnership came after LG supplied GM the lithium-ion batteries for its Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera. Many view their collaboration as an eventual result of their initial venture.

The deal is a first-of-its-kind alliance between an auto maker and electronics giant in vehicle design and engineering.

The GM-LG tie-up comes three days after Ford and Toyota announced their joint collaboration to build hybrid trucks and SUVs.

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