Ford is to cut its shareholder dividend in half, a further blow for investors who have watched the carmaker’s losses mount in recent months.It announced a 50% cut in its third quarter dividend to five cents just days before it is due to unveil its latest trading results.

Chairman Bill Ford said market conditions had become tougher.

Ford’s US sales have slumped, with high petrol prices sapping demand for once popular sports utility vehicles (SUVs).

‘Sacrifices required’

Critics say Ford has relied too heavily on sales of SUVs and trucks in recent years, limiting development of other models.

The firm’s market share has slipped amid fierce competition from more efficient Japanese producers such as Toyota and Nissan.

Ford made a worldwide loss of $1.9bn in the first quarter and is expected to make a significant loss over the past three months.

“The headwinds we faced at the beginning of 2006 have only become stronger, as consistently high gasoline prices in the US have caused consumer purchase preferences to shift away from SUVs and large trucks to smaller cars and crossover vehicles,” Mr Ford said.

“Our directors are well aware of the difficulties and sacrifices involved in turning around our company,” he added.

The dividend move - the first time Ford has reduced its payout to shareholders since 2002 - will save it about $92m per quarter.

Ford is embarking on a massive cost-cutting drive to make it more competitive, particularly in its home market.

It is looking to cut 30,000 jobs and close 14 plants by 2012.

Analysts said the move was sensible but highlighted the gravity of the financial problems facing the business.

“Given the family ownership, historically, the company has been very leery of cutting that dividend,” said Kevin Tynan, an analyst at automotive consultancy Argus Research.

“So this is a very serious thing.”

GM talks

Separately, the boss of GM - Ford’s main US rival - is set to hold talks with the head of Renault and Nissan about joining their existing alliance.

Rick Wagoner will hold a face-to-face meeting with Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive of both companies, at an undisclosed location.

Analysts have speculated that a tie-up between GM, Renault and Nissan could reshape the industry.

A decision on whether this would be in their mutual interests would likely be made before the end of the year, Mr Ghosn said.

“What is at stake is building an alliance with a third company and supporting this company in anything we can, in order first to be successful and, second, to develop synergies,” he said in an interview with the broadcaster CNBC.

Nissan could potentially utilise some of GM’s unwanted factories that are earmarked for closure, Mr Ghosn added.

GM had an “open mind” about the discussions, Mr Wagoner said, while stressing he was focused on its own plan to revitalise the business.

“We are very willing to sit down and talk about the full range of options with Mr Ghosn,” he commented.

The MG car, formerly built at the Rover plant in Longbridge in Birmingham, is to be built at a new factory in the US.MG Rover’s new owner, Nanjing Automobile, has said it plans to build a new assembly plant in Oklahoma.

It is issuing an announcement next week about plans for car production at the former Rover site, which closed when the firm collapsed last year.

Trade unions have expressed concern at the news and are calling for talks with the firm.

Dave Osbourne, national secretary for the Transport and General Workers’ Union, said: “There has been no consultation with us about this.

Global strategy

“There has been no consultation about Nanjing revising its plans downwards in respect of Longbridge.

“Taking these together, the T&G is calling for an urgent meeting with the company to find out exactly what they are now planning for car making in the UK.”

The Okalahoma and Longbridge operations are part of a global business strategy by the newly-formed MG Motors, which also plans to produce vehicles in Nanjing, China.

About 550 jobs are expected to be created in Okalahoma.

Production at Longbridge stopped early in 2005, with Nanjing buying the company later in the year.

Nanging’s MG president and chief executive, Duke Hale, said: “We’re positioning ourselves as a global car. Our position is to try to create a world-class car in a world-class company.”

Japanese carmaker Toyota confirmed Wednesday that it was recalling more than 380,000 Lexus and off-road Highlander models because of defective clips on the carpet under the driver’s seat.

The recall action affected some 360,000 Lexus RX 330 and Highlander vehicles sold in the US as well as 20,200 RX 300 and RX 400h models in Europe produced between February 2003 and May 2005, Toyota Germany said.

A Toyota spokeswoman said there was a remote possibility of the clips loosening and the mats getting caught under the accelerator or brake pedals.

Seven owners had complained about the problem in the US, prompting the recall action, the spokeswoman said.

The RX 300 and 400h are the most successful Lexus models in Germany. The Highlander is not sold in Europe, according to Toyota.

Anyone whose garage is so packed full of junk that getting in and out of the car is nearly impossible will appreciate a new feature set to debut on future BMW models that allows you to stand outside while your Bimmer parks itself (as well as unparks itself, we assume, or this tech wouldn’t be very useful). The German manufacturer recently released a video of this self-parking wizardry — you can catch it by following the Read link — which shows a happy homeowner simply pushing a button on his keyfob to fire up the motor, retract the side-view mirrors, and send the car on a controlled journey to its home just inches from another luxury ride. The system leverages distance-sensing technology that we’ve seen before from Mercedes, Toyota, and the like, but requires a reflective lens on the garage wall to operate, which unfortunately precludes its use in public parking lots. Still a pretty useful feature, but if it takes three years to find its way into commercial vehicles as BMW anticipates, we’ll probably already have the parking covered with those self-driving models we’ve been promised.

