Tata Motors, India’s biggest automobile company, has signed up a contract with Union Bank of India with the aim to finance its range of passenger vehicles.

The company’s aim is to offer an additional facility of car finance to its clientele.

The banking institution provides car loans up to 85% of invoice, for term ranging up to 5 years, at a very competitive rate of 11% to 11.25%.

The facility will be available at UBI divisions and 329 sales touch points of Tata Motors.

Washington  - A top labour union on Monday approved changes in its contract with Ford Motor Co that could save the struggling carmaker billions of dollars and set the stage for similar deals with General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC.

The United Auto Workers said its members ratified the new labour agreement, which includes cuts in salary and health benefits, to help keep the carmaker alive amidst the worst economic downturn in decades.

Wolfsburg, Germany - Dakar champion Volkswagen on Saturday said that they would be entering the 2010 Dakar rally.

The German car manufacturer finished one-two in this year's race, which was held in Argentina and Chile and will again be staged there next year.

There was some speculation that Volkswagen, for whom South African Giniel De Villiers won their first-ever Dakar rally this year at their sixth attempt, would follow Mitsubishi, who announced a month ago that they would pull out of the race next year.

In a bid to drive demand in the market, second largest car manufacturer and largest car exporter in India, Hyundai Motor India (HMI) is likely to soon launch a diesel version of their new models -i10 and i20- in the market.

Speaking on this, Arvind Saxena (Senior Vice President, HMI) said, “We will launch the i20 diesel for the domestic market this year. But we are yet to finalize the engine size.”

It is learnt that the i20 diesel would be launched before the diesel version of the i10.

London, Mar. 6 : Workers at TATA-owned car giant Jaguar Land Rover have voted to accept a shorter working week and a one-year pay freeze to avoid compulsory job cuts.

Members of Unite and the GMB unions accepted the deal - 70 percent to 30 percent - after being urged to vote in favour by union officials.

The deal was thrashed out between union leaders and the company, which has cut around 1,800 agency, production and management jobs in recent months because of the downturn in the motor industry.

Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) is all set to phase out its 2.6 litre CRDe engine, which at present powers the older Scorpio models.

The new car model is available in two variants - VLS and VLX, both priced a little over 10.50 lakhs.

The new Scorpio will now be powered by the m_Hawk engine.

At present, only the VLX model of Mahindra Scorpio is powered by the m_Hawk engine.

Apart from this, the new Scorpio would now come in a complete new look. The new Scorpio would come with cosmetic changes inside and out.