CEO Alan Mulally says he doesn’t plan to retire anytime soon and will stay “as long as I am contributing and Ford wants me.”

The 64-year-old executive tells reporters he’ll step down “when I’m not having fun.” Mulally joined Ford from Boeing Co. in September 2006.

When asked if General Motors Co. Chairman Ed Whitacre has tried to recruit him to be the company’s CEO, Mulally declined to comment and then offered, “I love Ford.” He says he wouldn’t consider leaving to head another automaker.

Mulally says he will consider Ford’s turnaround complete when the company’s profit margin reaches 6%. He says a healthy U.S. auto market would be 15.5 million vehicles per year, up from 10.4 million in 2009 but well short of the 16 million-plus levels of most of the past decade.

He also says Ford doesn’t expect to hire U.S. hourly workers at second-tier wages until at least 2011, depending on how quickly auto demand revives. The United Auto Workers union agreed in 2007 to allow Ford and other domestic automakers to pay new hires $14 per hour, about half of what veteran workers earn. But capacity reductions have kept Ford and its rivals from hiring new workers.

Chrysler Group LLC CEO Sergio Marchionne says it will probably be “somewhat easier” to turn around the company than it was to rebuild Fiat SpA when he took charge of the Italian carmaker in 2004.

Marchionne, who is still Fiat’s CEO, tells reporters at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit that he is more confident about Chrysler’s recovery than he was about Fiat’s fate. He notes the Italian company was on the verge of collapse and didn’t have government financing to keep it in business. Chrysler received $14.3 billion of loans from the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury last year. He points out that Chrysler also is smaller than Fiat, which makes the turnaround simpler.

Marchionne managed to finance a large chunk of Fiat’s restructuring by getting General Motors Co. to pay it $2 billion to cut its ties with the Italian company.

General Motors Co.’s Saab Automobile unit has dissolved its board as Managing Director Jan-Aake Jonsson ceded authority to AlixPartners LLP, the restructuring firm GM hired to liquidate the Swedish brand.

GM says Jonsson will stay to assist Stephen Taylor and Peter Torngren, the AlixPartners executives named to wind down Saab. The Swedish Companies Registration Office approved GM’s choice of liquidators yesterday.

Saab resumed production this week at its main assembly plant in Trollhattan, Sweden, after a four-week holiday break. Workers there put down their tools yesterday for a short protest of GM’s plans. Haakan Danielsson, who was a labor representative on the board, tells Bloomberg News the company has enough materials to continue building vehicles for about four more weeks.

GM says it is studying the offers that several bidders submitted late last week and expects to provide an update by the end of the week. Nick Reilly, who heads GM Europe, says the company will decide Saab’s fate this month or by early February.

Toyota Motor Corp. says it is preparing to begin selling a small number of “affordable” hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in some U.S. markets in about five years.

The company aims to sell the zero-emissions vehicles in markets that have hydrogen fueling stations. Toyota is working with cities and energy companies worldwide to encourage the creation of a fuel cell fueling infrastructure.

Toyota plans to test more than 100 fuel cell vehicles in government, corporate and university demonstration fleets in California and New York over the next three years. The company says vehicles with its latest version of fuel cell technology have a range of about 430 miles on a fill-up of hydrogen.

Chinese battery and electric car maker BYD Co. says it will begin selling its e6 electric hatchback in the U.S. late this year— a year earlier than originally planned—because of strong demand.

But at its press conference at the North American International Auto Show yesterday, BYD didn’t sound like an automaker months away from launching its first vehicle in a new market. The company admits it has just begun the process of certifying that the e6 meets U.S. safety regulations. BYD also lacks a dealer network.

The company tells reporters it hasn’t yet decided on target volume or where it will first introduce the vehicle, although it says California is a likely starting point. BYD won’t say whether it still plans to price the e6 slightly above $40,000, as it previously indicated. The company says the EV—which it claims can travel 200 miles on a full charge—will probably be sold first to government fleets, utilities and taxi companies.

