In May, Ford President and CEO Jac Nasser announced that all pickup trucks sold in the U.S. and Canada would be Low Emission Vehicles (LEV), well ahead of proposed government regulation and with no additional cost to customers. Beginning with the 2000 model year the F-Series pickup fleet will average smog-forming emission levels 43 percent cleaner than before it was classified as a LEV.

Gurminder Bedi, Vice President Ford Motor Company Truck Vehicle Center with F-150

Photo: Ford

Ford produces more than three quarters of a million F-series pickups annually and about 360,000 Ranger compact pickups. Rangers and the SVT Lightning are scheduled to be low emission vehicles by 2001. Last year, Ford began production of low emission sport utility vehicles and Windstar minivans and remains unmatched by other automakers on that broad environmental commitment. The LEV sport utility vehicles are: Ford Explorer, Ford Expedition, Ford Excursion, Mercury Mountaineer and Lincoln Navigator.

SUV and Windstar production will equal about 1 million units and, when joined with pickups, Ford will be putting two million Low Emission Vehicle trucks on the road annually at full production. Ford trucks and SUVs that meet LEV status will emit on average about 48 percent fewer smog-forming emissions than trucks and SUVs that do not meet LEV. The combined effect of Ford's emissions actions on SUVs and full-size trucks is equivalent to eliminating smog forming emissions from 350,000 full-size trucks on the road today.

Ingolstadt, Germany, August 27, 1999- AUDI AG has established during inspections of Audi A4 models that the track rod ends of the front axle may leak, thus causing premature wear.

As a precautionary measure, the company is therefore requesting the owners of Audi A4/A6/A8 models from part of the 1998 model year to bring their vehicles back to the workshop.

Audi A6

Photo: Audi AG

AUDI AG will be writing to customers within the next 14 days asking them to come into the workshop. Dealers have already been informed. Approximately 158,000 vehicles worldwide are affected by this campaign, around 65,000 of them in Germany.

Following the acquisition Volvo owns 25,290,660 A shares and 60,993,759 B shares in Scania, which corresponds to 28.5 percent of the voting rights and 43.1 percent of the share capital.

After acquisition of the Scania shares which AB Volvo has agreed to acquire from Investor, Volvo will own 79,352,040 A shares and 62,502,452 B shares in Scania, which corresponds to 77.8 percent of the voting rights and 70.9 percent of the share capital.