Trade News

Last week, one of the most important organizations in this industry, SAE International — formerly known as the Society of Automotive Engineers — was in downtown Detroit for the WCX Leadership Summit.

I only wish I could have given those thousands of engineers a homework assignment before they left the Motor City. That's because automakers, dealers and consumers need a uniform, objective standard with which to measure — and more importantly communicate — an estimate of the remaining battery health of electric vehicles.

EVs will continue to increase their share of new-vehicle sales, which means that in just a few years, they will do the same in the secondary market. But accurately assessing the value of a used EV for a trade-in or consumer purchase requires at least some advanced information about the battery pack, the EV's most important system and the one whose future service life will depend not only on how far it has been driven but how and …

Automakers can read the writing on the wall: Americans now enjoy shopping for new cars on their cellphones or laptops at home in front of the TV. The industry's question is not how to stop all that — it's how to embrace it.

Mercedes Benz and its retailers are launching a two-pronged strategy. First, design new-generation showrooms that focus less on pushing inventory and more on assisting shoppers who are already engaged in the digital process. Second, create boutiques where a customer might learn about a model, explore the brand and discover the retailer. Both formats offer a peek into the future, where Mercedes showrooms and dealership lots get smaller and staff members have a new digital-first outlook on retailing autos.

Mercedes has two new retail looks coming into the market. One is the brand's first store redesign in a decade, called MB EVolution, left. The other is a concept for dealers to display vehicles and explain the brand in off-…

LOS ANGELES — A California state court jury on Friday handed Tesla Inc. a sweeping win, finding the electric vehicle maker's Autopilot feature did not fail in what appeared to be the first trial related to a crash involving the partially automated driving software.

Tesla has been testing and rolling out an Autopilot and more advanced "Full Self-Driving" system, which CEO Elon Musk has touted as crucial to the company's future but which has drawn regulatory and legal scrutiny.

Los Angeles resident Justine Hsu sued in 2020, saying her Tesla Model S swerved into a curb while on Autopilot, and an airbag was deployed "so violently it fractured Plaintiff's jaw, knocked out teeth, and caused nerve damage to her face.”

She alleged defects in the design of Autopilot and the airbag, and sought more than $3 million in damages.

Tesla denied liability for the accident and said in a court filing that Hsu used Autopilot on city streets, despite a user manual wa…

Private equity and other investors funneled $394 million into U.S. transportation technology startups in March, about a 43 percent decline from the previous month, according to data compiled by Automotive News.

Investment by venture capitalists, companies and others into burgeoning advanced transportation technology companies has cooled sequentially from $1.16 billion in January to $690.5 million in February and then again to the March figure.

All told, startups in the sector have raised nearly $2.8 billion this year. Automotive News started compiling the figures for 2023 and does not have comparable data for the prior year.

Investment in mobility technology companies is slowing because of high-interest rates and the fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank run and failure. If there is an investment bright spot, it's in battery technology companies. That sector's investment activity is driven in large part by tax provisions in the federal government's Infla…

The industry disruption that followed the COVID-19 pandemic, which left dealership lots bare and shoppers struggling to find cars, has turned the buying process on its head.

"Customer service everywhere has gotten significantly worse since the pandemic," said Matthew Phillips, CEO of Car Pros, a dealership group operating seven stores in California and Washington.

"Organizations that can get customer service right have a unique opportunity to especially 'wow' customers, because people in general and in the dealerships — their expectations have been lowered," he said.

That's why Phillips — a second-generation car dealer who spent the bulk of his career on the operations side as CFO and in human resources, IT and risk management — is now focused on elevating customer service across the retail group. And he's doing it by training staff to simply listen with empathy to understand what each customer's needs and wants are.

Phillips graduate…

Automotive News on May 22 is introducing a new list of large used-only vehicle retailers. This list will include major players such as CarMax Inc. and Carvana Co. If you operate a large used-only vehicle retailer, please submit your contact information to receive a survey collecting your information.

