Trade News

NEW YORK — The redesigned Hyundai Kona Electric will have about the same maximum range as the first-generation version, the company said Wednesday as it revealed the new look for the first time in North America.

The subcompact crossover will be able to go up to 260 miles per charge, according to Hyundai's preliminary estimates, in line with the EPA's 258-mile range rating for the current model. Gasoline-powered N Line and Limited versions were also unveiled at the New York auto show.

The Kona, one of the more affordable electric vehicles in the U.S., is important for Hyundai, particularly after its popular Ioniq 5 crossover was excluded from federal tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act. That was because the vehicle, like the Kona, is assembled in South Korea, not North America.

“By starting with an EV mindset, we were able to bring many of the benefits of the EV to all our Kona models. Things like interior space that’s optimized for the people…

The 2025 Ram 1500 REV electric pickup will have a more conservative look than the Revolution concept truck shown earlier this year and a targeted range of 500 miles with its largest battery pack — numbers that will best its competitors.

Ram said the REV will offer a standard 168-kilowatt-hour battery pack with a range target of up to 350 miles, while it's aiming for up to 500 miles with the optional 229-kWh battery pack. An extended-range version with a gasoline-powered engine to charge the battery also is in the works, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said.

The REV, Ram's first battery-electric pickup, was slated to debut Wednesday morning at the New York International Auto Show.

Scheduled to go on sale in late 2024, the REV made a brief appearance in the brand's Super Bowl ad in February. Ram leveraged the game's massive audience to jump-start reservations and the REV sold out in three days. Brand CEO Mike Koval Jr., highlighting the excitement around t…

NEW YORK — Jeremie Papin, chairperson of Nissan Americas, said the company's Ambition 2030 strategy is going to involve even more cooperation with dealers than the company has been enjoying in recent years.

In the near to medium future, he said, he envisions dealers remaining involved with vehicles through multiple owners, by way of second-life battery usage, leases of pre-owned vehicles and over-the-air updates.

"We don't want to be successful at the expense of the customer, at the expense of our dealers [or] at the expense of our suppliers," he said Tuesday at the New York Auto Forum. "We want all of our constituents to be successful."

In the wake of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn's hard-charging goals, Nissan has been improving its relations with dealers. The greater collaboration is important as more mainstream consumers adopt electric vehicles — a business in which Nissan was a pioneer.

With the introduction of the Ariya electric crossover, Nis…

General Motors outsold Ford Motor Co. in electric vehicles by nearly two-to-one in the first three months of the year as the automakers chase market leader Tesla Inc.

Ford sold 10,866 EVs in the US during the first quarter, according to a statement Tuesday. That was up 41 percent from a year ago, but was still well behind the 20,670 plug-ins GM sold in the same period. Overall, Ford’s light vehicle deliveries rose almost 10 percent, while GM’s first-quarter sales were up 17.6 percent.

Sales of Ford’s electric Mustang Mach-E fell 19.7 percent to 5,407 vehicles, with its factory in Mexico down for much of the quarter as the automaker expands it to double capacity to 210,000 models a year. Ford also lost five weeks of production of its F-150 Lightning plug-in pickup due to a battery fire, which led to a small recall.

Ford CEO Jim Farley has set a goal to initially be No. 2 to Tesla, which controls two-thirds of the U.S. EV market, and eventually overtake th…

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…