Auto Trends

General Motors announced today that 19,000 of its workers have agreed to take advantage of a buyout program which would reduce the company’s workforce almost immediately. The company is giving employees until July 1, 2008 to leave GM.

The move is part of an attrition program where GM is shedding as many as 74,000 jobs. The workforce reduction will allow GM to trim overhead while remaining competitive globally. The attrition program was developed in cooperation with the United Auto Workers who exchanged attrition for job guarantees for many of its remaining workers.

Employees who remain with the company will be able to fill open positions as they become available. In situations where GM will need new employees, the company will be allowed to hire those workers at a lower-tier salary, reportedly starting at $14 an hour.

“Participation in the attrition program was an important, personal choice for employees and their families,” Troy Clarke, Group Vice President and President, GM North America said. “I want to personally thank those who decided to participate for their many contributions to General Motors. For those who chose to stay, we must continue to work together to build the world’s best products for our customers.”

General Motors is celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary this year and has been taking a financial beating thanks to the current economic downturn and for being top-heavy with low fuel mileage vehicles, products their customers are avoiding.

(Source: General Motors)

The world of autodom is frequently changing, one only needs to lift a finger in the air to sense which direction the winds are blowing. When gas prices surge, the talk is switching to electric cars; when people travel on vacation, it is all about getting the best fuel mileage out of every trip; and so on.

At Auto Trends, we’re keeping our pulse on the industry to bring to you some of the latest news and upcoming releases. This week, there are a number of news events which are worth noting including the following:

• To keep up with demand, Toyota will be building a factory in cooperation with Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co., to produce nickel-metal batteries for its hybrid models. Toyota is the global leader in hybrid car production and this factory will allow the automaker to keep pace with customer demand.

• Honda will be extending its engine supply agreement with Indy Car, a role that they first took on in 2003. By 2006, Honda became the exclusive provider of engines for Indy cars and this new agreement will extend that relationship for another five years.

• Tiger Woods may be the spokesman for Buick, but nearly 40 years before he was born a Minnesota golfer, Bob Hinshaw, bought the first of 26 Buick models he has owned over the past 70 years. Citing their low cost and easy maintenance, Bob and his wife, Pat, currently own an Enclave and a Lucerne.

• Car parts thieves continue to get bolder as the price of precious metals continues to rise. One Georgia report has followed the account of a group of disabled veterans who learned one day that their van’s catalytic converter had been stolen, a part that can cost between $200 and $2000 to replace.

• The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline is now $3.93, with eleven states and the District of Columbia reporting that their averages have topped $4 per gallon. GasBuddy, which tracks gas prices says that the “cheapest” gas can be found in Wyoming where it costs drivers an average of $3.73 per gallon.

• Cars that run on ethanol need to have a price spread of at least 20% in order for consumers to save at the pump, with many observers saying that this figure should be at least 25%. Ethanol prices, like gasoline, continue to rise, but all according to E85 Prices, there are a number of pumps dispensing E85 for as low as $2.35/gallon. Some stations are reporting a price spread as high as 37%.

That’s it for this week — more updates will be included in June.