Car firm Nissan has announced it is creating 50 new jobs at its Sunderland plant.
The Japanese car firm announced 800 job losses in January following poor sales in Europe.
Global sales at France's largest car firm fell 16% in 2012 to less than three million.
The vulnerability of manufacturing jobs (Bentley, the luxury-car firm, is based nearby) is a worry that never goes away.
One of the country's biggest companies, the car firm Arnold Clark, has described many young Scots as "unsuitable" for work.
An armored-car firm hired by Mr. Lieto to carry money for his check-cashing company got ensnared in the FBI probe.
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The likes of Li Shufu, who runs Geely, the car firm that has just bought Volvo (see article), are entrepreneurs, not bureaucrats.
The lucky pardonees included the bosses of Hyundai Motor, Korea's largest car firm, and SK, a chaebol (conglomerate) with interests in telecoms and energy.
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That leads to the second lesson: no matter what a car firm's other global strengths, it is hard to make good money these days without succeeding in America.
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Mitsubishi has been hit by falling sales, a recall scandal and the decision in April last year by 30% shareholder US-German car firm DaimlerChrysler's not to pump in any more money.
Beijing has already felt the heat about it from various car companies, and last year Daimler managed to stop another Chinese car firm, CMEC from making an electric car that closely resembled its ubiquitous Smart car.
Minority investors have seldom howled as loudly as in 2008 when Porsche, a German car firm, announced that it had openly bought 43% of the shares of Volkswagen, another manufacturer, and a further 32% secretly through derivative contracts.
Huge debts forced the car firm to lay off 10, 000 workers, and the group was eventually bailed out in a government-brokered deal in which it was divided into several parts, each run by a different son of its founder, the late Chung Ju-yung, who was forced to resign.
The insurers do this in return for a lucrative fee from the car hire firm or garage involved.
The DTI had already launched an inquiry into other aspects of Mr Robinson's running of the Midlands car parts firm.
The Unite union is to hold talks to save up to 190 jobs at a Welsh car filter firm on Friday.
Car components firm Autosplice in Heanor told staff it would be shutting its site in the Amber Valley in September and moving to Germany.
As one managing director of a car components firm told me, it offers some light at a time when there's not much of it around.
Chrysler's truck plant in Curitiba is by no means unique, says Carl Swanson, the managing director of the South American operations of Tenneco Automotive, a car-parts firm.
The Narrow Car Company - The Abercynon firm's metre-wide, tandem, two-seater NARO car has the dynamics of a motorbike in a bid to change urban transport.
The auto industry selling rate now holds over 14 million in a firm used car market, low cost consumer financing and the aging car population.
The forum, which is led by Sir Trevor Chinn, chairman of Lex, a car-selling and leasing firm, was set up to counter the claims of the road lobby that it is ignored in Whitehall.
If the firm that made the car has gone bust, it becomes virtually unsellable secondhand.
Big name French companies that have announced job losses and layoffs recently include car-maker Renault, advertising firm Havas - trimming 5% of its workforce - plane maker EADS, and Air France.
Or how about Ruby Lu of DCM, who funded three Chinese companies that went public in the U.S.: Amazon-plus Dangdang, car web site BitAuto and outsourcing firm VanceInfo.
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Among them have been car parts maker AP Leamington, construction firm Dew Pitchmastic and leather manufacturer Pittards.
BMW's purchase of Rover five years ago was to turn the German firm from a luxury-car manufacturer into a volume manufacturer with a full range of models.
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