Trade News

TOKYO -- James Kuffner, the American computer whiz who has led Toyota’s software subsidiary since 2018, will resign as chief executive at Woven by Toyota and hand the wheel to an automated driving veteran as the Japanese automaker readies the launch of a key operating system for cars.

In announcing a wide-ranging organizational overhaul on Thursday, Toyota said Hajime Kumabe will take over as Woven’s CEO on Oct. 1. Kumabe is currently CEO of J-QuAD Dynamics, an automated driving joint venture between several Toyota Group suppliers.

Kuffner will slide over to serve as a senior fellow at a newly created Software Development Center being set up inside Toyota to better coordinate the rollout of a critical automotive operating system around 2025.

The system, called Arene, is Toyota’s bid to introduce programmable, next-generation digital cars sometimes likened to smartphones on wheels.

Toyota said the reorganization will strengthen ties with top suppli…

An evaluation of 25 vehicle brands' consumer privacy policies found that none of them offer adequate protection, according to Mozilla's "*Privacy Not Included" survey. Each brand collects too much data, can share or sell data too widely and fails to grant drivers control over their data, Mozilla said in its survey released Tuesday.

The "*Privacy Not Included" survey, launched in 2017, found that all 25 car brands reviewed collect more personal data than necessary and use that information beyond operating the vehicle. Some brands even collect data about drivers' sex lives and genetics. Automakers harvest personal information through sensors, microphones, cameras, connected phones and other devices, company websites, dealerships and vehicle telematics, Mozilla said.

"There are no good choices for consumers because pretty much all car companies are a privacy nightmare," said Jen Caltrider, the survey's program director. "People are not talking about this enough. …

Retailers planning to meet with representatives of their noncaptive partner lenders should do their homework, advises David Davenport, president of consulting firm Davenport Business Services.

Davenport encourages bringing documentation to the lender meeting and suggests multiple areas a retailer might wish to study ahead of the conversation.

"Look at reports from your internal systems and find out what your level of engagement with this bank looks like," he writes. "Take a careful look at the deals they have funded in the previous period and make note of any problems that may have occurred. Take another, closer look at deals your store submitted to this bank that were not bought, especially those deals that your team viewed as ones the bank absolutely should have bought."

The retailer should also review performance metrics, such as finance-and-insurance gross profit on deals the lender purchased and average funding time, Davenport …

A customer has accused a Florida dealership of tacking on hundreds of dollars in unauthorized fees when he sought to buy his vehicle at the end of its lease period.

Darrell Evans alleges Sunrise Volkswagen of Fort Pierce failed to disclose those fees would be added to his purchase option price when he agreed to lease a new 2019 Atlas. The purchase price was listed as $20,843 plus "official fees" such as tags, taxes and registration, according to the suit, which seeks damages under the federal Consumer Leasing Act and Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Evans went to the dealership in August 2022 to exercise his purchase option and was surprised to learn that he would have to pay two pre-delivery service fees: a $399 "electronic registration filing fee" and a $32 "third-party private tag agency fee," the suit said, calling them "profit" for the dealership, not official taxes or fees.

In addition, Sunrise Volkswagen ch…

When Germany last convened its biennial car show, Ola Kallenius couldn’t have sounded more bullish about China.

Mercedes-Benz Group had enjoyed a string of successful years in the country, the CEO said, but the best was yet to come. “If we look at the GDP growth, if we look at how many buyers come into the segment that is relevant for Mercedes,” he said, “the next 10 years presents probably the biggest absolute growth opportunity for our company.”

Two years later, Källenius delivered a glum assessment of China’s prospects, telling Bloomberg Television ahead of the 2023 Munich auto show that the luxury-car maker can’t count on the country for brisk expansion.

“After 30, 40 years of an economic wonder, they’re reaching a level of maturity,” the CEO said of China. “We have to take a little bit of a cautious stance on that and see how things develop, and not expect rapid growth as far as the economy is concerned in the short term.”

The change in tune…

MUNICH — Mini will bring a pair of new battery-powered models to market next year as it races toward an all-electric future by the start of the next decade.

But geopolitics will keep them out of American garages for now.

That's because the new subcompact crossover and two-door hardtop will be made in China and would be subject to a 25 percent U.S. tariff. Importing them would tack several thousand dollars onto their sticker prices.

But Mini has a plan.

"Either we find a way to produce [the models] at a lower cost standpoint, or we produce [them] in another region of the world," Mini chief Stefanie Wurst said ahead of the Munich auto show last week. "We are well underway evaluating those cars for the [Americas] region."

Michael Peyton, vice president of Mini of the Americas, said the automaker will announce a decision on the U.S. prospects in the fourth quarter.

"It'll be good news for North Ameri…

Never in the UAW's 88-year history has it attempted a national strike at each of the Detroit 3 simultaneously.

But that unprecedented — and economically devastating — scenario remains in play as contract negotiations with the automakers enter a critical post-Labor Day stretch, with UAW President Shawn Fain declining to pick a traditional target company.

A mass walkout of nearly 150,000 workers would give Fain, who has a penchant for theatrics, the kind of headline-grabbing moment he often seeks. But it would rapidly deplete the UAW's $825 million strike fund, a fact not lost on members who have publicly questioned whether the union can sustain a simultaneous strike long enough to strong-arm the automakers into better deals.

At $500 a week per member — potentially plus health care costs — the union has a few months' worth of strike pay on hand.

"Let me assure you, the VPs, myself, all the leadership at this level, the…

Used-vehicle dealership operator America's Car-Mart said Tuesday its president, Doug Campbell, will succeed Jeff Williams as CEO on Oct. 1.

Campbell will remain the company's president and also join its board of directors, America's Car-Mart said in a news release. Williams will stay on the board and hold a CEO emeritus title through the end of fiscal year 2024.

Before he joined America's Car-Mart in October 2022, Campbell worked as senior vice president and head of fleet services for the Americas division of rental car company Avis Budget Group Inc. He also previously worked at public dealership group AutoNation Inc. in corporate and field leadership roles, according to the release.

America's Car-Mart, of Rogers, Ark., also reported earnings for the three months ended July 31. Quarterly revenue rose 8.6 percent year over year to $368 million. Net income was $4.2 million, a 69 percent drop from the year-earlier period.

In a research note publish…

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The nation's transition to EVs is fracturing by region. While EV purchases are rising overall, adoption is declining in the states that already had the lowest rates, according to J.D. Power.

Nationwide, 21 percent of consumers who have an EV option that matched their model preference purchased an EV in the first half of this year, compared with 20 percent a year earlier, according to J.D. Power's August E-Vision report.

But at the state level, there is a glaring division between EV-friendly and EV-lagging states. In the bottom 10 states for EVs, the pace of adoption sunk 24 percent from a year earlier. In the top 10 states, pace of adoption grew 1 percent.

(J.D. Power divides EV retail share by market availability to calculate adoption. Availability measures whether an EV exists at the price and size consumers want and from their preferred brand.)

EV share is growing overall. Battery-electric sales made up 8.6 percent of retail share nationwide i…