Senior Financial Analyst - Finance Group, Financial Planning and Analysis

UAW President Shawn Fain declares victory in race for second term. By Thomson Reuters Oct 9, 2026 | 7:47 PM By Kalea Hall DETROIT, Oct 9 (Reuters) - United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain declared victory on Friday in a race to maintain his position as head of the 400,000-member union. Fain, 57, who rose to national prominence during a 2023 strike against General Motors, Ford and Chrysler-parent Stellantis, received a majority of the votes and easily topped five challengers, according to preliminary ballot totals released by a federal monitor overseeing the vote. Fain had widely been expected to win the balloting, which the Detroit Three automakers were watching closely as they look ahead to 2028 contract negotiations. The companies are wary of raising their labor costs at a time when the auto industry is grappling with weaker vehicle demand and intensifying competition. "One thing I know about our membership is they're ready to fight," Fain said in an interview with Reuters. "They know they deserve better. And let's not fool ourselves. All these companies are massively profitable." Fain has pointed to the next round of negotiations as an opportunity to secure gains beyond the union's landmark 2023 contract, which delivered wage increases of more than 25% over the four-year life of the agreement. The UAW is already urging members to strike in the spring of 2028, when current contracts with the Detroit automakers expire. GM, Ford and Stellantis did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Fain's declared victory late Friday. FAIN'S COMBATIVE APPROACH LED TO GAINS In 2023, just months after narrowly winning his seat, Fain took an unorthodox, combative stance against the automakers. He insisted on bargaining with all three automakers at once, a departure from past practice, in which the union got an agreement at one company to use as a template for the other two. Eventually, he launched simultaneous strikes at factories across all three automakers, a first for the union. "Shawn Fain will continue to take an aggressive approach to collective bargaining. The challenge this time will be that the companies will be well aware" of that approach, said Stephen Silvia, a labor expert from American University. DETROIT AUTOMAKERS LEERY OF LABOR-COST INCREASES Fain said on Friday that in 2028 he plans to push to restore pensions for all workers, a benefit that ended for new hires in 2007, around the time of the near-collapse of domestic US auto companies. GM, Ford and Stellantis, meanwhile, have been stung by tariff expenses, higher raw-materials costs and an expensive rollback of their electric-vehicle plans amid weak US demand. Executives are likely to push back against any meaningful labor-cost increases, said Marick Masters, business professor emeritus at Detroit's Wayne State University. "The recipe is there for a major confrontation with the companies being in a less favorable position to withstand the pressures," he said. (Reporting by Kalea Hall; additional reporting by Nora Eckert; Editing by Mike Colias)

The 2027 Corvette has an oil leak, and GM already knows how to fix it. The brand detected an isolated issue in the lubrication system and established a specific procedure to correct it at dealerships. Oct 8, 2026, 3:37 PM EDT The debut of the new 6.7-liter LS6 V8 in the 2027 Chevrolet Corvette comes with a small inconvenience that General Motors has already identified. Some units may have an oil leak in the cooler area, although the company assures that it is a problem affecting a limited number of engines. The information appears in service bulletin PIP6132, sent by GM to its dealerships. The document covers the Stingray, Grand Sport, and Grand Sport X versions equipped with this engine. The leak appears in a specific area. The symptom the owner can detect is quite simple to identify. Oil may appear under the vehicle and, with the engine running, bubbles can also be observed around the mounting area of the cooler adapter. The cause is two seals located between the oil pan and that adapter. To solve the problem, GM established a procedure that involves replacing them without completely removing the cooler. GM specifies how the repair should be done. The part specified for the repair bears number 12746274. The procedure also pays special attention to the adapter's four bolts, which must be tightened evenly and in a specific sequence. First, a torque of 5 Nm is applied, equivalent to 44 pound-inches, and then it is taken to 15 Nm, or 11 pound-feet. The 2027 Corvette Stingray starts at $73,795, so an oil stain under a new sports car is not exactly a reassuring sign for its owner. This is not a recall. The GM document is a technical bulletin and not a recall campaign. Its purpose is to guide dealership technicians when they find vehicles with this issue. The repair is covered under the powertrain warranty. GM also confirmed that it is aware of the situation and noted that only a limited number of engines could have the problem. The LS6 represents one of the main new features of the 2027 Corvette. The naturally aspirated 6.7-liter V8 develops 535 horsepower and 520 pound-feet of torque, figures higher than those of the previous 6.2-liter LT2. For owners who find oil under their Corvette, the recommendation is to take it to a Chevrolet dealership so that the corresponding inspection can be performed. The solution, at least in this case, is already defined.

KATE FT-703: the Russian 7-speed automatic that outperforms DSG. 08.10.2026 21:54 Despite the persistent perception that Russia lacks the expertise to develop automatic transmissions, the country actually created a 7-speed automatic unit in the mid-2000s that outperformed Volkswagen's DSG system in several key metrics. The project, designated FT-703, was developed by specialists from KATE, a company staffed by graduates of Bauman Moscow State Technical University, with support from the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Automotive Engineering (NAMI). By 2006, engineers were testing this 7-speed unit on Lada Kalina prototypes, reaching a stage of production readiness that was never realized by the mass market. Photo: Wikipedia by Pommeau, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Механическая коробка передач The absence of a domestic automatic transmission for decades was not a result of engineering incompetence, but a consequence of the Soviet mobilization economy. While General Motors introduced the Hydra-Matic technology for civilian vehicles in the 1940s, the Soviet Union prioritized survival and industrial output. During the pre-war period, resources were directed toward basic infrastructure, such as the GAZ-AA truck, which replicated Ford's simple mechanical design. During World War II, while Americans adapted civilian automatics for light tanks, Soviet engineers focused on simplifying the T-34's transmission to ensure cheap, fast production and ease of use in combat conditions. Even during the era of stagnation, automatic transmissions remained exclusive to government ZILs and Chaiques, leaving the average owner of a Zhiguli or Moskvich with only manual options. The FT-703 project emerged in the early 2000s to meet new market demand, specifically designed for the AvtoVAZ platform including the Granta, Kalina, and Vesta. The unit offered distinct technical advantages over traditional torque converter automatics. It weighed only 62 kg, making it compact enough to fit into the engine bay without body modifications, similar in size to a standard 5-speed manual. To improve efficiency, designers replaced the power-hungry torque converter with multi-plate "wet" clutches, claiming a service life of 250,000 kilometers. The 7-speed configuration allowed the engine to operate in its optimal range, reducing fuel consumption on highways and providing smoother acceleration. The commercialization of the FT-703 was halted not by technical failure, but by corporate strategy. In 2008, the Renault-Nissan alliance entered AvtoVAZ's capital. The new partners already possessed localized solutions from their global portfolio and saw no advantage in developing a third-party unit. Consequently, the contract with KATE was frozen, and Japanese Jatco CVTs were installed on Russian vehicles instead. From the perspective of the global conglomerate, leveraging an existing mass-produced component was a more logical investment than funding an external competitor. The engineering work from the FT-703 project did not disappear. The technical foundation contributed to the development of transmissions for the Aurus project, where modern 9-speed automatics are used to manage the high torque of the flagship vehicles. The history of the FT-703 illustrates that Russian engineers were capable of creating a competitive product for the mass market, but the lack of a fully integrated domestic production cycle and reliance on foreign strategic priorities delayed the arrival of a widely available Russian automatic transmission.