Trash can-size metal boxes popping up in dealerships filled with old cellphones and laptop computers won't solve automakers' overwhelming mineral requirements to convert their production to battery-electric propulsion — but they could certainly help.

This month Volkswagen became the second brand, following sibling Audi, to ask its dealers to install metal collection boxes for old consumer electronics — such as laptops, cellphones, electric toothbrushes — from Redwood Materials in their stores.

The reason is simple: While there is likely some gold in all of those old devices taking up space in America's junk drawers, there are also a lot of other extremely valuable minerals lurking in those devices that can be recycled and remanufactured into battery packs for electric cars.

Nickel, copper, lithium, cobalt and other precious minerals all were common in the batteries powering yesterday's electronics and can be extremely useful in b…

Electric Fords are headed to Norway.

Ford Motor Co. last week said it would begin exporting its F-150 Lightning pickup to Norway, which it called "the world's most advanced electric vehicle market."

Ford said the plan was spurred by voracious consumer demand in Norway, where EVs accounted for 80 percent of new-vehicle sales last year.

Norway, which aims to have only zero-emission vehicles on sale by 2025, will be the first country outside North America to get the Lightning.

Deliveries will begin next year, Ford said.

"I've had customers literally banging on my door and pleading for us to bring the electric pickup to Norway," Per Gunnar Berg, the managing director of Ford Norway, said in a statement. "F-150 Lightning is the perfect match for many customers in Norway — uniquely capable of quenching our thirst for adventure while embracing our passion for protecting the environment."

Ford's embrace o…

Many in the auto finance industry are optimistic a recent appeals court ruling about the Military Lending Act will put the case to rest.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit on April 12 affirmed a lower court's decision that bundling guaranteed asset protection coverage does not make an auto loan subject to the Military Lending Act. Two of the three judges ruled that based on the law's language, a retail installment contract that finances the vehicle purchase and guaranteed asset protection coverage "is for the express purpose of financing the car purchase" and therefore does not fall within the definition of consumer credit covered by the Military Lending Act.

"This ensures that thousands of vehicles owned by service members and their families will not be in jeopardy or subject to repossession," the American Financial Services Association said in a statement. "This case again highlights flaws of the [Military Lending Act], which we h…

New tailpipe emission regulations proposed by the EPA could serve to speed up electric vehicle adoption in the U.S., with the agency expecting EVs to make up 67 percent of all new light-duty vehicle sales by 2032 under the rules.

But to meet those targets, automakers will need their suppliers to quickly ramp up their own EV parts programs. Considering the financial stress many suppliers find themselves under after years of materials shortages and inflationary pressure, that could prove to be easier said than done, said Dan Rustmann, co-chair of Detroit law firm Butzel Long's global automotive group.

"The OEMs try to pass down costs and pressure as much as they can through the supply chain," Rustmann said. "But the supply chain is already heavily burdened because of inflation and the lingering effects of the pandemic and shortages."

Last week, the EPA released the strictest limits on tailpipe emissions in its history, a move that …

DETROIT — Lloyd Reuss, a mechanical engineer who rose to become General Motors president in the early 1990s, died on Friday. He was 86.

Reuss, a classic company man with sharp political instincts and a passion for performance, was the father of Mark Reuss, GM's current president and head of the automaker's regional and international operations, global product development programs, quality and design.

Mark Reuss posted the news of his father's death on Facebook.

Lloyd Reuss became GM president on Aug. 1, 1990, as part of incoming Chairman Robert Stempel's executive team.

As president, he was an early supporter of the GM Impact, a concept car that debuted at the 1990 Los Angeles Auto Show, and became the GM EV1, a forerunner to today’s EVs.

Mary Barra, GM chair and CEO, in a statement, called Lloyd Reuss "a talented executive and leader of GM and .. a strong force for good in the community with his service, dedication and tireless efforts on…