#BertelSchmitt

After having received more than $2 billion in subsidies from, the Australian government in the past 12 years, GM’s down-under Holden unit announced that it will lay off another 500 workers in response to falling demand and the high Australian dollar, Australia’s ABC News reports.

GM CEO Dan Akerson and freshly minted Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann will receive a one hour audience with German Chancellor Angela Merkel this Thursday “to discuss the rejection of a plant closure timetable by workers which could speed the factory’s shutdown,” as Reuters reports.

Detroit Electric is a startup electric car maker that revives the brand of another startup electric car maker by the name of Detroit Electric. As chronicled by Ronnie Schreiber, Detroit Electric cars were produced by the Anderson Carriage company from 1907 to 1939. They sold thousands of them until they were displaced by a better idea, the internal combustion engine. Yesterday, the new Detroit Electric unveiled its first model, a $135,000, battery-powered sports car.

As reported by Reuters, the Detroit Electric SP:01 is “the world’s fastest pure-electric sports car,” with a range of “just under 190 miles” between charges.

Fisker did put its entire workforce, all 200 of them, on furlough, “while it continues to search for a strategic partner,” Reuters says. That search is not going so well. And quite possibly, the workforce will never come back.

For years, Greenpeace and Volkswagen were engaged in a low level conflict over alleged high levels of CO2 emissions. Now, both sides decided to declare victory and to go home. After announcing ambitious CO2 goals before the Geneva Motor show, Volkswagen had a sit-down with Greenpeace, where both decided to bury the hatchet.

Chinese state TV claims that the air in German cars is dangerous to people’s health. In a report, the station said that insulating materials used in cars made by Audi, BMW and Daimler create noxious odors, Der Spiegel reports.

Geely-owned Volvo has uncovered what Reuters calls “widespread cheating by its car dealers in China.” Dealers inflated sales to win cash rebates for meeting targets. An investigation found thousands of fake sales booked in 2011. In order to make books balance, 2012 sales were under reported.

If you want to know in how big a trouble GM is in Europe, look at Ford. Ford’s European unit sales are similar to those of Opel. They also are likewise beleaguered. Ford’s EU sales were down 21 percent in February, Opel was down 15.8 percent. The big difference: While GM does not seem to be able to shed capacity anytime soon, Ford had taken swift action.

GM has a huge problem in Bochum – or an unexpected opportunity. Workers at Opel’s Bochum plant yesterday refused a restructuring plan that would guarantee auto production in Bochum through 2016, and that would keep the plant making components after that. GM answered on the same day: ”Production of the Zafira Tourer and the waiver of enforced redundancy will end after 2014.” This would open the door to closing the doors in Bochum.

It also could become extremely costly for GM.

America remains a rare bright spot in the dark world of car sales. March is expected to be as strong as previous months . J.D. Power / LNC Automotive expects total new-vehicle to come in at 1,465,100 units in March, which would be a 15.3 million SAAR, and a 4.5 percent increase over March 2012.

Hydrogen does not seem on top of President Obama’s agenda, neither does it rank very high on Martin Winterkorn’s list of priorities, but it sure is popular in Japan. Japanese carmakers, led by Toyota, are targeting a 2015 launch of hydrogen cars.

Toyota also says they are the most energy-efficient.

They may not have western-style unions in China, but workers sure do strike. Workers at Honda’s transmission plant in Foshan, Guangdong Province, walked off the job on Monday after their pay increases weren’t as large as they had hoped.

The head of Germany’s metal worker union IG Metall, Berthold Huber, urged workers at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant to join the UAW. In a letter distributed to Chattanooga workers, obtained by Reuters, Huber says:

Chinese carmakers are worried about new fuel economy standards handed down by the Chinese government today. The rules are intended to lower average fuel consumption to 6.9 liters per 100 kilometers by 2015 and then to 5.0 liters by 2020, Reuters says.

According to lore, it is impossible to close a factory in Europe. Not true. It’s just outrageously expensive. One company that found out is Ford. The carmaker allocated nearly $200,000 per hourly worker of its soon to be closed Genk plant in Belgium.