Automobile Industry

Toyota Motor Corp. appears to be moving closer to shuttering California's last auto plant. The Japanese automaker plans to start talks next week that could dissolve New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., or NUMMI, which opened in Fremont in 1984 as a 50-50 joint venture of Toyota and then-General Motors Corp.

The road to recovery for U.S. automakers could be jammed with hundreds of thousands of gas-guzzling used cars, which President Obama hopes will be traded in for more fuel-efficient vehicles -- with the lure of government money. So-called cash-for-clunkers programs in Germany and France have worked well this year to spur new car sales. But similar initiatives aimed at reducing smog in Southern California have not fared so well in recent years.

For six months, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler have been trying to convince the government that they need billions of dollars in aid, while assuring the American consumer that everything is A-OK. It's proved to be the marketing equivalent of trying to stuff a Hummer into the trunk of a Corvette. The negative PR campaign appears to have reached the right ears in Washington. On Monday, President Obama will announce his plan for supporting the two automakers beyond the $17.

Past Todd's Body Shop and a crab shack, across from a field of wheat on Route 291, hangs a modest sign for Frank B. Rhodes Jr., furniture maker since 1983. Enter the metal warehouse he uses for his office, showroom and woodworking shop, and there's nothing to let visitors know that the Eastern Shore 50-year-old is one of the few remaining heirs of Walter P. Chrysler, the founder of the auto company that is now struggling to survive.

You've used the Internet to do research on your new car and to find the value of your old one, and you've visited online fan sites and notice boards to get the most out of your shiny new ride. But have you tracked a new-car launch or auto product on Twitter? Car companies are increasingly using the seemingly ubiquitous Twitter to inform and engage potential and existing customers. But will the bold new experiment in social media work?

Tesla, the San Carlos, Calif.-based electric car company, said Tuesday that it had been selected to provide the batteries and chargers for Daimler's Smart EV electric car and would deliver 1,000 of the batteries this year and next. "Daimler just gave me permission this morning to announce the news," said Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, best known as the co-founder of PayPal.

News and notes from the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Monday: Toyota Motor Corp. finally lifted the veil on its completely redesigned Prius. The big news: 50 miles per gallon. Spy shots leaked not long ago, but Toyota's Bob Carter, group division head and general manager, did titillate the standing-room-only audience with a few details about the new vehicle, due out in the U.S. and Japan this spring.

In the next seven days, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler will tell as many as 2,000 dealers they are no longer wanted. They won't go without a fight. GM, which posted a $6-billion quarterly loss Thursday, plans to notify 1,000 to 1,500 dealers early next week that it will not renew their franchises, according to company officials.

With the White House positioned to reshape the future of the auto industry, Republican Sen. Bob Corker was so concerned about the prospects for his home state of Tennessee that he delivered a personal warning to the administration's point man on the issue. Don't keep plants open in Ohio and Michigan, which voted for President Obama last year, at the expense of a plant in Tennessee, which is solidly Republican, he said. "I wanted to know: Would they employ a blue-state, red-state strategy?"

Toyota Motor Corp. is closing California's last automobile plant, but that isn't keeping the factory from asking the state for $2 million in taxpayer money for recent training that made some of its workers better car builders. The automaker says it deserves to be paid back money it spent on training this year at its Fremont plant under a Feb. 27 agreement with the state's Employment Training Panel. But critics are incensed, noting that there won't be any more auto assembly plants left in the state where workers can make use of their training.