The Ladies’ Pavilion, tucked away in New York’s Central Park, is probably the most beautiful bus stop any of us will ever see. The filigreed, cast-iron Victorian structure is powder blue with a gray slate roof, and was built in 1871 to shelter women awaiting streetcars — the buses of their day — at nearby Columbus Circle.

Fast forward more than a century: Just two years ago, Ford Motor’s Volvo subsidiary unveiled Your Concept Car, a prototype designed by a team of women. The car included such practical details as a wastebasket and a wide rear window. It also featured a gas cap you didn’t have to unscrew — so women could insert the nozzle without breaking their fingernails — and embroidered seats.

The cross-stitch embellishments seem like a throwback, but the fact is, men and women still experience transportation in different ways. Take DaimlerChrysler’s $86,000 Dodge Viper SRT-10 sports car. With its hot, loud cabin and 510-horsepower V-10 engine, it was not designed to appeal to women. And so far this year, 94 percent of American Viper registrants have been men.

You can deduce most of what you need to know about the differences between modern male and female car buyers from our lists of the cars that are most popular with each gender. The data, which “Kelley Blue Book�? generated for Forbes.com, shows which new-model vehicles have the highest percentage of male versus female registrants and vice-versa.

In general, the cars that are more popular with women than with men are affordable, practical and safe, and have a dash of design flair — cars such as General Motors’ sharp new Saturn Sky roadster (read our review). Men, on the other hand, love luxurious, high-performance cars — and stump pullers. The top five “guys’ cars�? include Mercedes-Benz’s S65 AMG sedan, which has 604 horsepower for 2007 and epitomizes automotive luxury (think massage seats and an auto-pilot function for low speeds), and GMC’s Sierra 1500 HD pickup, which can tow over 10,000 pounds of … whatever.

But don’t think that only men prioritize high performance. Three of the five most-female cars are sports cars: the Sky, Audi’s iconic TT and Mitsubishi’s stylish Eclipse — all two-doors. But while women love sporty and good-looking cars, they keep their purchase prices closer to the $30,000 mark than the $100,000 mark, where many of the most-male vehicles reside.

Men, it turns out, are willing to buy “feminine�? cars. For example, registrations for the Eclipse, the most-female car, were 39 percent male in the first five months of 2006, indicating that the kind of affordable sportiness the car provides cuts across gender lines. Most people like a bargain, after all.

But women don’t seem to go for the testosterone-fueled sports and luxury cars with the same enthusiasm. No women registered any of the number-one guys’ cars in the first five months of this year: not Chevrolet’s brutish Suburban C2500 SUV, or hot-rod derivatives of Mercedes’ S-Class sedan and SL-Class convertible lines.

Our rankings are based on registrations of 2006 and 2007 model-year vehicles in the first five months of 2006, for the entire U.S. We chose to base our rankings on percentages of male versus female registrants, as opposed to raw totals of male-registered and female-registered cars, because a car with 100 percent male registrants is clearly a guys’ car, regardless of its sales volume (we required no minimum number of registrations for the cars on the list). A car with over 100,000 male registrants could sound like a guys’ car — but it could be a high-volume vehicle with 100,000 female registrants too.

Of course, registration data does not necessarily tell us who is driving the cars — parents put their kids’ cars in their names; husbands put their wives’ cars in their names and vice-versa — but it is the closest we can come to understanding gender demographics in new-car purchasing.

Used car salesmen may have a bad reputation, but that sure doesn’t seem to keep U.S. consumers from buying used cars. In 2004, we bought 13.6 million new cars and light trucks and leased 3.3 million new cars and light trucks — but went home with 42.5 million used cars and light trucks, an increase of just under 12 percent from 1990, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

But these days, used cars are better than ever, thanks to certified preowned, or CPO, programs, which were created by auto makers to resell cars coming off lease. The manufacturer cleans and inspects each car, slaps on a warranty comparable to one found on a new car, and sells it at a premium — although still for much less than the cost of a new car.

Best of all, for the manufacturer and dealer at least, these CPO cars can only be sold, not leased, so they put no drag on inventory.

Introduced in the 1980s, CPO programs have proved so popular that a study by J.D. Power & Associates stated that, by 2005, they accounted for 41 percent of all used-car dealership sales, an increase of 4 percent over the previous year.

