Ford Car Talk

In hot pursuit of electric car race, Ford announced its strategic alliance with Magna International, an automotive supplier in Canada, at the 2009North American International Show in Detroit. Together, they are creating a series of electrically propelled vehicles using lithium-ion battery packs.

By 2012, Ford plans to produce battery electric vehicles (BEV), plug-in hybrids and hybrid electrical vehicles. All the BEV electric traction motor, energy storage system, transmission, motor controller, battery charger and other related systems will come from Magna. Ford stressed that its decision to choose Magna as its partner is based on their presumption that they will be able to produce first-class products with Magna’s help.

While Magna has been building European cars for years, this will be the first time that it will be engaging in the final assembly for an American carmaker on a contract basis.

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Ford Motor Co. struggles in the fourth quarter of 2008 without any help from the federal government. The company burned through funds amounting to $5.5 billion in the last stretch of the previous year.

The car manufacturer finished 2008 with a $13.4 billion cash reserves. Ford will be drawing down available credit lines of $10.1 billion to address concerns on the rocky global economy.

Ford files a net loss amounting to $5.9 billion for the 4th quarter of 2008 compared to a year over year $2.5 billion. The car manufacturer closes 2008 as its third year of not earning any profits. Pretax operation loss was recorded on their books at $3.7 billion compared to $620 million in 2007.

The whole of the auto industry faced an unusual major slowdown in markets all over the globe recorded during the last three months.

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