Trade News

A Calabasas, Calif., luxury used-vehicle dealership challenging automaker off-lease buyout policies in court has settled with Mercedes-Benz and seen its lawsuits against General Motors and BMW dismissed.

Calabasas Luxury Motorcars had objected to GM, BMW and Mercedes allegedly refusing to allow third-party retailers to buy or accept as trade-ins vehicles leased by the three automakers' customers. According to Calabasas, the brands have improperly limited this off-lease capability to their franchised dealers.

All three automakers argued the lessees don't own their leased vehicles and any right those customers have to buy their leased models is not transferable.

The three cases also explored whether two sections of California code implied a right for customers and third-party dealerships to arrange lease buyouts — an argument rejected by two federal judges but not ruled out by a third.

An attorney for Calabasas has not yet responded to an April 21 …

Tesla Inc. is now charging less for the cheapest version of the Model Y crossover than what the typical new vehicle sells for in the U.S., a threshold Elon Musk crossed in blazing fashion.

At $46,990, the base Model Y now costs $759 less than the average amount paid for a car or truck in the U.S. The differential between these figures has changed by more than $20,000 since the middle of last year.

No carmaker has made such a dramatic reduction to a high-volume vehicle in the modern age of the automobile. The Model Y was the best-selling EV in the U.S. last year, and one of the top crossovers of any type.

While Musk has denied that Tesla is starting a price war, his peers see it differently. Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley, whose Mustang Mach-E SUV lost considerable share to the Model Y last quarter — despite some discounting — said last week that price battles are “breaking out everywhere.”

Indeed, Tesla has been slashing prices beyond America’s b…

Robert Bosch plans to acquire a California microchip maker and invest around $1.5 billion in it to help meet growing demand for silicon carbide chips in electric vehicles, the world's largest parts supplier said Wednesday.

It will be Bosch's first U.S. chip plant. The move comes as the Biden administration tries to foster more microchip manufacturing here.

The supplier said it will acquire TSI Semiconductors in Roseville, Calif., near Sacramento, subject to regulatory approval. TSI employs about 250 people primarily in the production of chips on 200-millimeter silicon wafers for use in the automotive, communications, energy and life sciences industries, according to its website.

In a news release, Bosch said it planned to invest more than $1.5 billion in TSI's Roseville foundry to convert the 39-year-old building into a modern source of silicon carbide microchips for EVs by 2026.

Bosch did not disclose costs of the acquisition. It said the "full …

Dealership finance and insurance personnel should educate their customers, advises Doug Timmerman, dealer financial services president at Ally Financial.

"Try to sell less, and try to teach more," he says.

Retailers who educate customers about the value and benefit of an F&I product will "ultimately sell more product," Timmerman says, calling this the best approach for sales.

Have a good F&I tip to share? Submit it to John Huetter at [email protected] and Gail Kachadourian Howe at [email protected].

Vietnam’s richest man Pham Nhat Vuong and Vingroup JSC will sink an additional $2.5 billion into the company’s electric-car unit VinFast ahead of its planned U.S. initial public offering.

Vuong, Vingroup’s founder who in 2019 said he would commit $2 billion of his wealth to VinFast, will personally give $1 billion to VinFast within the next year, according to a statement from Vingroup. The company will provide VinFast a loan of up to five years for $1 billion. Vingroup will also give VinFast $500 million.

“The additional $2.5 billion in funding and loans will create more resources to promote and facilitate VinFast to accelerate development so that it can quickly achieve its growth goals on a global scale,” Vingroup said in the statement. 

The infusion of cash comes as the Vietnamese automaker steps up efforts to crack overseas markets. VinFast, which plans to build a factory in North Carolina, shipped its second batch of EVs to North America April …

While competitors struggle, Aurora Innovation Inc. has seen its stock price increase more than 10 percent during the past month.

Shares of the Pittsburgh self-driving technology company went from $1.28 per share on March 24 to $1.42 at Monday's close. Year to date, Aurora's unit price is up 17 percent.

Aurora's share gains are bit of good fortune in a bleak landscape for the autonomous trucking world. Shares of TuSimple Holdings Inc. have declined 3 percent during the past month and 20 percent year to date. Embark Trucks laid off approximately 70 percent of its staff in March and is mulling a complete shutdown. Its stock, which traded at a high of $117.60 per share last spring, hovered at $2.64 on Monday.

