Trade News

As the North American auto industry scrambles for local sources of battery minerals to meet ravenous electric-vehicle demand, the first in a series of Canadian lithium mines is scheduled to begin ramping up production.

Before the year is out, the North American Lithium mine in Val-d’Or, Que., is expected to be sending shipments of the highly sought battery metal to Tesla.

The milestone, which comes as similar projects in the United States sit in regulatory or legal limbo, illustrates how Canada’s resource-heavy history is giving the country a leg up over its neighbour to the south.

In fact, the Quebec mine’s tie-up with Tesla came at the direct expense of the United States.

Piedmont Lithium Inc., a co-developer of the Quebec project, struck an initial supply deal with Tesla in 2020. It had planned to ship lithium to the EV maker from another of its developments in North Carolina starting in mid-2022. But permitting issues at that project have led …

Jay Maxwell with the Costco Auto Program talks about how tight inventory at dealerships has the unit promoting service work. Renault and Nissan have signed a deal to reshape their alliance. Ford cuts bonuses for top executives after a frustrating year. And Stellantis buys Super Bowl ads for Jeep and Ram.

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TOKYO – The restructuring of the Renault-Nissan alliance brings the French automaking partner to America’s doorstep for the first time in decades with localized production in Mexico and opens the door for junior alliance player Mitsubishi Motors to expand in North America.

Under the new agreement announced Monday in London, the Franco-Japanese partners outlined a raft of new joint-business projects, several of which centered around Latin America.

In Mexico, Nissan will produce a new model for Renault making it the first Renault vehicle produced there in 20 years. Renault Group models were last sold north of the border in the U.S. in the early 1990s, but CEO Luca de Meo said there are no imminent plans to reenter that market.

The repositioning comes despite the French automaker’s recent announcement that it plans to leverage the U.S. market as a key revenue driver for its Alpine sports car brand. The company want to sell two models in the U.S., including…

The restructuring of the Nissan and Renault  alliance is not the legacy Carlos Ghosn had in mind.

The announcement Monday that Renault will gradually reduce its stake in Nissan is a repudiation of the former chairman’s plans to more closely unite an alliance the executive spent almost two decades building.

Instead, the companies are choosing more independent paths to navigate the technological and geographical shifts reshaping the global car industry.

Renault is splitting into two main businesses, one focused on electric vehicles and another on automobiles with legacy combustion engines.

Nissan has long sought greater independence since Renault saved it from financial ruin with a well-timed cash injection in 1999 and sent in Ghosn to turn the business around.

The workaholic Brazilian-Lebanese executive, who spent much of his time jetting between the automakers’ headquarters and factories, was the glue holding together the alliance, w…

Renault CEO Luca de Meo worked for more than eight months to reboot the automaker’s alliance with Nissan Motor Co. to move beyond a "culture of compromise" that had been the status quo in recent years, he said.

In de Meo’s view, a merger was previosly seen as the ultimate goal of the alliance, and as a result many projects between Nissan and Renault were done with that in mind rather than for sound business reasons.

"It forced a culture of compromise, which is not the optimal solution," de Meo told Automotive News Europe in an interview late last year.

The two companies concluded negotiations last month to rebalance their cross-shareholdings, with each holding 15 percent of the other, and with 28 percent of Nissan that Renault holds put into a French trust. The trust can sell down that stake as market conditions warrant. 

In addition, the companies agreed to work on five new joint projects, and Nissan will take a stake of up to 15 percent in…

Renault-Nissan's reshaped alliance will include the following key projects:

Europe

Renault, Nissan to consider sharing 800-volt architecture for electric cars. Renault, Nissan to explore collaboration on the next-generation compact electric cars beyond 2026. Maintaining plans for a new Nissan small electric car (Micra successor) to be based on CMF-BEV platform and built at Renault's ElectriCity facility in France starting in 2026. Renault to launch on the LCV market starting in 2026 the FlexEVan as its first software-defined vehicle and share it with Nissan in Europe. Mitsubishi ASX and Colt will share CMF-B platform with new Renault Captur and Clio. Renault, Nissan considering joint charging infrastructure in Europe at Renault and Nissan dealerships. Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi to increase shared sales outlets in key markets.

