Opel labor chief Karl Franz says negotiations with General Motors Co.’s Opel unit to cut 8,300 jobs should be completed in mid-February.

Franz wants to trade €265 million in wage concessions for a promise to avoid forced layoffs and keep open Opel’s assembly plant in Antwerp, Belgium. He also wants to reduce the 5% royalty Opel pays to GM for each car it sells.

Franz negotiated similar concessions earlier this year on the assumption that Magna International Inc. and OAO Sberbank would buy controlling interest in Opel. When GM decided not to sell, the concessions had to be renegotiated.

Opel is expected to lose €2 billion this year. Franz says the company could have saved €700 million to €900 million if it had completed its original restructuring plan months ago.

Spyker Cars NV says the only issue delaying its acquisition of Saab Automobile AB is the European Investment Bank’s pending approval of a €400 million loan.

Victor Muller, CEO of the Dutch sports car maker, tells Bloomberg News the bank has sent “neutral signals” about the request. Muller says he must win approval for the loan before January to meet General Motors Co.’s deadline for selling or closing Saab.

GM set the deadline after the expected sale to Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg Group AB collapsed late last month. GM also said a week ago it would continue to operate Saab in January if it appears that a sale is imminent.

The EIB had approved the loan to Saab in October, and in September General Motors had offered to contribute €1 billion under an undefined “special financial arrangement.”

But that deal assumed Koenigsegg would be the buyer. Muller says Spyker will adopt Koenigsegg’s business plan, but he concedes the EIB must review the application because of the change in buyer. Koenigsegg aimed to make Saab profitable by 2012 on annual sales of 100,000 cars.

It is not clear whether GM would give Spyker the same financial assistance it offered Koenigsegg.

Renault SA acknowledges it is discussing a possible partnership with Daimler AG to share investment in engines, transmissions and vehicle platforms.

Daimler AG CEO Dieter Zetsche said earlier this week that the discussions were under way. Both companies say they are talking to other potential partners too.

Reports speculate that Daimler and Renault hope to share the cost of developing a rear-engine microcar platform that could be used by the Renault Twizy electric car and next-generation Daimler Smart city car. The new Smart is scheduled to debut in 2013.

Volkswagen AG is eliminating stock options for top managers and instead will tie executive bonuses to long-term profits, sales and customer satisfaction.

VW says it will launch the new compensation system next year. Salaries will account for 30% of total compensation for executives at the management board level.

To earn a bonus, an executive’s performance will be evaluated over the preceding four years. If VW isn’t profitable, no bonus will be paid.

Last year the five members of VW’s management board received a combined €45 million in compensation: €5.3 million in salaries, €12 million in bonuses and €27.5 million in exercised stock options prompted after Porsche SE’s failed attempt to buy the company pushed the price of VW stock to a record high.

The end of scrappage incentives in Germany will cause demand for new vehicles to drop from about 3.8 million units this year to 2.9 million in 2010, predicts industry group VDIK.

Car sales in Germany through the first 11 months of this year totaled 3.6 million units, up 25% over the same period in 2008. The country began in January to offer consumers €2,500 to trade in cars that were at least 9 years old and buy a new, more efficient model. The program expired in September.

Critics say the scrappage programs in Europe’s largest economies have distorted the car market and will lead to sharp sales declines next year. In October J.D. Power and Associates estimated that Europe’s scrap schemes produced about 2 million sales, including 500,000 that were pulled ahead from 2010.

BMW AG says it will present an all-electric version of its 1 Series coupe at next month’s Detroit auto show. The car will go into limited production at the end of next year.

Dubbed the Concept ActiveE, the car is propelled by a 170-hp electric motor that generates 184 lb-ft of torque. The motor is integrated into the rear axle and is powered by two lithium-ion batteries, one under the hood and one in the rear of the car where the fuel tank normally is positioned.

BMW says the 1,800-kg car can accelerate from zero to 100 km/hr in less than 9 seconds and achieve an electronically limited top speed of 145 km/hr. The vehicle has a range of about 160 km per charge and can be recharged in about 3 hours when connected to a 50-amp circuit.

BMW developed the 1 Series EV through its “project i” group, which also created the Mini E electric vehicle already on the market.

Klaus Volkert, the former chief of Volkswagen AG’s works council, has begun a 33-month prison sentence for accepting bribes.

Volkert was convicted in February 2008, but lengthy appeals delayed his prison term.

Initially the investigation focused on Volkert’s solicitation of bribes from suppliers. Later the probe expanded into claims that VW funds were spent on bribes and sex parties.

Among other things, Volkert was accused of arranging a €400,000 contract between VW and his Brazilian mistress.

In 2007, former VW personnel chief Peter Hartz was fined €576,000 after he admitted that he had made payments to Volkert to win union approval of company initiatives. Volkert received a total of about €2 million between 1995 and 2004. VW claimed it did not discover the misuse of funds until 2005.

Rinspeed Inc., the Swiss company best known for ultra-high-performance Porsche derivatives, will unveil UC?, a two-seat electric city car concept at the Geneva auto show in March. The company provides few details about the little car but describes it as a new concept in personal mobility that was designed to be easily mass produced.

The car’s name stands for “urban commuter” but also is a play on words meaning “you see?” The vehicle is only 2.5 meters long and is designed to be easily loaded and unloaded from a rail car for long trips.

Rinspeed says the UC?, whose electric drivetrain delivers 124 Newton-meters of torque, has a top speed of 110 km/h and a driving range of 120 km per charge. The concept is controlled using a central joystick.

Thomas Weber, who heads product development efforts at Mercedes-Benz Cars, says the Daimler unit will begin at the end of 2010 to migrate its cars to a new lineup of smaller but powerful gasoline-direct-injection engines.

Weber tells Edmunds.com, the American online auto data service, that all Mercedes-Benz cars and trucks equipped with V-8 engines will switch to direct-injection technology for the 2011 model year. Some will get a smaller V-8 with twin turbos, and others will receive a twin-turbo V-6 or normally aspirated 3.5-liter V-6 engine.

Bosch, Deutz and Eberspaecher have formed Bosch Emission Systems GmbH, a new venture to develop and sell aftermarket diesel particulate treatment systems.

The Stuttgart-based company, which will be headed by Wolfgang Albrecht, starts up in January. It plans to begin volume production in the third quarter of a complete treatment system that includes a particulate burner and electronic controller. The modular system is designed to be easily adaptable for a wide range of mobile and static diesel applications.

The venture predicts brisk sales caused by tougher emission standards in Europe, Japan and North America. The technology was developed primarily for trucks and buses but can be used in off-road equipment and stationary diesel engine installations.

Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. tells The Nikkei that its Subaru unit, which already sells the electric Stella minivan in Japan, will add new EVs for overseas markets by about 2013.

Subaru announced previously that it will debut hybrid models in 2012 and has indicated it might supplement them with plug-in hybrids that can drive longer in an all-electric mode. The company will buy batteries from outside sources but might develop and produce its own electric motors. Fuji Heavy says Subaru must expand its EV market globally to help lower the cost of EV technology.