Sure, it’s a huge day. But there are things that are happening outside of Washington DC. There are a lot of really good sites covering what’s going on there, including The Moderate Voice (where you will find a small and rather fluffy item I wrote on the incredible job the White House residential staff does moving one First Family out and the next in).
Nope, there’s stuff going on elsewhere.
There are two huge automotive news items that deserve attention. The first is that Fiat is planning on purchasing a rather large stake in Chrysler as part of a “strategic alliance“. More:
Under terms of a pact that is being hammered out, Fiat is likely to take a 35% stake in Chrysler by the middle of this year. It would have the option of increasing that to as much as 55%, these people said.
Fiat, the stronger of the two, wouldn’t immediately put cash into Chrysler. Instead it would obtain its stake mainly in exchange for covering the cost of retooling a Chrysler plant to produce one or more Fiat models to be sold in the U.S., these people said. Fiat would also provide engine and transmission technology to help Chrysler introduce new, fuel-efficient small cars, they said.
Critics of this plan say it is nothing more than trying to make two small, struggling car companies into one large, struggling car company. You remember Fiat, right? They stopped importing cars to the United States over 20 years ago. However, they have been public about their deliberations to build a US factory for just over a year now.
And that’s not the only big automotive story of the day.
Back in Japan, Akio Toyoda is preparing to become the CEO of the compnay his grandfather founded, Toyota. This is in the wake of falling sales, particularly in the United States. Toyota may even annouce it’s first yearly loss ever. Toyoda-san is fluent in English, having been a VP of American operations and a MBA from an American college. (Note: Crown Princess Masako is Harvard educated; Crown Prince Naruhito has a graduate degree from Oxford.) He has also been an executive in the company’s Chinese interests. It will be interesting to see how his international experience influences the company going forward.
In closing: checklists save lives; so does Tom Colicchio; the Great College Hoax; and finally, seriously, I wish the very best for our new President, his family, his administration, and our country.