Fritz Henderson, GM’s COO, foresees the future of the car manufacturer relying on four car brands: Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, and Buick. The statement was done after a strategic review of the Hummer and Saab brands.

He further discloses that Pontiac will experience significant production cuts while the Saturn line will have a different loom. GM is also collaborating with the Swedish government to help the Saab brand. Around 75% of the Saab sales is in Europe so the plan will not be a US approach.

The company will push with its plans of heavily investing on the Buick brand in China. This move will have a positive effect on the brand in the United States.

The four core brands of the auto maker comprise 83% of its sales in the United States in 2008.

The plan of the GM group revolves around the price of oil being around $130-$160 per barrel. The company forecasts oil prices to be at the level of $53 per barrel in 2009. The low oil price will be a big challenge for their plug-in vehicle, the Chevrolet Volt.

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Major car manufacturers like Ford, Toyota, American Honda, and General Motors all reported decline of sales in December 2008 as the whole auto industry suffers with sales plummeting by as much as 31%. The drop is the worst of the car manufacturing sector since 1992.

It was a picture of bad going to worse going worst for major players in the car industry. GM had its darkest dropped in sales since 1959 while Ford had their most horrible performance since 1961.

Toyota’s sale was down by more than 30 months for two consecutive months so is Nissan’s which was struggling for 4 consecutive months. Chrysler sold 53.1% lower compared to 2007.

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The United States Fuel Cell Council seeks the government to give them a dedicated funding of $1.17 billion to kick off the improvement of the hydrogen fuel cell infrastructure in the country.

The funding has long been approved with the enactment of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. They are hoping that the funding will form part of the budget for the fiscal year 2010. The council also recommends strategic areas to spend the funding. These includes an awareness campaign for people to know more about alternative fuels, refueling facilities, local production plants, research and development, and fuel transit system.

The council hopes to allocate around $375 million worth of fuel cell cars so the private and public sector can have a real time evaluation of how these alternative car fuel vehicles can also help them with their everyday lives.

Another big chunk of the budget will be devoted to research partnership which eyes to cut costs and improve performance in the long run.

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Japanese car manufacturer Suzuki is backing off its plans of building its assembly line outside Japan and is considering striking out production of their big cars.

Suzuki, last year, released some images of the concept car Kizashi which ought to be the building foundation of the production of big sedans. The Kizashi’s which literally means “something great to come” was originally scheduled to be in the showrooms early this year.

The original plan was to release 3 versions of the Kizashi. Suzuki was hoping to push to the market a wagon, a sedan, and a CUV. The first Kizashi is the wagon type while the CUV is the type 2 Kizashi. The Kizashi 3 displayed during last year’s New York Auto Show highlighted the beautiful lines of the sedan variant.

The Kizashi line of cars are configured and designed to compete with cars like the Toyota Camry and the Malibu of Chevrolet.

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