Trade News

As General Motors invests heavily in software, the automaker will get a boost from the Silicon Valley tech world.

Mike Abbott, who led cloud services at Apple Inc., will become GM's executive vice president of software beginning May 22, the automaker said last week. He will report to CEO Mary Barra and oversee a reorganized software team focused on information and digital technology, software-defined vehicle and operating systems, and digital business.

Abbott, 50, joins GM at a time of digital transformation at the automaker. GM continues work on its Ultifi software platform and the development of software-defined vehicles, which will be able to offer apps and other features to consumers through over-the-air updates. GM also expects software and subscription services to be a key future revenue driver, to the tune of $20 billion to $25 billion by 2030.

At the same time, GM said its upcoming electric vehicles would not offer Apple C…

Bosch is reorganizing its Mobility Solutions business sector, giving it more autonomy within the huge supplier's corporate structure, and forecasting a surge in revenue to $88 billion by the end of this decade.

The change reflects the auto industry's global shift away from the parts and hardware that make up vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, a business that has made Bosch a global leader over the past century. In the coming decade, automakers will increasingly rely on technologies that can update and alter a vehicle's performance or improve its safety.

The German company's unit will be called Bosch Mobility and led by Markus Heyn, chairman of Mobility Services since January 2022, the supplier said. The change will be effective Jan. 1, 2024.

Its expected growth engines will include automotive software, which Bosch says has been growing by "double digits" in recent years. The company estimated the segment will have a …

Ford dealer Richard Bazzy's indecisiveness has helped dozens of students from his high school alma mater attend college.

In 2020, Bazzy, who owns three Shults Ford locations outside Pittsburgh, created a $5,000 annual scholarship intended for graduates of Steel Valley High School.

The next year, 11 students applied for the scholarship, which asks for a one-page essay on how their schooling prepared them to succeed. Bazzy couldn't choose just one winner, so he gave the full $5,000 to all 11 applicants.

In 2022, 18 students applied. Bazzy again awarded the scholarship to all of them. This year saw 26 applications, and once again, 26 oversized checks were presented at a ceremony this month.

"If I can help people, it's my responsibility to do that and especially for my high school," Bazzy, who didn't attend college after graduating in the 1970s, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for a story last week. "To me, it is a disappointment that I cannot do m…

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) -The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration demanded the recall of 67 million air bag inflators because it believes there is a safety defect, but auto supplier ARC Automotive Inc. rejected the U.S. regulator's request, documents released on Friday show.

ARC air bag inflators are in General Motors, Stellantis, BMW, Hyundai Motor, and Kia Motors vehicles.

GM on Friday agreed to recall nearly 1 million vehicles with the ARC air bag inflators after a rupture in March resulted in facial injuries to a driver.

The GM recall covers 994,763 Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, and GMC Acadia vehicles from the 2014 through 2017 model years with modules produced by ARC Automotive Inc. Dealers will replace the driver's air-bag module.

GM said in its filing Friday in March it learned of a report that a 2017 Chevrolet Traverse was in a crash and that the front-driver airbag inflator ruptured during deployment. An April 25 insp…

WASHINGTON -- A group of U.S. Tesla Model S and Model X owners filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the electric vehicle maker in California on Friday over automatic software updates that reportedly decreased driving range or cause battery failures.

The lawsuit claims Tesla’s updates and their effects violate state and federal laws because they can cut driving range by up to 20% and can require some owners to replace batteries at a cost of $15,000.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, argues impacted Tesla vehicles are “protected computers” under the definition outlined in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and that automatic updates violate consumers’ rights under the law.

"Tesla owners and lessors are uniquely at the mercy of the maker of their cars, and Tesla imposes software updates without consent whenever their vehicle is connected to Wi-Fi,” said …

Join us at noon Wednesday for a LinkedIn Live talk with Michael Robinet, executive director of automotive advisory services at S&P Global Mobility.

He will be joined by Automotive News Executive Editor Jamie Butters and Staff Reporter John Irwin to discuss the labor shortage, distressed suppliers, the costly shift to electric vehicles and the risk of strikes at automakers this year.

Robinet has more than three decades of experience in automotive forecasting, strategic analysis and manufacturing finance.

