3 Hot Auto Stories to End the Week

The last few months have been an active period for the auto industry, on both positive and negative notes. The European auto market continues to struggle, leaving American companies to fend for themselves and withdraw from the region in pursuit of more profitable markets. Reportedly, Ford’s (NYSE:F) plant closure in Belgium is costing the company $750 million just to shut down. General Motors (NYSE:GM) has suffered tremendous losses in Europe as well. Fortunately, strong sales in the U.S. and other regions have helped offset the declines in the European markets.

New data indicates that Japanese manufacturers are losing market share among the 35 year-old and younger crowd, a market that they have historically dominated. South Korean and American companies have been easing more fuel-efficient and more affordable cars into the younger demographic, biting into Japan’s leading market share numbers.

General Motors has faced continuing problems with recalls, and recently issued another recall for software bugs that could affect as many as 33,700 vehicles. This comes on the heels of a recall expansion last month that may affect over 1 million vehicles for potential brake light malfunctions.

Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA), beleaguered with start-up related problems that established manufactures rarely have to contend with, announced a lower-than-expected quarterly profit that sent its stock tumbling, but also committed to paying off its federal loans in half the time it was required to. It also pushed production of the Model X crossover vehicle until late next year, and completed its work on the Model S production lines.

Here are a couple of other stories that are developing, that you may not have heard as much about…