FORD MOTOR COMPANY

Ford Motor Co plans to invest 4 billion reais ($2.26 billion) in Brazil to boost output as record-low borrowing costs and a recovery in Latin America's largest economy stoke demand for new cars, Mark Fields, the company's president for the Americas, said on Friday.

Ford Motor Co plans to invest 2 billion reais ($1.15 billion) in Brazil through 2015, most of it on a plant in the northeastern Bahia state, to expand production and benefit from expected growth in Latin America's largest economy, the state governor said on BandNews radio on Friday.

South Africa's existing automobile industry programme and its replacement scheme is expected to cut the trade deficit and contribute billions of dollars to gross domestic product by 2020, a government minister said on Friday.

Union leaders at Ford Motor's Volvo car unit held their first talks with China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group on Thursday but are still waiting to see Geely's financing plans for the Swedish carmaker.

Norwegian electric car maker Think Global is gearing up to launch its vehicles in the United States and has picked a site in Indiana for its U.S. manufacturing facility, a major investor in the company said on Tuesday.

Ford Motor Co's Fusion mid-size sedan was named Motor Trend magazine's 2010 car of the year on Tuesday, adding to the perception that changes to the No. 2 U.S. automaker's vehicle lineup are gaining traction.

Ford Motor's Volvo car unit will retain the rights for its licenced technologies, while its Chinese bidder Geely will get the right to use the technologies, a Geely spokesman was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

Billionaire investor George Soros' hedge fund reported holdings of $6.2 billion during the third quarter, an increase of $2 billion, after taking a stake in automaker Ford and boosting his holdings in communications services stocks.

Ford Motor Credit is marketing $1 billion of securities supported by auto loans to investors in the U.S. asset-backed securities market, sources said on Monday.

Workers at a Ford Motor Co assembly plant in Missouri have started a vote that would authorize a strike as the automaker and the United Auto Workers union continue talks aimed at resolving disputes over local plant conditions.

U.S. auto sales in November will not fall back below levels seen in October, the chief U.S. sales analyst for Ford Motor Co said on Friday.

Fang Yan and David Lin

Ford Motor Co posted its best October sales and market share in a dozen years in its main 19 European markets on Wednesday, but warned that European countries and the EU needed to take further action to bolster auto demand in the region next year.

The state parent of Chongqing Changan Automobile Co has agreed to take over major auto assets from aircraft maker Aviation Industry Corp of China, heeding Beijing's calls to speed up restructuring in the fragmented auto industry.

Renault, Nissan Motor Co and their Indian partner will launch an ultra low-cost car in India in 2012 that will cost less than Tata Motor's Nano, the world's cheapest car.

China's passenger cars sales in October surged 75.8 percent from a year earlier, official data showed, extending the explosive growth in recent months as government incentive policies continued to lure customers.

Automobile output in Brazil rose sharply in October as factories ramped up production after a slump the previous month, the national automakers' association Anfavea said on Monday.

Ford Motor Co will continue meeting informally with United Auto Workers leaders to discuss labor issues following the rejection of concessions by U.S. rank-and-file workers, a top executive said on Wednesday.

Toyota Motor Corp reported a surprise quarterly profit and slashed its annual loss forecast by more than half as sales and cost cutting beat its forecasts, putting it on track to follow Japanese rivals into the black next year.

Toyota Motor Corp's surprise quarterly profit and halving of its annual loss forecast were not enough to convince investors that the world's No.1 carmaker had escaped the worst, as government subsidies peter out and a strong yen takes its toll.

Toyota Motor Corp reported a surprise quarterly profit and slashed its annual loss forecast by more than half as sales and cost cutting beat its forecasts, putting it on track to follow Japanese rivals into the black next year.