Automakers Seek $14 Billion More in Aid

G.M.'s headquarters in downtown Detroit.
The New York Times - DETROIT — The price tag for bailing out General Motors and Chrysler jumped by another $14 billion Tuesday, to $39 billion, with the two automakers saying they would need the additional aid from the federal government to remain solvent.

In return, the two companies also promised to make further drastic cuts to all parts of their operations, in the hope that they can eventually strike a balance between their bloated cost structures and a dismal market for new car sales.

G.M., for example, said it would cut 47,000 more of its 244,000 workers worldwide; close five more plants in North America, leaving it with 33; and cut its lineup of brands in half, to just four: Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick.

The Pontiac brand will have a much smaller role, if any, in G.M.’s future, and the company also said it would phase out its Saturn brand, which it once hoped would build small cars to counter the best of the Japanese brands.

G.M. also said it had made progress in discussions with the United Automobile Workers union and its bondholders to reduce its costs further.

The cash crisis will require fast action by the administration’s new cabinet-level Presidential Task Force on Autos, which is overseeing the reorganization of G.M. and Chrysler.

The deteriorating finances of the two companies present the Obama administration with two options, neither of them appealing.

It can provide the money in the hopes that the companies will stabilize, and no longer have to keep pushing workers into a growing pool of people without jobs. But there are no guarantees, as the Treasury Department learned on Tuesday when the automakers filed updates on their restructuring plans, that they might not be forced to come back again with requests for more money.

But if the federal government balks at the automakers’ requests, that would mean the two companies probably would have no choice but to file for bankruptcy protection, because they are losing hundreds of millions of dollars each month.

And the car companies said on Tuesday that the cost of a bankruptcy reorganization, with the government providing financing to help it through that process, would be far greater than their latest loan requests. Without such help, the companies would have to liquidate, creating staggering new job losses.

In a statement, the administration said Tuesday night that its task force would be reviewing the carmakers’ reports in coming days, adding that “more will be required from everyone involved — creditors, suppliers, dealers, labor and auto executives themselves — to ensure the viability of these companies going forward.”

The third Detroit auto company, Ford Motor, has not received federal assistance and has no requests pending.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/business/18auto.html