To get an idea of the numbers: As of last month, year-to-date CPO sales were up 2 percent at General Motors, where slowdowns at Saturn and Saab were offset by growth at Cadillac and Hummer. Sales also rose 7.8 percent at Mercedes-Benz, 14 percent at Chrysler Group, 23 percent at BMW, and 105.6 percent at Toyota, exclusive of Lexus.

Because they’re getting a late-model car with a manufacturer’s warranty, consumers are willing to pay a higher price for certified cars than for non-CPO ones. J.D. Power, which has been tracking the CPO market for the last five years, released results of a nationwide survey last month showing that the average premium paid over other used cars amounted to $1,680 in 2005, up more than 12 percent from the previous year. (J.D. Power is a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, MHP , which also owns BusinessWeek.com.)

J.D. Power’s senior director of automotive retail research, Tom Gauer, points out that, “with the weaker economy, people are definitely more cost-conscious, and even at a premium these pre-owned cars are more affordable.”

Driving up price
Industry observers say this premium represents the important influence of certification on potential customers, allaying fears of potential mechanical problems. “Retail buyers are willing to pay a premium,” says Tom Webb, chief economist for Atlanta-based Manheim Auctions, “but, at the same time, you’re getting a much better car. It’s a higher quality vehicle, not just additional peace of mind.”

Even with the premium, CPO cars are still more affordable. For example, a 2006 Jaguar S-Type sedan retails for $45,995, whereas a certified 2003 model with similar equipment and 29,152 miles on the odometer costs $28,995, nearly 40 percent less.

Fostering young consumers
Because leasing first came into vogue at the luxury end of the auto market, that segment has always led CPO growth. And, in J.D. Power’s satisfaction surveys, luxury CPO programs continue to outpace similar offerings from nonluxury brands. J.D. Power’s senior director of automotive retail research, Tom Gauer, says, “Predominantly, the luxury nameplates do the best. When we ask, ‘Who’s doing a good job?’ it’s Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Lexus, and so on.”

Those luxury nameplates also tend to have the best residual values as well, which is another reason CPO cars are attractive. When a new car is driven off the lot it automatically depreciates. CPO cars don’t have that problem.

Manufacturers have found advantages to CPOs in addition to just managing fluctuating off-lease inventories. BMW corporate, for one, advises franchise dealers they can increase their customer base by about 25 percent through CPOs. Bill Bates, BMW USA’s manager of CPO vehicles sales, admits that “CPO is a great way for people to get into ownership if they’re at a stage in their life when they can’t buy a new car. We think these customers are high potential, [and we want] to keep them in the brand because they’re young and they’re upwardly mobile.”

Auto companies expect CPO customers to come back, either to buy another pre-owned car or a new model. Webb says, “The manufacturers see it as enhancing the brand—the value of pre-owned programs spilling over to new units.” And, because warranty claims are funneled through franchise dealerships, manufacturers also gain by increasing their exposure to CPO buyers.

Clearing up confusion
The uptick in CPO sales and corollary benefits may have a built-in brake, though. The National Automobile Dealers Assn.’s chief economist, Paul Taylor, predicts a slowdown in the market as CPO programs continue to grow along with a dip in the overall price of used models. “The key in maintaining value is very carefully selecting the cars. In that sense, the programs are somewhat self-limiting,” he says.

What’s more, despite the popularity of the programs, confusion still abounds both with consumers and within the industry. “Certified” is “largely unregulated” says BMW’s Bates, and warranties and coverage differ greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer (see BusinessWeek.com’s accompanying tip sheet “How to Buy Certified Pre-Owned”).

Another point of confusion for consumers: where certification is actually coming from, whether an independent local dealer or a corporate-backed franchise dealership is guaranteeing presale checks and eventual repairs. “It’s a big concern because the customer isn’t going to necessarily distinguish,” says Gauer, “blaming, for example, BMW if something goes wrong, not the independent.”

Trade-ins key
But, the biggest outstanding question remains—how will another incentives frenzy affect CPO sales across the country? Summer sales tactics, like those announced this month by Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, and those still expected to be unveiled, tend to tempt buyers toward price-reduced new models with attractive incentives. Gauer notes that the percentage of CPO vehicles dealerships sell, which usually hovers around 20 percent drops by as much as 5 percent during heavy promotional periods.

But Taylor says the incentives, though temporarily damaging to CPO sales, can actually help dealers. “The impact of incentives is also a surge in trade-ins,” he says. Because 60 percent of new sales involve a trade-in, “It’s also a buy opportunity for dealers to source their used car operations,” he adds.

The drawback to incentives is that they usually pertain only to selected models—often the ones that are proving most difficult to sell—or don’t apply at all to certain luxury names. So, if you’re in the market for a good, reliable, affordable car or light truck, you may want to consider skipping the new car showrooms and heading right down to your nearest CPO dealer. After all, the only person who will know it’s a used car is you.