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The Ford Motor Company really wants its eligible employees to take its offered buyouts.  And it’s pulling out all the stops to help make that happen.

Not only are the buyout options very attractive, but now the company is passing out glossy, full-color brochures and DVDs to make them even more tempting. Maybe the company figures that this strategy works when selling vehicles, so why wouldn’t it work when selling buyout packages as well?

The current buyout packages are some of the most generous that an auto company has ever offered to its factory workers. One package even includes a lump-sum cash payment of $140,000!

The title of the DVD that employees are receiving is  “Connecting with Your Future.” It explains how the workers benefit from choosing the buyouts rather than staying with the company. According to this New York Times article, the strategies are having an effect. More and more workers are discussing their options and talking about going back to school, opening their own businesses or even finding jobs at other companies.

One employee, Jerry Thomas, had this to say about the buyout offer: “I am taking it seriously, but it’s really hard to think about leaving. The only thing that would make me do it is the uncertainty. We just don’t know what’s going to happen with Ford.”

Even though the company has suffered some major financial losses recently, the buyouts show that Ford is still dedicated to the future of its employees. And your local Ford dealer is dedicated to your satisfaction. Stop in for a visit today!

At the end of last month, Mercedes-Benz officials sent out an e-mail to employees alerting them to the birthday of the automobile. But there is a great deal of controversy as to the actual birthday of the car. The date varies, depending on your definition of the actual beginning of the industry.

Some people look to the year 1678 when a Flemish priest created a small steam car and demonstrated it for the Chinese Emperor. Others look to 1769 when Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot concocted the idea of the modern-day automobile. Still others tend to see 1789 as the year of the first automobile because that’s when Oliver Evans received a United States patent for a self-propelled vehicle.

You can even go back to the Middle Ages, when Mother Shipton, a prophesier of the day, wrote of “carriages without horses” and other concepts that could reflect today’s automobile. Some have even found images in the Old Testament that could describe the vehicle.

But the folks at Mercedes-Benz have a couple of dates in mind when they talk about celebrating the birthday of the automobile. January 1893 is one date, because that’s when Wilhelm Maybach developed the precursor to the current carburetor. January 19, 1903 is another historic day, marking when Benz & Cie tested the first four-cylinder engine in Mannheim.

So the next time you visit your local Mercedes-Benz dealer, you might not want to mention the birthday of the automobile. You might just get a lesson that you weren’t looking for in the first place.

Mercedes-Benz is planning a $5 million expansion project in Ann Arbor, with its site just a few miles away from the Detroit-area headquarters of the Big Three.  Currently, the German automaker has an emissions laboratory in the city that is also home to the main campus of the University of Michigan. But Mercedes-Benz wants to add product development capabilities to the laboratory and spend millions of dollars to expand it.

If the plans go through, the Ann Arbor facility will be only the second Mercedes lab of its kind in the United States. The other plant is in Long Beach. The company would send four engineers from its main headquarters in Germany to the new lab to get things started.

Although it doesn’t seem like a big deal, the expansion plans are just one more signal that southeastern Michigan is slowly becoming one of the more popular places for research and design in the entire nation. With manufacturing work quickly leaving the area and thousands of jobs on the line, switching the focus to R&D could be one thing that boosts the slumping economy in the area.

The expansion would entail nearly quadrupling the space at 3953 Research Park Drive in Ann Arbor from 6,663 to 27,484 square feet. The added space would make room for both offices and stored vehicles. MB chose the site because of its proximity to the Environmental Protection Agency’s testing lab.

James Gartin, Managing Director of Business Development, had this to say about the plans scheduled to be implemented later this year: “It’s exciting to see some new activity at Research Park, and we’re very excited about Mercedes’ continued commitment to the market.”

With these plans and others in the works, you’re likely to see exciting changes when you visit your local Mercedes-Benz dealer. Stop in today and see what the automaker has been working on lately.

The measures that the Ford Motor Company will take to regain consumer confidence are nearly limitless. The automaker’s latest campaign features a social media website that allows customers to share their views with company officials and discuss ideas with other customers as well.

Ford of Canada made the announcement this week, and officials are excited to hear the types of things their consumers would change and what they would like to see in the future.