We welcome questions in advance.

Tesla and other EV makers likely cost California dealers $910 million in profit opportunity last year. Tesla recalls just about every car it has sold in China. Plus, a conversation with dealership marketing director April Simmons, who says more retailers should start marketing their sales and service in tandem.

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A freshly formed group purchased its first dealership, another snagged its fourth store in Oklahoma, two stores selling General Motors vehicles traded hands, and a Ford dealership got new ownership in transactions that closed in the third and fourth quarters of 2022 and the first quarter of this year.

Here's a look at the deals involving domestic dealerships in Michigan, Oklahoma, Indiana and New York.

One transaction involved a retailer ranked on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups.

Maxey family buys Fowlerville Ford

The Maxey family on Nov. 10 acquired Fowlerville Ford in Michigan from Ken Hagar, according to Mike Maxey, owner-operator of the store renamed Bob Maxey Ford in Fowlerville.

The dealership "is kind of a consolidation between the Fowlerville location and my Howell location," Maxey told Automotive News.

Maxey said the Fowlerville store offers service and used-car sales and is a satellite location to Bo…

The U.S. Department of Energy on Friday said it plans to loan $362 million to help California wiring components startup CelLink open a factory in Texas.

The conditional commitment from the government's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program is for the development of lighter, more efficient flexible circuit wiring harnesses for automotive and other industries. Once fully operational, the Georgetown, Texas, facility is expected to produce flex harnesses to support some 2.7 million electric vehicles per year, the department said.

The loan commitment comes after CelLink last year closed on a $250 million funding round with backers including BMW and suppliers Lear Corp. and Robert Bosch. Ford Motor Co. was also an early backer of the San Carlos, Calif., company, which was founded in 2011.

"Factory construction is pretty expensive," CelLink CEO Kevin Coakley said in an interview with Automotive News. "So having an entity like [the Energy Depar…

Volkswagen is committed to moving completely to electric vehicles by the mid-2030s, but until then, an interim step makes sense while the U.S. continues to build out charging infrastructure, the new head of the brand's North American arm argues.

In an interview with Automotive News, Pablo Di Si, who is also in his first year as CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, said VW is looking hard at adding at least one plug-in hybrid to its U.S. lineup in the immediate future.

"It takes you a long time to develop a technology. If I wouldn't have any plug-in hybrid in the group, it wouldn't be an idea" worth pursuing, Di Si said this month. But because of Audi, it's a possibility.

"When you're talking Volkswagen Group in North America, we do have a plug-in hybrid: The [Audi] Q5 e, in Mexico, is a plug-in hybrid. I drove the car in Mexico; it's beautiful, and the [plug-in hybrid] system works very well," Di Si said. "So we do have plug-in hyb…

Linda Yaccarino is the next CEO of Twitter, according to people close to the situation, who confirmed that she did accept the position.

On Thursday, Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted that he was ready to hand the top job to a person he had not yet named. Immediately after that announcement, sources told Automotive News sister publication Ad Age that it was Yaccarino, chairman of NBCUniversal’s advertising and partnerships group. On Friday, a person with direct knowledge of the move said that it was official.

That came after NBCU announced that Yaccarino was leaving the company, without saying where she was headed. Mark Marshall, NBCU’s president, advertising sales and client partnerships, is now in Yaccarino’s former position as interim chairman of advertising and partnerships, NBCU said.

Twitter declined to comment.

Yaccarino is coming to Twitter as a fixer for its advertising problems, bringing deep connections with brand…

Elon Musk said on Thursday he has found a new chief executive for Twitter without naming the person and that he will transition to the role of chief technology officer of the social media platform within the next few weeks.

"Excited to announce that I've hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!," Musk said in a tweet.

Musk has previously not named any prospective candidates, and it was unclear who he had named as his successor, although Blind, an anonymous messaging app for tech employees, was ripe with speculation.

Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and a top executive at Musk' brain-chip startup Neuralink, Shivon Zilis, were among the names being discussed on Blind, according to a former employee who viewed the comments.

Top female executives from Musk's other companies, such as SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell and Tesla Inc TSLA.O Chair Robyn Denholm could also be named, according to Jason …