General Motors Co. has called off its search for a new CEO and appointed interim CEO Ed Whitacre on a permanent basis. Whitacre says the company, which has had three CEOs in the past year, needs stability.

Several news organizations report that GM’s board tapped Whitacre last week after executive search firm Spencer Stuart failed to locate strong candidates with manufacturing experience. Analysts say government salary caps and Whitacre’s role as an active chairman may have discouraged potential candidates.

The 68-year-old Whitacre took a hands-on approach when he became non-executive chairman in July as GM emerged from bankruptcy. He was appointed by the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury, which owns 60.8% of the company. Whitacre assumed interim CEO duties on Dec. 1 when Fritz Henderson stepped down under pressure. Henderson had succeeded Rick Wagoner, who was forced out by the White House’s auto task force in March.

Whitacre says he originally planned only to serve as CEO temporarily. But speculation was widespread that he wanted to keep the job for a longer term. Whitacre says now he plans to stay long enough to accomplish GM’s turnaround, although he won’t say how long that might be. He says his CEO salary, which must be approved by the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury’s pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, will be announced soon.

The former AT&T chairman has quickly put his stamp on the organization by naming new leaders for European and North American units and hiring a new CFO and company lobbyists.

He says he plans some additional staffing changes, including some in marketing and sales, but does not expect a “massive” organizational overhaul.

Whitacre reiterates that GM plans to repay loans of $6.7 billion from the Treasury Dept. and US$1.1 billion from the governments of Canada and Ontario by June. The payments will come from loan money GM hasn’t needed to tap. The company already repaid $1.2 billion of those totals last month.

About half of the roughly 2,800 U.S. dealers whose franchises were terminated last year by Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co. had filed applications by midday yesterday to challenge the action before an independent arbitration panel, according to the American Arbitration Assn.

The group, which will assign arbitrators to hear the cases, expected additional filings before the midnight deadline. But it also says some dealers will probably settle and some may have applied so they could keep their options open, but may ultimately decide to drop their appeals.

GM says 500 to 600 of the 2,000 dealers it is dropping are seeking reinstatement. That includes 1,300 who were told to close by this fall and an additional 700 dealers who are losing some of their brand franchises. Chrysler shed 789 dealers in June as it emerged from bankruptcy. Angry dealers appealed to Congress, which passed legislation last month to allow them to seek binding arbitration to evaluate the companies’ decisions.

Cases will be heard individually, and decisions are due by June. The filing fee is $1,625, but experts say legal fees for an appeal could run as high as $100,000.

Fiat Group SpA swung to a net loss of $1.2 billion last year from a $2.4 billion profit in 2008 amid restructuring costs and charges related to the company’s 20% stake in Chrysler Group LLC.

Revenue increased 4% year over year to $19.2 billion; global volume of cars and light passenger trucks was flat at 2.2 million units. The company reduced its debt to $6.2 billion from $8.3 billion at the end of 2008.

In the fourth quarter of 2009 Fiat recorded a $396 million net loss vs. a $230 million profit a year earlier.

The group forecasts net earnings of $282 million-$422 million this year—but only if European governments extend scrappage schemes. If they don’t, the company expects to break even. Fiat predicts the western European auto market will fall 12% if incentives continue and 16% if they don’t. Fiat says it may delay some of the vehicle introductions scheduled for this year to avoid launches in a declining market.

Ford Motor Co. will announce this morning that it plans to shift production of the Explorer SUV from Louisville, Ky., to its Chicago assembly plant in the second half of this year, according to news reports.

The revamped Explorer slated to go into production later this year will ride on the same car platform as the Ford Taurus and Lincoln MKS sedans that are already made at the Chicago plant.

Ford will spend an estimated $400 million to prepare the factory to build the more fuel-efficient Explorer, which is expected to go on sale in August or September. U.S. sales of the current truck-based Explorer fell one-third last year to 52,200 units, down from a peak of more than 445,000 units in 2000.

Ford said previously it would end Explorer production at the Kentucky plant this year and retool to begin producing a new vehicle based on the Focus compact car next year. The factory is one of four North American truck plants that the company is converting to small-car factories as part of its turnaround plan for the region.

Ford Motor Co. is expected to add a second shift at its Chicago assembly plant later this year, thus adding 1,200 hourly jobs, when it moves production of the next-generation Explorer SUV there, according to news reports.

The factory, which now employs about 1,400 people, has been operating on a single shift since last year.

Union and company sources tell today’s Wall Street Journal

that laid-off Ford workers will fill some of the second-shift jobs, but the company also will hire some new workers. Ford can pay new hires about $14 per hour, approximately half the pay of veteran workers. The new hires would be Ford’s first since its 2007 national contract with the United Auto Workers union, which created the two-tier wage system.

Toyota Motor Corp. says it sold 7.81 million vehicles worldwide last year, including its Daihatsu and Hino subsidiaries, compared with 8.97 million in 2008.

The decline brings Volkswagen AG closer to its goal of overtaking Toyota as the world’s top-selling carmaker. VW’s sales grew 1% last year to 6.19 million vehicles. Toyota passed General Motors Co. in 2008 to claim the global sales crown.

Toyota’s volume fell 20% in the U.S. last year to 1.77 million units. The company’s sales fell 7% in Japan to 1.35 million units and jumped 21% in China to 709,000.

Tata Motors Ltd.’s Jaguar Land Rover unit says CEO David Smith has resigned and says the reason is a “confidential matter.”

Smith was acting CEO when Tata acquired the two British brands from Ford Motor Co. in mid-2008. He previously served as Jaguar’s CFO and joined Ford in 1983. JLR Director Ravi Kant, who also serves as Tata’s Vice Chairman, will act as CEO until a permanent replacement is found.

Autocar says Carl-Peter Forster, who stepped down as president of General Motors Co.’s European unit in November, could be tapped for the top JLR job. Forster supported a plan to sell GM’s Opel unit to Canada’s Magna International Inc. and Russia’s OAO Sberbank, and left after GM decided to keep Opel instead.

The North American International Auto Show, which ended Sunday, attracted 715,000 people, up from 650,000 last year, according to show organizers. The Detroit show’s media days attracted 5,000 journalists from 61 countries, compared with 5,500 reporters from 48 countries last year.