BYD is nothing if not ambitious. The company aims to become the world’s leading automaker by 2025, a big step up for a company that sold about 450,000 vehicles last year. The company launched its plug-in electric F6DM sedan in China last year and has sold only a few hundred units since then.

Ford Motor Co. will increase output of fullsize SUVs in response to growing demand, says Automotive News. The newspaper cites Mark Field, president of the Americas unit, who did not offer details of the production plans.

Sales of the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator soared 45% and 60% in December, respectively, although they posted declines of 43% and 46% for the full year as the popularity of big SUVs plunged. AN says Expedition and Navigator inventories fell to supplies of 31 and 24 days, respectively. A 60- or 65-day supply is considered ideal.

General Motors Co.’s Opel unit plans to finish restructuring agreements with hourly workers and European governments this month, says Opel CEO Nick Reilly.

Reilly tells reporters at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit that Opel’s union negotiations include discussions of a profit-sharing plan and a possible equity stake for workers. He declined to describe the specific concessions the company is seeking. News reports that cite unidentified sources say Opel wants workers to accept a two-year pay freeze. Union officials have said talks about cutting jobs, reducing production and committing to future vehicles could continue until mid-February.

Reilly says talks with governments that host Opel and Vauxhall plants about obtaining €3.3 billion ($4.8 billion) of loan guarantees are progressing better in some countries than in others. He says GM might be willing to provide Opel with more than the €600 million ($868 million) of capital commitment cited in earlier media reports.

Reilly says he will announce Opel’s new management team on Friday or Monday.

Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally refutes a report that the company is open to new bids for its Volvo Cars unit, insisting that Ford is dealing exclusively with China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. on a sale.

Mulally tells reporters Ford and Geely are making “great progress” toward a final deal. The Swedish business daily Dagens Industri, citing Volvo CEO Stephen Odell, says Ford is willing to entertain other Volvo bids.

Ford, which chose Geely as the preferred bidder in October, has said it hopes to sign a final agreement this quarter and complete the deal in the second quarter. Geely still needs to arrange financing and obtain Chinese government approval for the acquisition. Bloomberg News says the two companies are close to a key agreement to protect Volvo’s intellectual property.

In August, Nissan Motor Co. dropped plans to market rebadged Dodge Ram fullsize pickup trucks from Chrysler Group LLC under its Titan brand. Now it says it has decided to develop the next-generation Titan on its own rather than seek a partner.

Under the canceled deal, Dodge was to begin supplying the trucks in 2011. Nissan says the Titan will now arrive later than planned, without disclosing a launch date. The company will continue to build the existing Titan at its Canton, Miss., assembly plant until the next-generation truck is ready.

The scuttled deal also called for Nissan to begin supplying Chrysler this year with subcompact cars to sell as the Dodge Hornet in Europe and North America. That agreement was scrapped in June after Fiat SpA took a 20% stake in Chrysler and assumed management co

Toyota Motor Corp. plans to extend the $1 billion U.S. marketing push it launched in the fourth quarter of 2009 into this year to drum up business as demand revives, Automotive News reports.

The newspaper quotes Toyota Div. General Manager Bob Carter, who does not specify how much the company plans to spend or how long the blitz will last.

The record-level spending included customer incentives such as subsidized leases and loan rates and a flurry of advertising for the Lexus, Scion and Toyota brands. Last year the company became the U.S. car market’s biggest seller to consumers—a category that excludes fleet sales—by surpassing General Motors Corp. for the first time.

The North American automobile industry is beginning to emerge from perhaps its biggest crisis ever. But it won’t be a return to business as normal. Profound changes were unleashed in 2009, and they will continue to ripple through the industry for years. To

Jim Plemmons

thrive, companies must continue to be proactive. In many cases, the issues facing companies in the industry’s traditional Midwest base are very different than those in the “new auto industry” of the South.