Ford has assigned a team of experts to monitor and manage the website. The “Powered by You” campaign, which is specific to Canadian consumers, strongly emphasizes the idea that the customers are Ford’s inspiration.

The new campaign replaces the “Built for Life in Canada” campaign. Some would say it’s about time, too. The old campaign has been around for six years and doesn’t really emphasize the role that the customers play in Ford’s development process.

Here are two more exciting aspects of the new campaign:

• Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky is going to play a part in the campaign. He will probably appear in some print or TV ads

• New ads show the Pilobolus dance troupe positioning themselves into the shapes of Ford models. You can see the video here. It’s really cool. If you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the human formations and the actual car.

Your local Ford dealer is waiting for you to come in and see the improvements the company has made in recent years. The automaker is trying to regain your trust and restore its reputation. And the best way to do this is to create quality vehicles that you will undoubtedly enjoy for years to come.

Judy Wraight, along with thousands of other Ford employees, has a decision to make. Should she take the buyout that the Ford Motor Company is offering or should she stick with the automaker in hopes that it will be back on top like it once was?

Last week, the date arrived for many employees to make this tough decision. But workers who have been with the car company for a while aren’t new to this decision. Ford offered thousands of buyouts just two years ago in 2006. And now some employees who didn’t take the buyouts need to make the decision for a second time.

But it’s more than that. Ford made some of the options even more attractive to encourage more workers to leave the company voluntarily. Unfortunately, if there aren’t enough people taking the bait, Ford might need to make the decision of involuntary layoffs for some.

Two of the new buyout programs offered are designed for workers who might want to start their own businesses upon leaving the company. Other packages are specifically for older individuals who were waiting anxiously for their time to retire. For skilled-trades employees like Wraight, this buyout option would include a $70,000 lump sum for doing nothing more than leaving the company before their retirements.

Ford deisgned these and other measures to reduce the number of its employees to match the actual demand for its products. Last year, sales were down 12 percent. That left the Dearborn company with less than 16 percent of the nation’s new vehicle market. Fortunately, though, with plans like the buyout programs, the company hopes to regain its footing in the auto industry by 2009.

At your local Ford dealer, though, you can still get a great vehicle despite the last few years of bad sales records. The automaker has increased its quality and safety standards in recent models to attract new customers and regain its reputation as one of the best brands in the world.

If you’re a Mercedes-Benz customer in the Australian market, your young drivers have access to the company’s new training program.

As an extension of the already existing Active Safety Experience, Mercedes-Benz Australia is now offering First Gear, a program for drivers 24 years of age and younger. The new program is free for MB customers and children of customers.

The program’s focus is safety. According to Horst Von Sanden, Managing Director for MB Cars Australia,  the German automaker has one of the richest histories in safety development among the other major car companies. But he also emphasized the driver’s responsibility for being safe on the roads. That’s why Mercedes-Benz continues to offer and improve its driving programs for young drivers.

The main purpose of First Gear is to introduce many of the driving fundamentals to young drivers, with a focus on safe attitudes and awareness. Some of the main aspects of the course include:

• Identifying risks and avoiding dangerous situations
• Understanding how a car operates
• Maintaining proper vehicle spacing
• Identifying dangerous attitudes while driving

Those participating in the course learn other practical lessons about vehicle safety, including:

• Vehicle maintenance
• Correct steering when driving
• Dangers of tailgating
• Braking differences between wet and dry surfaces

The program puts the participants in real-life simulations so they can practice their safety skills without putting themselves or anybody else in danger.

Although this is only offered in the Australian market, you can stop in at your local Mercedes-Benz dealer and get the latest information about how the automaker strives to keep you safe.

In an effort to promote and sell more C-Class and M-Class models in the United States, Mercedes-Benz is planning a $100 million advertising campaign. Sales for these two models have been less than impressive in the United States, and the company hopes to change that.

One strategy for the new campaign is to create nationwide ads instead of local ones. This will allow the marketing department to create more compelling ads, as they need only focus on one large campaign instead of several smaller ones.

Mercedes-Benz’s advertising dollars in the United States used to be allocated to local ads based on the sales volume from each area’s dealerships. That meant splitting up the dollars between 169 individual markets. To me, splitting it up like that just doesn’t sound cost-effective at all.

