AUTOS

Chrysler to Build Indiana Plant: The auto maker, keeping a pledge made last spring to striking workers, announced, as expected, that it will build a new $1-billion transmission plant in Kokomo, Ind. At the same time, the company narrowly averted another strike at its Detroit truck axle plant by pledging to bring future work into that facility after 1997, union officials said. The new plant will build rear-drive automatic transmissions for 1999 model Jeeps and Dodge trucks. Chrysler’s decisions underscore renewed pressure by the United Auto Workers to curtail the auto maker’s outsourcing of parts and components. Chrysler buys about 70% of its components from outside suppliers.