Dickinson Wright PLLC provides broad legal counsel for more than 200 automotive clients in both regions from its offices in Detroit, Bloomfield Hills, Grand Rapids, Lansing and Ann Arbor, Mich., Washington, D.C., Nashville, Phoenix and Toronto. The firm has an exceptional understanding of the regional and regulatory issues impacting the industry. Its automotive practice is led by Jim Plemmons. He and several members of his team describe issues facing carmakers and their suppliers in the new year and beyond.

What is the single most important thing for the industry to know this year?

Nobody should assume the worst is over. We will have as challenging a 2010 as what we saw in 2009. Restructurings of suppliers’ capacity (decreases) and cost effectiveness (increases) remain to be completed this year and next.

Today’s economic conditions continue to push the auto industry to focus on weak processes that have hurt them. Companies are becoming more sophisticated about the legal side of their business, and they want support in many areas beyond consolidation, workouts and liquidation.

Which are the biggest changes to come out of last year’s crisis?

Government involvement is certainly one of them. The massive loans Washington made to the industry resulted in much more government monitoring, and it has raised questions about how the government will influence the industry in the future.

Taxes are another big issue. Clients are searching for tax breaks, not just ways to plan future tax liabilities. Washington, D.C.- and Detroit-based Dickinson Wright tax expert Will Elwood recently won a major decision in this area concerning the use of R&D tax credits on tooling manufactured and sold to an OEM. Many large accounting firms were telling clients not to claim tax credits on these items, but the new ruling means there is an opportunity for suppliers to file a refund claim.

Intellectual property issues, which have been somewhat ignored while companies struggled with larger economic challenges, are back. Dickinson Wright IP expert Rick Jones is seeing a significant increase in due diligence in this area among companies that use mergers and acquisitions to gain technology. There is more “patent mapping”—checking to see which patents are truly owned by a target for acquisition. Dickinson Wright also helps buyers determine if the technology they seek from another company was developed with government funds. If so, the ability of the acquiring company to capitalize on it may be limited.

International trade issues are another growing area, especially for smaller suppliers who are being pushed to go global. Dickinson Wright international automotive trade and customs expert Bruce Thelen gives an example that an assembly made in Mexico could be treated as Chinese if it contains components from China that define the ‘essential character’ of the final product. We help companies make smart sourcing decisions that can help avoid high tariffs and take advantage of NAFTA and other preferential trade arrangements.

What issues are especially big in the South?

The carmakers in the South are relatively recent arrivals, and some of the issues that northern companies have dealt with for years are new to them. Dickinson Wright Nashville-based automotive attorney Kim Stagg notes that OEMs and their suppliers are making new investments in the South. They want to make prudent investments, and they want to make sure they have processes in place now to avoid problems later.

The traditional Big Three carmaker supply base has become expert in dealing with such issues as Chapter 11 and “363” sales, Stagg continues. However, these are newer experiences for many companies and OEMs in the South. Not long ago a carmaker or tier one supplier rarely did much financial due diligence on a supplier that bid on a contract. It has become commonplace in the North and even with certain new domestic OEMs, but many suppliers in the South are just setting up those processes now.

Similarly, Dickinson Wright automotive contract expert Roger Cummings says suppliers are focusing on avoiding gaps between the terms of their purchase contracts with lower-tier suppliers and the terms they have with their own customers. This includes everything from indemnification and IP rights to contract duration and pricing adjustments.

Has M&A activity peaked in the auto industry?

Volume remains high, but it doesn’t get as much publicity. Companies are definitely cherry-picking facilities because there are so many plants and other assets on the market. There is significant shifting of machinery from unstable to stable suppliers, for example, but it’s mostly behind the scene. There has been a major upswing in stronger tier one and tier two suppliers doing this in the past six months.

To learn more about Dickinson Wright’s automotive practice, please contact Jim Plemmons in Detroit at (313) 223-3106 or e-mail jplemmons@dickinsonwright.com.