In addition to the TV ads, though, I think Mercedes-Benz should put a huge chunk of its advertising dollars into online advertising. I know the company already does this, but I would put more focus on Internet ads than I would on TV ads. More and more people are turning to the Internet to get their news, information and everything else. Advertising online also allows the company to tailor its campaigns to whichever demographic  it is trying to reach. But, of course, that’s why I’m not the head of Mercedes-Benz’s marketing department. I’m sure the company’s pros know what they’re doing.

Whether you see one of the automaker’s new ads or not, your local Mercedes-Benz dealer is a great place to get a quality luxury vehicle. See a representative today and find out why so many others have purchased a Benz.

The future of the Ford Motor Company lies in its younger executives and newer models, according to an article in the Canadian publication The Globe and Mail last month.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally has a vision for the company. And hiring Jim Farley, a young exec from the Toyota Motor Company, was only the first step in achieving that vision. One of Farley’s main tasks is to lead a campaign that will spread Ford’s message consistently to a global market. He was the first senior-level executive that CEO Mulally hired since coming to the company more than a year ago. Farley is going to work closely with Ford’s global product development chief, Derrick Kuzak, to give the automaker one direction to apply to its worldwide market instead of several different streams of ideas.

The new plans come at a time when Ford is trying hard to restructure itself to increase its profits. In 2007, the automaker lost nearly $3 billion. The numbers are even more dismal for 2006, when Ford lost nearly $13 billion. The status quo just wasn’t working.

But now, Mulally suspended the military-like structure of the management-level jobs at Ford. Instead of promoting executives as a reward for loyalty and longevity, he started filling senior-level management positions with people who earned recognition through hard work and great ideas.

You might notice some of these changes reflected in the style and quality of the vehicles at your local Ford dealer. Stop in and see one today!

If you do and you work for Ford, there could be great news on the horizon. The Ford Motor Company announced last week that it was ready to give monetary bonuses to employees at all levels as a reward for their good work. That means everybody is eligible, from the highly-paid executives down to the hourly employees. This welcome news comes from a Detroit Free Press article.

So far, the company hasn’t made any final decisions about the criteria for the bonuses or their dollar amounts. But the Free Press learned that the Ford officials are simply awaiting final approval from the Board of Directors before making the official announcement to the public. According to CEO Alan Mulally, though, it’s possible that everybody might get a bonus to coincide with his “One Ford” philosophy.

Ford employees aren’t strangers to bonuses, though. Last March, the company gave bonuses to its employees in North America. This year, there are about 64,000 hourly workers and nearly 24,000 salaried employees subject to the positive effects of the bonuses. But for some, that’s only a small compensation for the past years of lower wages.  Those pay decreases resulted from the extensive restructuring process Ford instituted in an effort to recover from a loss of more than $15 billion in recent years. The bonuses also come on the heels of Ford’s buyout offer to thousands of existing employees to increase the automaker’s cost-cutting measures.

With these bonuses, you can visit your local Ford dealer and make a down payment on one of the company’s safe and comfortable vehicles. It’s a great investment for you and your family’s future.

DaimlerChrysler India has been planning on changing its name for quite some time now. Last week, the Registrar of Companies finally granted approval to the company to change the name of the Indian branch. Its new name is this:

Mercedes-Benz India Pvt. Ltd.

But it’s not only a different name that this change signifies. The renaming of the Indian branch reflects the manufacturer’s disposal of more than 80 percent of its stake in the Chrysler Holding, LLC. It also furthers the separation the Daimler is trying to create between its corporate name and its various brands.

Daimler consistently presents itself as the parent company when the focus is on the entire group of vehicles. But when it comes to dealing with customers with a focus on a particular name, Daimler allows the corresponding brand to deal with the issues.

That’s one of the main reasons for renaming the Indian operations. Because Mercedes-Benz is the overriding brand in the region, Daimler felt it would be more effective to christen it with the MB name. Officials say this will strengthen the brand name in the local markets, too. And as the automaker has nearly 30 sales and after-sales service network stations across the nation, it’s vital to do everything possible to increase the success of its name and the models it releases.

Domestically, you can still find a variety of models at your local Mercedes-Benz dealer available for purchase today. With the recent advancements in safety and technology, there’s no better time to get behind the wheel of one of these great luxury vehicles.