Alphabet Inc. subsidiary Waymo said in January it had "slightly delayed" its internal timeline for commercially deploying self-driving trucks amid layoffs.

This isn't the first time Aurora's share price outperformed peers. In September, its stock…

Stellantis aims to cut about 3,500 hourly jobs in the U.S. by offering buyouts and retirement incentives to workers ahead of negotiations with the UAW later this year.

UAW Local 1264, which represents the Stellantis stamping plant in Sterling Heights, Mich., said in a letter to members that the offers would be made "corporate wide."

Retirement-eligible workers hired before ratification of Chrysler's 2007 contract with the UAW can receive $50,000 to leave their job, according to the letter, which Local 1264 posted Monday on Facebook. Employees who have been with the company for at least a year would be eligible for a lump-sum benefit payment, the letter said, without specifying how much that would be.

Workers can sign up for either package from May 6 through June 19. Departure dates are tentatively scheduled for June 30 through Dec. 31, depending on each plant's needs.

The openings would be filled by workers on indefinite layoff, the letter said.<…

General Motors announces a $3 billion EV battery plant with Samsung SDI. Meanwhile, GM says it will discontinue the Chevy Bolt next year. Plus, Automotive News' Hannah Lutz talks about the biggest EV charging challenges now and moving forward.

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A dip in lease income contributed to GM Financial's drop in first-quarter earnings, which fell 39 percent to $584 million, the company reported Tuesday. The captive lender in the same quarter of 2022 earned $962 million.

The lender's first-quarter earnings before taxes were $771 million, down from $1.3 billion the same time last year.

General Motors CFO Paul Jacobson in an earnings call attributed the drop to a decrease in net lease vehicle income, which was expected. That was driven by "lower lease sales mix as a result of reduced new-vehicle production since Q3 2021 and lower net gains on lease terminations."

Higher cost of funds also impacted results vs. 2022, but that was partially offset by higher effective yields on new originations and growth in the loan portfolio, he added.

The lender said in its fourth-quarter and year-end earnings call in January that it expected earnings to normalize in 2023 after strong credit performance and historica…

Asbury Automotive Group Inc.'s net income dropped 24 percent to $181.4 million and its revenue fell 8.4 percent to $3.58 billion during the first quarter as the national auto retailer operated with fewer stores than a year earlier.

"I am pleased with our performance coming off of a record year," Asbury CEO David Hult said in a statement Tuesday. "We were, and will continue to be, opportunistic while navigating the changing auto market and macro conditions, and we believe our strong operational model and guest-centric approach will continue to power our profitability."

Following its December 2021 purchases of Larry H. Miller Dealerships and Stevinson Automotive, Asbury sold four locations in the first quarter of 2022 and three more in the second quarter to comply with Toyota and Lexus regional store count limits. Asbury then sold nine dealerships during the fourth quarter, a transaction Hult has said represented "an opportunity" and involved a "fair price" but a…

One scribe calls it a buffet of excess. For one analyst, it's a transition, a bridge between BMW's performance roots and an electrified future.

For BMW, the all-new XM showcases the company's newly developed M Hybrid drive system that blends high-octane power with a low carbon footprint.

The XM, the first standalone model from BMW's storied M performance brand since the M1 debuted decades ago, is an unapologetic play for the extreme SUV fan looking for a little green cred.

The XM gets its bona fides from a twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V-8 engine that produces 483 hp and 479 pound-feet of torque. A single electric motor slotted between the engine and the eight-speed automatic transmission independently generates as much as 194 hp and 207 pound-feet of torque.

The 29.5-kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery pack provides roughly 30 miles of all-electric range at speeds of up to 87 mph.

The XM's total peak output …

The National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers is looking for a new leader.

Hugene Fields, who was introduced as president during NAMAD's October convention in Miami, left the organization March 31 after only five months.

Damon Lester, NAMAD's vice chairman, has returned to his previous role as president on an interim basis until a permanent replacement is found.

NAMAD's board of directors announced Fields' departure in an April 13 letter, without giving a reason, and said it expected to announce a new leader "in the upcoming weeks."

Lester declined to comment on why Fields left. He said the organization is revisiting its list of finalists who were in the running for the position before Fields was hired.

Fields came to NAMAD as an outsider to automotive retailing but with 15 years of experience in nonprofit organizations. During eight years as an auditor, he traveled to 35 countries to perform vari…