Trade News

Self-driving technology firm Aurora Innovation Inc. appointed Ossa Fisher as its first president.

The move comes as part of the company's efforts to prepare for a commercial launch of autonomous trucks.

Fisher joins Aurora from Istation, an education-technology company based in Dallas. She oversaw engineering, product, sales and marketing divisions in her role as Istation's president and COO, a position she held since 2019.

At Aurora, Fisher will play a central role in scaling operations and maintaining relationships with key partners like FedEx Corp., Uber Freight, Werner, as well as truckmakers such as PACCAR and AB Volvo.

She will stay in Dallas, the company's growing operational hub. Aurora had less than 20 employees in Dallas at the end of 2020; that number rose to nearly 120 by the end of 2022, according to a company spokesman.

That's a small fraction of the company's overall 1,600 employees, currently spread out over the country in M…

GM Financial's profit is expected to normalize this year after high used-vehicle prices during the past two years contributed to strong earnings results, executives said.

The company said Tuesday that net income fell 33 percent to $605 million in the fourth quarter compared with the same time last year as the lender experienced the effects of lower net leased vehicle income and higher interest costs. Earnings before taxes also fell 33 percent, to $800 million compared with a year earlier.

General Motors' captive lender reported originating $3.5 billion in leases in the quarter ended Dec. 31, up 26 percent from the same period a year earlier, and $8.3 billion in retail loans, a 12 percent bump.

For all of 2022, GM Financial's net income fell 19 percent to $3.1 billion, and its earnings before taxes slid 18 percent to $4.1 billion.

"At GM Financial, the strong credit performance and historically high used-vehicle prices resulted in extraordinary re…

TOKYO – Toyota Motor Corp. has come under fire for what critics call foot-dragging on pure electric vehicles. Now the world's biggest automaker is fighting back with its most robust retort.

Its message to those who say EVs are the only way forward in the global battle to cap carbon dioxide emissions: Science says you're wrong.

Toyota is rolling out new facts and figures to back its strategy of taking a multipronged approach, blending EVs with hybrids and other green technologies.

Toyota insists new data shows that EV-only strategies, all the rage in some corners, fall short.

Toyota's Chief Scientist Gill Pratt made that pitch in a presentation at the World Economic Forum in Davos this month. More recently, he repeated the message from Tokyo.

"Time will show that our point of view is actually the correct one," Pratt said at a roundtable here. "One way or the other, there will be a diversity of powertrains used throughout the world."

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WASHINGTON — U.S. auto safety regulators have opened a safety probe into nearly 1.9 million Ford Explorer large crossovers after reports of the windshield trim panel detaching while driving at highway speeds.

NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation said it has received 164 complaints on 2011-19 Ford Explorers alleging the trim piece detached while driving at highway speeds, which can vary from state to state.

Some of the complaints allege that "the driver of the vehicle following behind the subject Ford vehicle allegedly was startled when the trim piece hit the windshield and momentarily lost control of the vehicle," according to a report released Tuesday.

No injuries, accidents or deaths were listed in the report.

A spokeswoman for Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The agency has launched the probe — known as a preliminary evaluation — to assess the scope, frequency and potential safety risks of the alleged defect.…

General Motors' net income rose 15 percent in the fourth quarter to $2 billion, and the company posted a record pretax profit for the year as vehicle sales and supply constraints improved.

The automaker also said in a Tuesday statement it expects to generate similar or slightly lower earnings in 2023.

In the fourth quarter, revenue surged 28 percent to $43.1 billion. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes in the quarter rose 34 percent to $3.8 billion.

GM said its full-year EBIT of $14.5 billion, up 1.3 percent, was a company record. Its net income for all of 2022 slipped 0.8 percent to $9.9 billion as revenue rose 23 percent to $156.7 billion.

GM's fourth-quarter adjusted profit in North America soared 69 percent to $3.7 billion.

Shares in GM rose 5 percent to $38.09 in premarket trading.

"GM led the U.S. industry in total sales and delivered the largest year-over-year increase in market share of any OEM, thanks to strong deman…

BERLIN -- Volkswagen Group has no plans to offer discounts for its electric vehicles to counter price cuts by Tesla, CEO Oliver Blume told a German newspaper.

VW will not take part in a price war with Tesla, Blume told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. "We have a clear pricing strategy and are focusing on reliability. We trust in the strength of our products and brands," he said.

