General Motors Corp . has reached an agreement with shareholders to settle securities litigation for $277 million, according to federal court records. The agreement, disclosed in a quarterly regulatory filing Thursday, would settle a federal lawsuit filed in April 2006 alleging GM and others violated standard accounting practices. GM would pay half the money into an escrow account within 30 days of preliminary approval of the settlement by a U.S. District Court judge in Detroit. The other half would be placed in an escrow account in January. The agreement in principle is subject to court approval.

General Motors Corp ., struggling to reorganize operations as U.S. sales plunge, may see its U.S. market share fall by half as consumers continue moving to small cars sold by rival brands, analyst Kevin Tynan said. "They're going to make it, but it will be a different company. This could be a 10 percent-market-share company, not 20 percent where they are now," Tynan, an analyst in New York at Argus Research, said in a Bloomberg interview Thursday. "That's probably where they need to be to be profitable." The Detroit-based automaker's U.S. sales fell 18 percent this year through July, led by a 23 percent plunge for its light trucks, including pickups, sport-utility vehicles and vans. GM's U.S. market share through July is 21.3 percent, 2.1 points less than a year ago and down 7 points from 2000, according to Autodata Corp.

Chrysler LLC risks a possible production shutdown should supplier Dana Holdings Inc. win a lawsuit to end a money-losing contract. Chrysler would have few options to replace Dana's axles and driveshafts, said James Gillette, a consultant with CSM Worldwide Inc. in Grand Rapids. "It puts an enormous amount of pressure on Chrysler," Gillette said in an interview today, a day after Dana asked a bankruptcy judge to let it halt its parts accord Dec. 31. "It's not like there are 200 other suppliers they could go to. Dana does have some level of bargaining power."

TOLEDO, Ohio -- Dana Holdings Inc. says it will eliminate an additional 2,500 jobs by the end of the year, on top of 500 salaried job cuts the auto parts company announced last week. Executive chairman John Devine said that the market for Dana's products is much different than it was just six months ago. Its customers in the ailing U.S. auto industry have been slashing production.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp ., Japan's fifth-largest automaker, said it will deliver battery-powered minivehicles for tests by two California electric utilities this year, joining a push to commercialize alternative-power cars. Mitsubishi Motors agreed to ship i MiEV cars to Southern California Edison and PG&E Corp. in the fourth quarter. The utilities will evaluate performance of the cars, which have lithium-ion batteries capable of going as far as 100 miles on a single charge, the automaker said.

MILAN, Italy -- Andrea Pininfarina, chief executive of the family Italian car design firm that counts Ferraris and Alfa Romeos among its creations, died Thursday in an accident near the northern city of Turin, reports said. He was 51. Pininfarina, who was on a scooter, collided with a car whose driver failed to stop at an intersection, Luigi Semenzato, police chief of Trofarello, south of Turin, told Sky Tg24 television news. He said the driver "didn't see the Vespa coming."