Latin America

A new half-ton pickup, developed by Renault and shared with Nissan in Argentina. Continued collaboration on the Nis…

LONDON -- Renault and Nissan unveiled details of how they will reshape their troubled alliance to ease longstanding tensions and allow the partners to move forward as the industry shifts to electric, software-defined vehicles.

Under the agreement, which was announced in London on Monday, Nissan will to buy a stake of up to 15 percent in Renault's electric-vehicle business Ampere. The alliance's junior partner, Mitsubishi Motors, will also consider investing in Ampere.

The companies had already announced last month that Renault will reduce its stake in Nissan to 15 percent from about 43 percent now. Renault will transfer 28.4 percent of Nissan shares into a French trust, making the two more equal partners in the alliance.

The agreement includes new and existing joint ventur…

Demand is out there, but how much?

It used to be that analysts could refer to vehicle sales simply as "demand" — the vehicles were there, how many did people, governments and business choose to buy?

But in the extreme scarcity of this pandemic era, it's been harder to discern the true level of demand.

Now that the pace of production is getting closer to normal, the view should become clearer. In this week's issue of Automotive News, we examine some revealing developments.

The seasonally adjusted pace of light-vehicle sales last month was the fastest since the spring of 2021, before the full impact of the chip shortage became evident. But that's really a function of greater utilization of the industry's factories.

In fact, it appears that sales to individual consumers — those people who drive the economy — actually slowed in January, perhaps because interest rates are still rising and prices for new and used vehicles are at record highs, a…

A personal connection and an interest in cars were catalysts for an NFL team owner to enter automotive retail and quickly expand his dealership holdings via acquisitions.

Ed Glazer, an owner of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, founded US Auto Trust in Los Angeles in 2018 when he bought his first dealership, a rare Aston Martin store in Newport Beach, Calif.

"I've always liked cars," Glazer told Automotive News. "I'm not a classic car collector, but always buy a lot of new cars. I've always owned a bunch of Aston Martins over the years and I got to know some of the people down in Aston Martin. At the time, [former Aston Martin CEO] Andy Palmer was running the place. I was talking to him one day and I said 'You know, if you ever have anything for sale, let me know.' He said, 'Well, we may have something.' "

Pendragon, a large publicly traded auto retailer in the U.K., was in the midst of divesting its U.S. dealership portfolio, including Aston Martin Newpo…

Every maintenance and repair job tells a story. The quality and accuracy, however, varies greatly, depending on the storyteller.

That's because service technicians are trained to fix problems, not document what they do. But the details matter — a lot. Poorly written reports can cost dealerships time, money and customers, said industry veteran Joe McCue, who was determined to find a solution.

To help speed up the process and boost quality, McCue began developing a web-based software platform about 10 years ago. He's been refining the tool ever since, and now heads a 40-person team at Pencilwrench, the company he co-founded in 2019 to market the product.

Pencilwrench enables technicians to write a detailed 150- to 200-word story in as little as 30 to 40 seconds, according to McCue. By comparison, he said, some technicians can take up to a half-hour to compose a service report on their own.

"Technicians are incredible at their jobs, but they aren't…

Despite many lidar companies going public in recent years, via the special purpose acquisition company process, the industry has taken a hit with some companies shutting down or being acquired over the past year.

Lidar technology, which stands for "light detection and ranging," uses lasers to map the environment. The reliability and cost of the multifaceted systems, with their spinning mirrors and motors, have been questioned by some auto industry observers and lidar competitors. The argument: Lidar systems may break more easily because they are more complex than self-contained solid-state radar and cameras, lidar's main competitors, and could hinder their mass adoption by the industry.

"If I had to bet, the solid-state approach will eventually win out," said Michael Ramsey, transportation and mobility analyst at Gartner Inc., told Automotive News.

A solid-state lidar system promises lower costs to produce, install, repair and rep…