Trade News

The return to more-regular economic activity after the supply chain snarls and federal stimulus of the pandemic is making this year's historically excellent prospects look almost disappointing, speakers at the New York Auto Forum said Tuesday.

Last year was "hands-down the most profitable year ever" for auto dealers, said Thomas King, president of the data & analytics division and chief product officer at J.D. Power. This year, rising production and increasing competition are already driving down prices and profit margins.

The three-month period that just ended, King said, was the "second best first quarter on record" for dealer gross margin and profits from finance and insurance — trailing only last year's. With the industry in flux and interest rates high, phone cameras shot into the air at the forum to document slides detailing forecasts.

As the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to reduce inflation, other economic concerns…

Ford saw sales rise ten percent in the first three months of 2023. Stellantis wasn’t so fortunate. Five thousand salaried workers accept GM’s buyout offers. Plus, J.D. Power's Tyson Jominy talks about what early U.S. sales results might mean for the rest of the year's outlook, and previews this week's New York Auto Show.

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Ford Motor Co.'s U.S. light-vehicle sales rose 9.9 percent in the first quarter, driven by increasing supplies and strong demand for new products.

Sales by the Ford brand jumped 10 percent, making it the bestselling U.S. brand in January through March. Lincoln sales fell 1.1 percent on fewer deliveries of the Corsair compact crossover.

In March alone, the company's sales rose 7.5 percent, with an 8.2 percent gain for the Ford brand and a 6.9 percent decline for Lincoln, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center.

Ford's electric vehicle sales in the first quarter rose 41 percent from the same period a year earlier, and the company said it was on track to meet its production ramp goals. Ford was the nation's second-best EV seller last year and plans to finish 2023 at a production rate of 600,000 EVs annually.

Brands: Ford, up 10%; Lincoln, down 1.1%

Notable nameplates: Ford F-Series, up 21%; Bronco, up 38%; Explorer, up 36%;…

Nikola Corp.'s plan move to ramp up production of semitrucks powered by electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cells will be costly.

The Phoenix company is expected to raise $100 million for "working capital and other general corporate purposes" through a secondary stock sale of roughly 90 million shares. The sale is expected to close by the end of the day at $1.12 a share. That's a 20 percent discount compared with the stock's closing price of $1.40 per unit March 30, the day it announced the offering.

Nikola, one of the first EV companies to go public via a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC reverse merger, sold 30 million shares. The remaining 60 million shares went to Antara Capital L.P., which holds the company's convertible bonds.

Once dubbed the "Tesla of trucking," some industry observers viewed the capital raise unfavorably.

"It's not a good sign if you have to sell stock at a discount; the current environment hurts them," Michae…

The ghosts of Nikola's past are still clattering around in the startup commercial truck maker's corporate attic. But they aren't distracting CEO Michael Lohscheller, the 31-year auto industry veteran who became Nikola CEO just over a year ago.

The company, founded by disgraced former CEO Trevor Milton, convicted last year on three counts of fraud related to false statements made to investors, is now under professional management, thanks to Lohscheller and his team.

A former CFO of Mitsubishi Motors and Volkswagen, Lohscheller has also been CEO of Opel and Renault's German, Austrian and Swiss operations. He completed a short stint leading VinFast before moving to Nikola. So he knows a thing or two about fiscal responsibility, especially about making sure companies don't promise things they can't deliver.

With a battery-electric Class 8 truck now on sale, a fuel cell version coming in less than a year and plans in place for a network of hydrogen fu…

DETROIT — General Motors on Tuesday said about 5,000 of its salaried employees have elected to leave the company through voluntary buyouts.

CFO Paul Jacobson shared the number during a Bank of America automotive conference and said the program came in line with the automaker's expectations as part of an effort to cut $2 billion in costs over the next two years. The number represents about 6 percent of the 81,000 salaried employees GM had globally at the end of 2022.

GM leaders told employees in a memo Tuesday that no layoffs or terminations are on the table for now.

