Chrysler Group

United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger, who sits on DaimlerChrysler's board, said Wednesday that he would press the German carmaker to keep its U.S.-based Chrysler Group unit. Gettelfinger, speaking to reporters at Chrysler's headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., said the union believed that it was still an option for Daimler to retain Chrysler despite a sale process that began in February and has been credited with pushing shares of DaimlerChrysler sharply higher since.

Toyota Motor Corp. will recall about 22,000 vehicles because a tire-pressure monitoring system might fail to notify drivers of a flat or deflated tire. The recall affects Toyota Sequoia, FJ Cruiser, Land Cruiser, Tacoma and Tundra vehicles from the 2008 to 2011 model years. Toyota has issued recalls of more than 13 million vehicles since September 2009 in the U.S. alone, including the recall of more than 2 million vehicles to correct problems with floor mats and other issues that could cause unintended acceleration.

Auto lender GMAC Financial Services said Tuesday that it expected to announce a combined fourth-quarter net loss of about $5 billion, hurt by its struggling mortgage division. Detroit-based GMAC said that a previously disclosed $3.8-billion pretax charge was the main driver of the anticipated loss and that it had taken steps to sell some of its mortgage assets after a third installment of federal aid. GMAC received $3.8 billion in taxpayer money last week and has received $16.3 billion in total.

The idea that General Motors Corp. could buy Chrysler Group has many heads shaking in bemusement, but some who watch the U.S. auto industry say the concept might actually gain traction. One of the big reasons cited for accepting such a prospect as credible is that by acquiring Chrysler Group, which builds more than 2.5 million vehicles a year, GM would put a stop to talk that it is about to be overtaken as the world's largest automaker by Japanese juggernaut Toyota Motor Corp.

The Treasury Department sold its remaining stake in Chrysler Group, ending its role in the Detroit automaker's bailout that left taxpayers with a $1.3-billion loss. Italian automaker Fiat purchased the U.S. government's 6% stake in Chrysler for $560 million on Thursday, formally concluding the $12.5-billion bailout in 2008 and 2009, the Treasury Department announced. Including Chrysler's payment of loans from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, the government received $11.2 billion of the money back.

Those tread marks Asian automakers have been laying across the landscape got bigger Tuesday as Toyota Motor Corp. said it would build its next North American assembly plant in Mississippi and DaimlerChrysler approved a plan to start selling Chinese-built cars in the U.S. The subcompacts would be the first Chinese vehicles sold here and probably open the door for other Chinese automakers.

Lest you worry that auto shows were only focusing on the latest lean and green offerings from automakers, Chrysler Group used the 2012 New York International Auto Show to unveil the all-new SRT Viper. Although it's no longer under the Dodge nameplate and instead falls under the SRT brand responsible for performance variants of several Chrysler products, this 2013 Viper picks right up where its predecessor left off two years ago. It's powered by an all-aluminum, 8.4-liter V-10 that produces 640 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque.

Thanks to a rebound in the auto industry, the UAW is reporting a growth in union membership. The UAW, which represents workers at the American auto companies as well as some public sector workers and even casino employees, said it finished last year with 382,513 members, up from 380,716 in 2011. While the growth was small in the last year, the tally is a big jump from the 355,191 workers the UAW represented back in 2009, the start of the industry's recovery from the recession and bankruptcy reorganizations of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group.

In an upbeat assessment of its future, the Chrysler Group of Daimler Chrysler said Thursday that it will introduce 11 vehicles in the next three model years and spend $30 billion on new product programs over the next five years. Eighteen months into an overhaul designed to return it to profitability and increase the volume of cars and trucks it sells, Chrysler Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche said the auto maker aims to sell 1 million more vehicles by 2011.

Stressing safety, Chrysler Group says it can install Uconnect, a hands-free, voice-activated communications device, in most of its 2004 model vehicles as well as retrofit the system into nearly all of its 1994 and newer cars and trucks. Uconnect is a dealer-installed option available in every Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicle except the Dodge Viper, Chrysler Sebring convertible and Jeep Wrangler, a trio in which, by their top-down natures, voice-activation is too much to ask.