Trade News

South Korea's largest auto supplier, Hyundai Mobis, will mark a major expansion of its North American R&D operations center this week by welcoming customers, politicians and media to the Plymouth, Mich., site for a tech event showing off its newest electrification and autonomous driving technology.

Mobis Technical Center of North America has new or upgraded labs and engineering equipment, as well as a new customer experience center with 18 displays showcasing its latest technology. The investments allow for more development work to be done on site, as well as conducting more technical discussions with automakers such as General Motors and Stellantis locally instead of at Mobis headquarters in South Korea or at trade shows.

The expanded presence is one of the latest investments illustrating how auto suppliers are being nudged to step up with investment money as automakers pursue aggressive targets in EVs, driver-assistance systems and softwar…

Limited inventory, affordability challenges, reduced customer loyalty—we all remember the significant changes brought about by the pandemic. While these issues have started to dissipate, the automotive industry is now entering a new era as electric vehicles (EVs) take center stage. For as many opportunities as this next frontier creates, an equal number of challenges emerge. These headwinds include slowing sales velocity, EV prices that are still higher than ICE vehicles, and a noisy market saturated with new EV models.

In recent months, new-vehicle inventory levels have been on the rise, reaching some of their highest point in two years, according to monthly reporting by Cox Automotive. And when you drill into this issue, you quickly see that EVs are among the segments with the highest inventory — many EVs had more than 100 days’ supply at the end of July 2023. Additionally, Kelley Blue Book reported that the average price of an EV in July 2023 was still several tho…

BEIJING — Western sanctions against Russia are boosting demand for China-made light vehicles, and the surge could continue as long as the sweeping sanctions remain in place, an executive with China's auto association said on Monday.

Chinese automakers are also seeking to assemble vehicles in Russia and localize production, Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer at the China Association of Auto Manufacturers, told reporters.

"There's still huge demand in the Russian market but that won't necessarily be solely reliant on imports," Xu said.

"China's auto exports to Russia will still be in high demand over next 2-3 years and after that China's auto sector will likely increase their localization in the Russian market."

Russia was the top destination for China's auto exports in the first seven months of the year, CAAM data showed, with 464,000 cars sold. Mexico ranked second with 224,000 Chinese imports.

In 2022, Mexico was the top importer of Chinese…

Tesla Inc.'s Dojo supercomputer could power a near $600 billion jump in the automaker's market value by boosting the adoption of robotaxis and its software services, Morgan Stanley analysts said.

The electric-vehicle maker started production of the supercomputer used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models for self-driving cars in July and plans to spend more than $1 billion on Dojo through next year.

Dojo can open up new addressable markets that "extend well beyond selling vehicles at a fixed price," Morgan Stanley analysts, led by Adam Jonas, said in a note on Sunday.

The stock on Monday was on track to add about $46 billion in market value. Morgan Stanley is one of Musk’s key advisory firms, including on the $44 billion takeover of Twitter Inc., now known as X.

Tesla shares rose 5.5 percent to $262.66 in early Monday trading.

The analysts' report said: "If Dojo can help make cars 'see' and 'react,' what other markets could open up…

LONDON -- BMW will invest 600 million pounds ($750 million) at its U.K. plant in Oxford to take its Mini brand all-electric by 2030, a fresh boost for Britain's car industry after years of Brexit-related uncertainty.

Starting in 2026, the automaker will make two electric models at the English plant: the three-door version of the Mini Cooper and the Aceman compact crossover.

BMW will also invest in its U.K. plant in Swindon that makes parts for Mini models.

The company did not say what will happen to its engine plant in Hams Hall in a statement released on Monday.

The Oxford factory will make only electric models as of 2030.

The Cooper and Aceman EVs will also be made in China. Exports of the cars begin in 2024.

Had BMW opted to keep electric Mini production limited to China, it would have been a serious blow to the U.K., where car production has halved since the 2016 Brexit referendum.

British business minister Kemi Badenoch …

China’s big tech firms are feeling the pain of being late to the electric vehicle party.

Their push into the world’s largest car market is being hampered by government efforts to rein in an EV industry built at breakneck pace via years of generous subsidies. But as consumer demand takes a hit and Beijing’s strict rules around production licenses endure, aspiring market entrants are being pushed into partnerships with licensed manufacturers, or pivoting their business plans entirely.

“Technology companies need to find their own positioning in this fiercely competitive market,” said Esun Xu, senior consulting director at Frost & Sullivan. “It’s becoming harder for them to get into the game as they face multiple challenges including technological barriers, financial requirements, market competition, regulatory hurdles and supply chain management.”

The toughest hurdle is getting a hold of the permit needed to make an EV. China has granted just a handful…

Toyota has gone from being an environmental darling, lauded for pioneering hybrid technology, to a pariah among many conservationists. Gill Pratt, CEO of the Toyota Research Institute, defends the company’s commitment to hybrids. And we hear from environmental activists and former government officials who say the world’s largest auto company is dangerously dragging its feet.

Buckle up for a big week

We're heading into a big week for the auto industry — and a really big week for Automotive News.

We start the week off with a couple of exciting releases: One is entirely new and the other is a perennial favorite.

First the familiar: Automotive News readers will get to meet the 2023 class of Rising Stars. These are two dozen leaders and high achievers, age 45 or younger, working at automakers, suppliers and other non-retail entities in the automotive industry. (Young dealership folks are honored with the 40 Under 40 program.)

Also dropping is Driving to Zero, a limited-series podcast about the auto industry's efforts to reduce and even eliminate carbon emissions throughout the value chain and vehicle lifecycle. The first four episodes come out this week with four more to come. Jake Neher, our terrific coordinating producer for audio, led this project as reporter and host on top of his work on Daily Drive, the weekday new…

Driving through the plains of Ontario always reminds me of my home state of Iowa. A lot of it is agricultural. and the road can be numbingly straight.

But as Jake Neher and Jack Hallauer — two Michigan native colleagues — and I headed toward the Toronto exurb of Brampton to tour a Magna International plant, I experienced something I never felt in Iowa: a burning in my throat from wildfires.

This past summer, locales from Chicago to New York were canceling outdoor activities because of the Ontario forest fires and the heavy smoke hanging over large swaths of North America.

Those fires were not global warming; a hot day in August is not climate change. But the accumulation of years of progressively hotter temperatures throughout the world provides ample evidence of a real problem. In the words of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "the influence of human activity on the warming of the climate system has evolved from theo…

The chair of the International Council on Clean Transportation discusses her role in spurring change at Volkswagen following the company’s emissions-cheating scandal and says 2023 marks a critical juncture in a shift toward green mobility.

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