| Ford Expands Asian Operations Zacks.com submits: Ford Motor (F) has released plans suggesting an intense focus on its operations in China and India. The company looks forward to adding 250,000 units to its annual production capacity, taking both the countries into account. Ford Motor has announced the launch of production of its small car, Figo, in India in the first quarter of 2010. The decision was backed by a $500 million investment in the company’s existing Maraimalai Nagar, Chennai, plant for expansion. The company has committed to invest more than $950 million in total in the plant. The expansion will make India one of the company’s strategic production hubs, with output potential doubled to 200,000 vehicles annually.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Carnival Corporation F4Q09 (Qtr End 11/30/09) Earnings Call Transcript Carnival Corporation (CCL)F4Q09 Earnings Call December 18, 2009 10:00 am ETComplete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Small Vehicles for Tomorrow Ryan Avent submits: Let me just add a few additional thoughts about the potential impact of new, small, innovative vehicles on urban forms. I see Sarah Goodyear has featured my posts on innovative vehicles under the headline “Still Looking For That Magic Highway”, which makes me a little uncomfortable. I’m not a techno-utopian, and I certainly don’t imagine that vehicle innovations will lead us toward the visions of 1950s era urban planners, in which personal automobiles whisk us all quickly and cheaply from point-to-point. I think that kind of vision is destined not to be realized, based on simple questions of urban economics and physics. Better personal vehicles will ultimately be good for urbanism. It’s not too difficult to imagine a few reasons why. For one thing, small vehicles will require less space for parking, and autonomous vehicles may not require any parking at all. Parking lots and decks are the bane of walkability. Smaller vehicles, particularly ones which weigh just a few hundred pounds, will be much more pedestrian and cyclist friendly than standard automobiles. They’ll take up less precious road space. They’ll block less of other travelers’ field of vision. And in the event of a collision with a non-driver, they’ll do much less damage.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
What's Driving Toyota Share Price? Bud Labitan submitsToyota Motor Corporation (TM) primarily conducts business in the automotive industry. Toyota also conducts business in the finance and other industries. It is organized in three segments: automotive operations, financial services operations and all other operations. Toyota’s automotive operations include the design, manufacture, assembly and sale of passenger cars, minivans and commercial vehicles, such as trucks and related parts and accessories. Toyota’s financial services business consists primarily of providing financing to dealers and their customers for the purchase or lease of Toyota vehicles. Toyota’s financial services also provide retail leasing through the purchase of lease contracts originated by Toyota dealers. Related to Toyota’s automotive operations is its development of intelligent transport systems (ITS). Toyota’s all other operations business segment includes the design and manufacture of prefabricated housing and information technology related businesses.Does TM make for an intelligent investment or intelligent speculation today?Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |
Wright Express: Pulling Back Despite Strong Earnings Eddy Elfenbein submits: Tuesday morning, Wright Express (WXS) came out with a nice earnings report. The company earned 68 cents a share, which was three cents more than estimates. For Q3, they see earnings between 65 cents and 70 cents per share. For all of 2010, Wright sees earnings-per-share ranging between $2.47 and $2.57. That’s pretty good news. Three months ago, Wright said to expect Q2 EPS between 61 cents and 66 cents, and full-year between $2.39 and $2.54. The previous full-year range was $2.26 to $2.46. In other words, the high end of the old range is now below the low end of the current range.Complete Story » seekingalpha.com |