BMW Inc. today announced full year 2009 earnings, reporting significant declines in net profit and total sales.

The company said net profit was EUR 210-million, down 36.36-percent from EUR 330-million in fiscal 2008.

Operating income before taxes was up to EUR 413-million, 18-percent up from 2008.

BMW said it sold 1.28-million vehicles in 2009, a sharp drop of over 12-percent from 2008 as people shifted to smaller, less luxurious and more affordably priced vehicles because of the financial and credit crunch.

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A new batch of vehicle recalls were announced early today by Japanese carmaker Nissan, as the industry struggles with record recalls due to component failures.

Nissan said it is recalling more than 540,000 vehicles mainly for two problems. First, on select models, the fuel gauge displays inaccurate fuel levels, indicating the car is plenty of fuel when it is almost empty.

The second problem, and potentially a more serious problem, that Nissan has identified is related to braking pedal pins that come lose in turn not allowing the drive to slow the car down. The affected models with the brake issue include the 2008-2010 Nissan Titan, Infiniti QX56 (also affected with the fuel gauge issue), Nissan Armada, and the Nissan Quest.

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GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre made a bold statement today, telling reporters at the Detroit auto show that he expected American taxpayers to profit from the $6.7 billion emergency Treasury loans.

He went on to say that it wouldn’t be “too long,” and that it would be a good investment for the American government and people.

GM is forecasting a full-year profit in 2010, where the last full-year fiscal profit was five years ago.

The comments were made just as China became the world’s largest auto market in the world, edging out the U.S., as its sales increased significantly by 46-percent (to 13.6 million vehicles) year over year. U.S. sales decreased by 21-percent (10.4 million vehicles sold) in the same period.

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GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre (left)

Breaking now: General Motors just said that it has made payments to both the U.S. Treasury and Canadian federal and Ontario provincial governments to start paying down the emergency government loans made by the respective countries.

GM confirmed today the company returned $192 million to Canada, and $1 billion the U.S. Treasury. Aggregately, GM still owes both nations $5.77 billion.

The Canadian government firstly committed $2.8 billion in emergency loans to the Canadian auto sector, a proportional amount based on Canada’s 20-percent North American auto sector market share.

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Google has announced a new partnership with the German carmaker, Audi, which will see a very major improvement to the GPS navigation system in the latest Audi A8 luxury sedan.

Many people complain that stock GPS navigation systems are not very intuitive or advanced compared to newer standalone models. For example, the BMW M5, as amazing as it is, you can’t even turn off the directional voice prompts.

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General Motors announced today that it has lost $1.2 billion since emerging from bankruptcy protection through September 30, 2009.

The company says the number is far better than expected and that it is making progress towards change.

GM chief executive Fritz Henderson said today in a statement, “today’s results provide evidence of the solid foundation we are building for the new GM,”

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Toyota has announced the company would recall up to 3.8 million cars because of a problem with the removable floor mats on the drivers side.

Toyota says, “A stuck open accelerator pedal may result in very high vehicle speeds and make it difficult to stop the vehicle, which could cause a crash,”

Last August, a fatal crash occurred when a driver of a Lexus ES reported to an emergency operator of failing breaks and accelerating speeds, that car eventually crashed, subsequently killing four occupants.

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The most successful investor in the world, Warren Buffett, has announced his investment firm, MidAmerican (part of Berkshire Hathaway), would increase its financial stake in the Chinese automobile battery producer turned carmaker BYD Corp, sending the stock rallying up today.

BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu said today, “MidAmerican has always intended to raise its stake in BYD because it believes BYD has good prospects in the development of renewable energy,”

The exact stake increase is currently unclear.

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Update: The U.S. Transportation Department has in fact just announced the Cash for Clunkers program will end on Mon Aug 24, 2009. The department said it believes there will be enough cash left in the program for dealers up until the 8pm Monday deadline.

Reports indicate the Obama administration is looking at slowing down or even ending the Cash for Clunkers program with an announcement coming tomorrow.

The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) today announced it wants to see the Obama administration begin to shut the program down because its dealers could be left on the hook with rebates owing to customers if the program runs out of allocated funds.

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Update: Reports indicate Beijing Automotive Industry Corp. has made a non-binding bid of $992 million CND for Opel. Magna remains the favorite company to acquire Opel.

A deal to sell Opel is inching closer after GM European President Carl-Peter Forester said in an interview that high-level talks between GM and Canadian auto-part supplier Magna Corp. have reached “broad consent”.

He went on to say that he expects a deal to be reached by July 2009.

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