DETROIT: General Motors Co said yesterday that it had told its dealers to stop selling Chevrolet Cruze small cars equipped with 1.4-litre turbo engines for an undisclosed issue, another blow for a company dealing with the crisis created by defective ignition switches linked to at least 12 deaths.
The No. 1 US automaker said the affected Cruze cars from model years 2013 and 2014 are not being recalled. The move only covers the affected models that are unsold on dealer lots.
“I can just confirm that we put a stop-sale in last night,” GM spokesman Alan Adler said.
He said he did not have any details on why the action was being taken, but said stop-sale orders can happen for various reasons. He said stop-sale orders mean the dealers need to do something to the vehicle before it can be sold.
Last month, GM recalled 1.6 million older-model cars globally to replace defective ignition switches that can be knocked out of the “run” position while driving, turning off the engine and disabling the airbags and other electrical components.
HONG KONG: Rusal, the world’s largest aluminium producer, said yesterday its net loss blew out to more than $3bn last year as it was hit by record low metal prices and one-off restructuring charges.
The Hong Kong-listed Russian giant said it lost $3.22bn, compared with a loss of $528m in 2012, while revenue slumped 10.4 percent to $9.76bn.
However, the company’s chief executive Oleg Deripaska forecast an uptick in demand for aluminium over the next two years, in line with a global economic recovery.
In a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange, Rusal said it paid impairment and one-off restructuring charges of $1.92 billion, including the cost of putting on hold the Taishet smelter project in Russia’s Irkutsk region because of a weak market.
It also said the price of aluminium had tumbled 8.6 percent last year to a record low of $1,845 per tonne as demand tailed off. Deripaska said that “2013 was another challenging year for the aluminium industry, despite consumption growth of six percent to 51.7 million tonnes”.
Agencies