“These results confirm that a company-wide Involuntary Separation Program is not a consideration at this point,” said the memo, which was signed by CEO Mary Barra, Jacobson and Chief People Officer Arden Hoffman. “As always, leaders will continue to have the flexibility to manage their organizations to drive high performance and impact.” The leadership team plans to update employees furt…

Stellantis' U.S. sales fell 9.1 percent in the first quarter on declines for Jeep and Ram, its highest-volume brands.

Jeep volume fell 20 percent in the quarter, while Ram slipped 6.8 percent from the year-earlier period.

Although Ram was down, sales of its outgoing ProMaster City more than tripled. Ram told Automotive News in August that it was discontinuing the ProMaster City, the smaller of its two van offerings, after the 2022 model year. The brand said ProMaster City shipments to dealers were slated to continue through the first quarter of 2023.

Dodge and Chrysler each saw gains in the quarter from higher sales of the Charger, Challenger, Durango and Pacifica.

Brands: Ram, down 6.8%; Jeep, down 20%; Chrysler up 9.6%; Dodge up 43%; Fiat down 59%; Alfa Romeo down 27%.

Notable nameplates: Compass, down 4.9%; Wrangler, down 17%; Grand Cherokee, down 27%; Gladiator, down 24%; Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer, down 59%; Ram pickup, down 17%; ProM…

Lithia officially sits atop the dealership group mountain, beating AutoNation in total sales last year. A look at early first quarter sales results. And Tesla’s price cuts boost sales.

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Can't wait to hear the next episode of "Daily Drive"? Subscribe through a podcast app to receive episodes days in advance. If you don't have a podcast app already, here are some options. 

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Hyundai Motor America closed the first quarter strong with best-ever March sales and also posted the fifth consecutive month of record sales, while crossovers continue to provide a major lift to Genesis.

Hyundai logged U.S. sales of 75,404 in March, representing a 27 percent increase over the year-earlier month. Hyundai's first quarter sales rose 16 percent to 184,449, compared with the same period last year.

Compared with March 2022, Genesis posted sales of 5,656, an increase of 23 percent over March 2022. In the first quarter, Genesis sales of 13,769 were up 17 percent compared with the first three months of last year. The top-selling GV70 crossover was up 41 percent with deliveries of 2,100, according to the brand. In its first month on sale, The electric variant of the GV70 logged 45 sales, according to Genesis. Sales of the GV80 sedan tallied 1,491, a 21 percent increase.

Notable nameplates: Hyundai Elantra, up 32% in March, up 47% in the first quar…

Honda Motor Co.'s U.S. sales rebounded in March, after a February dip and a January gain, with the company posting its best month since July 2021.

Honda and Acura sales combined to top 116,000 vehicles in March. Honda division sales hit 103,000 units, up 8.8 percent, led by strong sales of electrified vehicles and revamped light trucks. Acura, with 13,500 vehicles sold for a 2.6 percent increase, saw its best month since August 2021.

In the first quarter, American Honda sales rose 6.8 percent compared with the same period last year, to 284,607 vehicles. The Honda brand saw a 5.4 percent increase, while Acura was up 18.5 percent.

The company has been battered by the global shortage of microchips, most of them sourced from inland China, and has told dealers inventories won't fully recover until the fall.

Notable nameplates: Honda Accord, down 6.2%; Civic, up 67%; HR-V, down 34%; CR-V, up 3.8%; Ridgeline, up 52%; Acura TLX, down 9.7%; MDX, down 5.1%;…

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. convinced an Ohio federal judge on Friday to throw out a $64 million jury verdict over its alleged theft of trade secrets related to self-inflating tires.

U.S. District Judge Sara Lioi said most of the trade secrets that Czech company Coda Development accused Goodyear of stealing were too vague to be legally protected.

A spokesperson for Goodyear said Monday that the company agrees with the decision and "respects the intellectual property rights of others." Attorneys for Coda did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

Coda sued Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear in 2015, and said in an amended 2019 complaint that Goodyear copied Coda CEO Frantisek Hrabal's technology to keep tires inflated with an internal tube, after discussing a potential collaboration in 2009 for General Motors Co.'s Chevy Volt.

A jury decided last year that Goodyear misappropriated five of the 12 trade secrets Coda accused it of misus…