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China takes lead as GM's No. 1 market

It's happened. General Motors' biggest vehicle market - at least in terms of new model sales - is China. According to TheDetroitBureau.com, GM and its various Chinese joint venture operations enjoyed a 10.6-percent sales increase in the first half of 2013, selling almost 1.6 million units in the market. That puts GM China about 200,000 units ahead of its US sales totals over the same period - this, despite indicators that the communist nation's economy is losing momentum.
TDB notes that like GM, rival Ford has also enjoyed a robust 2013 in China thus far, with its sales up a whopping 47 percent to 407,721 units sold - 75,254 of them in June alone. Between the two US automakers, passenger car sales for the first half of 2013 are up around 14 percent, well ahead of the rest of the industry's 10-percent growth estimates for the market. Some of the sales growth may come as a result of an overall anti-Japan sentiment in China, though the American brands have long outsold their Japanese counterparts in the country.
By The General's own predictions, China will only continue to grow in sales importance. The company has designs on selling over five million cars a year in the market before the end of the decade, a total that figures to dramatically widen the gap versus its US totals - even if America's auto market makes a full recovery to the the salad days of over 17-million units a year.

2014 Ford F-150 gets CNG option

Ford is toiling away, installing heavy-duty engine components into select 3.7-liter V6s to allow them to run on compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquid petroleum gas (LPG) in addition to gasoline. That's nothing new, but now, Ford has announced that it will offer the 2014 F-150 with this engine configuration, bringing the Blue Oval's total number of CNG/LPG-friendly vehicles up to eight. The F-150 will be the only half-ton pickup on the market that can run on these gases.
Ford will charge $315 per vehicle to equip the optional engine, but the trucks won't be ready to run on the alternative fuels straight from the factory and must be upfitted with additional equipment. A Ford Qualified Vehicle Modifier will install a separate fuel system for the compressed gases at a cost of $7,500 to $9,500, depending on fuel tank size. With the right-size tank, the F-150 equipped with the CNG/LPG-prepped engine can go 750 miles on one tank of gas, according to Ford, averaging 23 miles per gallon.
The practice of offering flex-fuel vehicles is gaining momentum as businesses take advantage of cheap gas. CNG can be bought for $2.11/gallon on average (per gasoline equivalent), and sometimes for as little as $1.00 in some parts of the US, Ford states. "With the money saved using CNG, customers could start to see payback on their investment in as little as 24 to 36 months," says Jon Coleman, Ford's fleet sustainability and technology manager. The automaker expects to sell a total of 15,000 CNG/LPG-prepped vehicles in the 2014 model year.

Detroit Three automakers and UAW will continue to require masks

GM CEO Mary Barra at a Warren, Mich., training center in September. (Reuters)   WASHINGTON — Detroit's Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union said on Wednesday that workers will continue to be required to wear masks in workplaces. The joint statement from the UAW and General Motors, Ford and Chrysler-parent Stellantis NV said it was continuing the requirements "out of an abundance of caution." The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in May that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in most instances, including at work. The UAW and the automakers said temperature screening upon entering facilities is expected to be phased out. The UAW and automakers continue to recommend autoworkers get vaccinated. Many U.S. employers are still requiring vaccinated workers to wear masks in workplaces. Volkswagen AG's U.S. unit said it will "no longer require masks for fully vaccinated employees after June 21, and will continue to follow CDC guidelines." Toyota is among the automakers that has ended temperature checks and entry questionnaires at U.S. plants but it is continuing to require facial coverings. Honda and Nissan said they had made no changes to their U.S. employee COVID-19 requirements.   Plants/Manufacturing Chrysler Dodge Ford GM Jeep RAM Safety coronavirus