The US's largest automakers showed their new cencept cars for the coming years but their outlooks were more conservative. Daimler AG remains open to selling its remaining 19.9 percent stake in Chrysler LLC to Cerberus Capital Management LP but cannot predict whether an agreement will be reached, the German automaker's top executive said Sunday. Daimler Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche told reporters at the North American International Auto Show that negotiations had not resumed but the companies had “some contact” over the remaining share of Chrysler. In November, relations between Daimler and Cerberus soured when Cerberus accused Daimler of “intentionally” misleading Cerberus before the German automaker sold an 80.1 percent stake in Chrysler in 2007. Daimler said the allegations were baseless. Daimler said its equity interest in Chrysler hurt earnings before income and taxes by about $450 million (€351 million). Zetsche said Daimler-Benz sales performed “relatively well” in 2008, helped by strong sales of the C-Class sedan. Sales fell about 2 percent to 1.256 million cars in 2008. Ford Motor Co. said it will not dip into the line of credit it requested from the US government despite its sagging auto sales. “The game plan is to keep going on our own and to try as hard as we can to not do that,” company Executive Chairman Bill Ford said the Detroit auto show. Ford has been seen by analysts as better placed to weather the latest economic storm because it borrowed more than $23 billion in 2006 to fund its turnaround, loans that were secured against most of the comapny's assets. The automaker burned $7.7 billion of cash in the third quarter and reported automotive cash totaling $18.9 billion in September. The cash burn rate in the fourth quarter was better, but still significant, a Ford spokesman said. Ford had less than $15 billion of cash available at the end of 2008, the spokesman said. Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli acknowledges that the company's plan for new vehicles has a hole in it for 2009, but he and other executives say Chrysler will make it through the year and to 2010, when it will roll out important new models. Nardelli said 2009 is a concern for the automaker, which saw its sales decline 30 percent in 2008 and 53 percent in December. Many analysts predict that by then, Chrysler will be acquired by another automaker or sold in pieces by Cerberus.
