State of the Union January 5, 2010

Jan. 5, 2011 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
From President Dan Howell: Sign-ups for the Election Committee election will be from Monday, Jan. 10 through Thursday, Jan. 13. If you are interested you can sign up at the Union Hall.

Reminder: There is a Veterans Committee meeting today 15 minutes after first shift at the Union Hall.
•    The van sales numbers are in for December and the calendar year. They are:
2010 2009 Change Share
Ford Econoline 9774 8556 +14.2% 52.1%
GM 7624 6208 +22.8% 40.6%
Mercedes Sprinter 1379 --- --- 7.3%
Ford Transit 2811 1992 +41.1%

For all of 2010:

Ford Econoline 108,258 85,735 +26.3% 56.8%
GM 73,695 66,466 +10.9% 38.7%
Mercedes Sprinter 8,559 --- --- 4.5%

From Automotive News: Seven automobile insurance firms have followed Allstate Insurance Co. in suing Toyota Motor Corp. to recover money they paid in claims for car crashes blamed on unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles. The insurers' court action has opened a new front in U.S. civil litigation mounting against the Japanese automaker. The seven latest companies to bring such subrogation actions against Toyota are: American Automobile Insurance Co., Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., National Surety Corp., Ameriprise Insurance Co., IDS Property Casualty Insurance Co., Motorists Mutual Insurance Co. and American Hardware Mutual Insurance Co. Their suits, brought in three separate filings, come nearly two weeks after it was disclosed that Toyota agreed to pay $10 million to settle legal claims from the family of a California state trooper and three relatives whose fatal car wreck in 2009 helped trigger the automaker's recalls.

Automaker Dec. 2010  Dec. 2009 Pct. chng. 12 month
2010 12 month
2009 Pct. chng.
General Motors 224,147 207,538 8% 2,211,699 2,071,749 7%
Ford Motor Co. 190,191 183,701 4% 1,964,059 1,677,234 17%
Toyota 177,488 187,860 -6% 1,763,595 1,770,147 0%
Honda (American) 129,616 107,143 21% 1,230,480 1,150,784 7%
Chrysler Group LLC 100,702 86,523 16% 1,085,211 931,402 17%
Nissan 93,730 73,404 28% 908,570 770,103 18%
Hyundai Group 75,246 54,845 37% 894,496 735,127 22%
Volkswagen 34,610 29,582 17% 359,889 297,537 21%
BMW Group 27,626 23,645 17% 266,069 242,053 10%
Subaru 26,694 23,074 16% 263,820 216,652 22%
Daimler AG 22,044 20,905 5% 230,934 205,199 13%
Mazda 21,479 18,255 18% 229,566 207,767 11%
Jaguar Land Rover 4,875 4,841 1% 45,204 38,261 18%
Mitsubishi 4,874 4,357 12% 55,683 53,986 3%
Volvo Cars North America 4,756 - -% 21,423 - -%
Suzuki 2,647 1,885 40% 23,994 38,695 -38%
Porsche 2,567 2,118 21% 25,320 19,696 29%
Saab Cars North America 1,074 - -% 4,837 - -%
Other (estimate) 294 308 -5% 3,528 3,680 -4%
Maserati 180 115 57% 1,897 1,273 49%
Isuzu - - -% - 165 -100%
TOTAL 1,144,840 1,030,099 11% 11,590,274 10,431,510 11%