As the race to offer the first commercially viable electric car charges up, automakers hoping to cash in on environmental concerns displayed a slew of models at the Paris Motor Show on Friday.

Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles commissioners voted Thursday to approve three-year Clean Trucks Program loan and lease-to-own agreements with Daimler Truck Financial that will help trucking folks buy 2007-compliant diesel or alternative fuel vehicles.

The contracts were negotiated over several months by the two ports and the company. Due to the differences in their programs, each port approved its own contract with Daimler. In Los Angeles, only licensed motor carriers are eligible for the program. In Long Beach, the program is open to both companies and owner-operators.

German stocks declined for a third day as a U.S. government report signaled the housing slump in the world’s largest economy is deepening and a rebound in oil prices weighed on consumer companies.

ThyssenKrupp AG sank to a two-year low, leading a drop in steelmakers after rival ArcelorMittal predicted “softness” in the market in the fourth quarter. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG, the world’s biggest luxury carmakers, fell for a third day as crude climbed in New York. Deutsche Bank AG and Allianz SE led financial shares lower as the bailout of American International Group Inc. failed to ease concern that credit losses will subside.

Some institutional investors in German carmaker Daimler (DAIGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) favour a sale of the company’s truck business but would prefer the company wait to make such a move, German daily Handelsblatt reported.

“In the medium-term we see a sale of the truck unit as a positive as the truck business is very cyclical and there are only limited synergies available between the units,” DWS fund manager Stefan Bauknecht told the paper in a preview of a story to be published on Tuesday.

DETROIT (Reuters) - Chrysler LLC has drawn interest from international and North American parties for the possible sale of its high-performance Dodge Viper sports car line, Vice Chairman and President Jim Press told reporters on Wednesday.

Chrysler in late August announced it was exploring the sale of the Viper sports car business as part of its effort to generate cash and ride out the deepening U.S. auto industry downturn. The Viper is a low-volume V10-powered sports car first produced in 1992.

The cost of two new Duke Energy Carolinas’ plants approved in June by state regulators could reach a total of $1.36 billion, according to newly released cost estimates.

The price tag for the Buck and Dan River gas-fired plants, estimated at up to $680 million apiece, indicates power-plant construction costs are continuing to rise, as Duke has warned. Until now, Duke had not released an estimate of the cost of the plants. But general industry figures from last year, based on earlier construction of combined-cycle plants like Buck and Dan River, had pegged costs closer to $480 million.

BMW AG and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz Cars unit both posted rising sales for their compact brands in August, though their core larger cars experienced lackluster demand.

The consumer shift toward smaller cars, which are usually less profitable than large vehicles, comes amid sluggish demand in major markets such as the U.S. and Western Europe and a gloomy economic outlook, which are increasingly clouding the perspectives for global car makers.