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News watch February 2012: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour Wednesday 29 February 2012• Following on from yesterday's news of a cross-holding between PSA and GM, it now appears that Peugeot Citroen would offer a €1bn rights issue to create cash and strip back jobs as part of its proposed alliance with GM (Automotive News Europe)  • The Bloomberg Riskless Return Ranking, a survey of investor performance, suggests that Kia has outperformed all 22 other car makers with a risk-adjusted return of 9.2% in the past five years. Second highest was Hyundai, whose shares rose 4.8% in the same period (Bloomberg)• Fisker has a new chief executive officer, as founder Henrik Fisker moves to executive chairman. The new boss is Tom LaSorda, the former top man at Chrysler pre-bankruptcy (Fisker)Tuesday 28 February 2012• General Motors is in talks to buy a 5% to 7% stake in PSA Peugeot Citroen, according to reports by news agencies Bloomberg and Reuters.

Toyota recalls 550,000 vehicles for steering issue

Toyota has recalled 550,000 vehicles around the globe for a potential defect that could impact steering capabilities. The fix involves a replacement for the crankshaft pulley on V6 engines. Toyota said if the problem isn’t corrected, the belt for the power steering could become detached from the pulley, making it tough to steer.

New Volvo V40 gets record-breaking Euro NCAP score

The new Volvo V40 has been given a 5 Star rating by Euro NCAP, in the process getting the best result ever recorded. If a Volvo can’t get a 5 Star rating in the Euro NCAP tests then Volvo’s USP is in trouble. So the news that the new V40 got a 5 Star rating in the latest round of tests comes as no surprise.