The world’s largest luxury carmaker based in Munich, BMW Group, today announced plans to increase purchases from Mexico in a bid to lower total costs under a new cost cutting program.

More specifically, BMW will buy more auto parts that are manufactured in Mexico for its vehicles that are assembled around the world, particularly in Germany and the United States.

BMW said it would more than double auto part purchases from Mexico over the next few years, starting two years from now.

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2010 Tesla Motors Roaster

Update: The Tesla IPO proved to be a hot one, with the stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) rallying up to close 40.53-percent above its debuting price of $18.61 to $23.89 per share, topping out with a ceiling of $24.76 in intraday trading.

The California-based electric carmaker, Tesla Motors, has raised $226.1-million in capital, according to a SEC filing, following an initial public offering.

The company confirmed it took 13.3-million shares at $17 per share to raise the total amount of capital that will be used by the company to finance operations, production, and future acquisitions.

Tesla Motors did not disclose information relating to which firms the company could acquire in the future.

The initial stock price could be construed as high given the company has never produced any free cash flows in its history since the company was founded in 2003.

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New 2010 BMW 5-Series

The luxury German carmaker, BMW, today released sales figures for the month of May 2010.

The company reported strong year over year gains in sales for select brands and models, including the super expensive Rolls-Royce Ghost that saw sales grow by more than 330-percent compared to the same period last year, as global economies slowly recover from the credit crisis.

The BMW brand sold 101,775 vehicles in May 2010, marking a significant 12.3-percent increase over May 2009.

The BMW 7-Series and the company’s new 5-Series models helped fuel sales.

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Japanese-based Toyota, who is now the top carmaker in the world after edging out General Motors earlier in the year, has announced a new massive $50-million common stock investment in Telsa Motors.

The investment will see both firms cooperating on jointly developing cost effective fuel-efficient battery powered electric vehicles. The firms will jointly work together on developing various systems including parts and new systems that will see even more efficient vehicles in the future.

Telsa co-founder and chief executive Elon Musk said today in a statement, “It is an honor and a powerful endorsement of our technology that Toyota would choose to invest in and partner with Tesla,”

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The specific sum is in relation to a $4-billion TARP loan that the Treasury underwritten on January 2, 2009.

The current payment is below the face value of the loan, but the amount received by the Treasury was greater than expected.

The U.S. Treasury to date has given Chrysler just over $14-billion in total loan payments to ensure the auto giant survives the global economic downturn and the credit crunch.

Chrysler currently has no other outstanding obligations with the U.S. Treasury in relation to TARP funds.

Chrysler most recently reported a significant $197-million total loss in the first quarter of this year. That number compares to $2.7-billion in total losses in Q4 ’09.

The company is aiming to breakeven by the end of 2010.

The news comes today as the top U.S. automaker, General Motors, released earnings for the first quarter of 2010. The company reported a net profit of $865-million in the quarter, marking the first profit in many fiscal quarters.

The top U.S. automaker, General Motors Inc., today published earnings for the first quarter of 2010.

The company said revenue in the quarter was $31.48-billion, up materially from $22.4-billion (an increase of 40.54-percent) in the same period last year.

GM had an operating profit of $1.2-billion in the period, and earned $865-million in net earnings in the period. Net earnings compare to a $5.98-billion loss YoY.

The current increase in net earnings is attributable to many factors, primarily the increase in demand for GM vehicles, and lower fixed costs as production rose. Additionally, the company said it transferred retiree health expenses to an independent less costly trust.

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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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