VW wants to be a global leader in EVs but this should be achieved through profitable growth, Blume said.

In the U.S., Ford has followed Tesla's price cuts by reducing the price of the Mustang Mach-E crossover by $600 to $5,900, depending on the trim.

"The price cut is coming faster and more brutally than expected. Tesla could be aiming to push competitors out of the market," Antoine Weill, a partner at consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners, told Automotive News Europe sister publication Automobilwoche.

Besides VW, Renault has no plans to cut price…

SHANGHAI -- Xpeng Inc. said on Monday it had appointed Wang Fengying, the former vice chairman of Great Wall Motor, as the electric vehicle startup's president.

In her new role, Wang will be responsible for Xpeng's product planning, product portfolio management and sales operations, Xpeng said in a statement. She will report to the company's chairman and chief executive officer, He Xiaopeng.

Wang, 52, previously worked in Baoding, Hebei-headquartered Great Wall Motor for over 30 years and is one of the few experienced female leaders in China's automobile industry.

She had also served as the National People's Congress delegate since 2008 and often submitted policy proposals to the central government to improve China's auto industry including encouraging auto chip development and optimizing the utilization of factory output capacity.

Wang joins Xpeng at a time that the EV sector is facing intensifying competition and tensions of a price war after Te…

DETROIT — GMC has started building the SUV version of the Hummer EV and the third-generation Canyon midsize pickup.

Production of the 2024 Hummer EV SUV began Monday at General Motors' Factory Zero plant in Detroit, officials said. The 2023 Canyon entered production last week at Wentzville Assembly in Missouri. Deliveries of both vehicles will begin in the next two months.

Three of four Canyon trims are in production — Denali, AT4 and Elevation — and the AT4X will follow, Duncan Aldred, vice president of global Buick and GMC, told reporters Monday. The redesigned pickup is taller and wider across all trim levels.

Aldred said GMC has received 90,000 reservations for the Hummer SUV and pickup combined, and it has temporarily stopped taking additional reservations so it can work on fulfilling existing demand through 2023 and 2024.

Sales of the Edition 1 Hummer pickup, priced at more than $110,000, began in December 2021. Less-expensive trims initiall…

General Motors' defense arm and American Rheinmetall Vehicles said on Monday that they have won a contract for the first phase of the U.S. Army's Common Tactical Truck Program.

The multi-phased program aims to replace the army's family of heavy tactical trucks with the production of up to 40,000 trucks valued at up to $14 billion.

Under the contract, the companies will provide their HX3 Common Tactical Truck, which will support advanced driver assistance systems and are enabled for autonomous vehicle operation.

NEW YORK- U.S. lender Citizens Financial Group cut back on auto lending last year and plans to further reduce its exposure to the segment as it becomes cautious on certain businesses as it factors in risk of a recession, its chief executive officer said in a interview.

Moody's Investors Service late last year cut the outlook for U.S. auto financing arms to negative, citing likelihood of higher delinquency and provisioning.

Citizens has reduced its auto loan portfolio to about $10 billion as of now from a peak of $14.5 billion in December 2021, Bruce Van Saun recently told Reuters.

"We basically made a decision to move that portfolio down materially over time," Van Saun said.

"Spreads are tight, so you're not making a good return on that capital," he said, adding that there are limited cross-selling opportunities.

Van Saun said it will be brought down to $5 billion to $6 billion by 2024.

Citizens would like to grow its lending busines…

Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for Cox Automotive, talks about the economic headwinds ahead in 2023. Renault and Nissan agree on a framework to rebalance their alliance. And the EV price wars are on.

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PARIS --   Renault and Nissan are rebalancing their troubled alliance in what could be a major step in reviving it. But for the French automaker the benefits of the revamp are for now unclear and potentially quite limited, three industry sources said.

The automakers on Monday announced a deal that will see Renault reduce its stake in Nissan to 15 percent from about 43 percent.

For Nissan, the advantages are clear: the Japanese carmaker gets more ability to do what it wants, and it is no longer in an alliance of unequal partners because capital ownership is rebalanced. However, its stock could be weighed down as the bulk of Renault's stake is sold off. The stake is worth 3.8 billion euros ($4.1 billion) and will be moved to a trust.

The deal also sees Nissan commit to invest in Renault's flagship Ampere electric vehicle unit, which was the French automaker's key goal.

But Nissan's participation in Ampere is fairly conditional, joint projects …