General Motors new CEO Edward Whitacre Jr. will announce a management shakeup and a new role for vice chairman Bob Lutz, GM officials said today. Lutz is expected to focus on product planning, rather than marketing. No major firings are expected immediately.

  Beijing -- General Motors Co. and its main Chinese partner announced a venture today to sell vehicles in India, uniting in the two fastest-growing car markets in a deal that reflects GM's reduced status as a global automaker.

  General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC are offering to spare some of the more than 2,000 dealerships slated for closure in the automakers' drastic cost-cutting plans.

  Ed Whitacre's charm offensive is under way -- to the extent that's possible for a tough Texas telecom retiree whose middle name, as the lore has it, may as well be "accountability."

  Tokyo -- The big danger for Toyota isn't the cost of the massive U.S. recall to replace gas pedals, but instead shrinking income from the surging yen, a top executive said today.

  Tokyo -- General Motors Co. and Suzuki Motor Corp. have agreed to end their joint venture in Canada, leaving GM without a Japanese automaking partner after also severing manufacturing links with Toyota.

  Frankfurt -- Opel workers are ready to help cut costs as GM moves to restructure its European operation, Opel's chief employee representative said today.

  It's not your typical Chrysler ad. A television commercial for the Chrysler brand debuting today features the Chrysler 300 while calling for the release of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi who has been under numerous house arrests since 1989.

  Less than 24 hours before directors showed CEO Fritz Henderson the door, a ranking executive for a rival automaker made a telling admission to me over dinner.

  When General Motors takes the wraps off of the 2011 Buick Regal today in Los Angeles, it will be the third consecutive launch for the re-emerging brand.