Trade News

WASHINGTON - Tesla's advanced driver assistance system Autopilot fell in a ranking of 12 major systems, Consumer Reports said Wednesday.

Of 12 systems tested by Consumer Reports, a nonprofit organization that evaluates products and services, Ford Motor's BlueCruise was first, followed by General Motors' Super Cruise and Mercedes-Benz Driver Assistance.

Tesla, which was second in Consumer Reports ratings in 2020 behind Super Cruise, fell to seventh, the group said. The electric vehicle maker did not respond to a request for comment.

Tesla hasn't changed Autopilot's basic functionality, instead adding more features to it, the group said.

"After all this time, Autopilot still doesn't allow collaborative steering and doesn't have an effective driver monitoring system," said Consumer Reports Auto Testing director Jake Fisher in a statement.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating 830,000 Autopilot-equipped Tes…

Magna International and contract manufacturer VDL Nedcar are interested in taking over Ford Motor Co.'s car plant in Saarlouis, Germany, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

The two companies join China's BYD in showing interest in the factory, which will have no new model when Ford ends production of its Focus compact car there in 2025.

The plant's future has been unclear since last June when Ford picked its factory in Valencia, Spain, to build its next-generation electric vehicles for Europe instead of Saarlouis.

Canada's Magna and VDL Nedcar, based in the Netherlands, are considering bidding for the Saarlouis plant, sources familiar with the talks told Automotive News sister publication Automobilwoche.

Magna builds BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Toyota and Fisker cars at its Magna Steyr factory in Graz, Austria.

VDL Nedcar builds the X1 and Mini brand cars for BMW Group.

The acquisition of Saarlouis by a contract man…

WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., plans to introduce a bill Wednesday that would direct the U.S. Treasury Department to immediately stop issuing $7,500 consumer tax credits for electric vehicles that do not meet strict critical mineral and battery component requirements.

The bill — titled the American Vehicle Security Act — would amend the Inflation Reduction Act so that the effective date of the required EV battery sourcing is no longer tied to Treasury's release of proposed guidance on the restrictions.

If enacted, no credit would be available to any new EV that does not meet the critical mineral and battery sourcing requirements, effective retroactively as of Jan. 1.

A Democratic committee aide on Tuesday told Automotive News the bill did not yet have bipartisan support or co-sponsors because it had not been shared outside internal discussions. It also had not been shared with any auto industry representatives, the aide said.

Treasury is…

Corey Smith is the national fixed operations training manager at National Auto Care.

First car: Eagle Summit

First concert you attended: Joan Jett

Name a pet peeve: Chewing sounds

Most thrilling/adventurous thing you've done: Ziplining in Mexico

Your personal hero: My stepfather Craig A. Smith

First job: Raking blueberries in Maine

One thing you learned on the job you never forgot: Pay attention to small details

If you could pick up a new skill, what would it be? Being able to fix cars

3 people you'd invite to dinner, living or dead: Steve Jobs, Shaq, Ed Roberts

What did you want to be when you were a kid? Police officer

Do you collect anything? Basketball cards

You're king for a day. What's your first order? Free Chick-fil-A for everyone! Just kidding — I would improve the lives of my citizens, making sure they all have the ba…

Ford Motor Co. has teamed up with rental car fleet operator Enterprise Holdings to grow the collision repair industry.

The partnership between the two will support adding a seventh school to the Collision Engineering Program, a two-year apprenticeship model that develops entry-level workers for collision repair. There are currently six schools in California, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas that are part of the program. The location of the new school will be announced later.

Additionally, money from the Ford Fund will provide scholarships to students, assist in startup costs, pay for instructor training and equipment and provide students with toolkits, uniforms and other necessary resources.

More than 110,000 new collision technicians will be needed between 2022 and 2026, according to the TechForce Foundation.

"As the auto industry is rapidly evolving, the need for bright minds who are passionate about technical careers becomes greater every…

"If [a customer] only has price to go off of, now you're in a price competition. And if the independents like Jiffy Lube and Pep Boys — that's what they've won the business on the past 10 years is that they're cheaper and more convenient. [Dealerships] have to combat that with why they're a little more expensive — the fact we use OEM fluids, OEM parts. We have the equipment and the technology to handle these sophisticated vehicles, and we have technicians. Let's get that information out there … Giving customers some of that information upfront gets us in the ballpark because then it doesn't become a price war." -- Owen Moon, CEO of service marketing and technology company Fixed Ops Digital, on the "Parts Girl Podcast" on the need for dealership websites to do a better job promoting what differentiates them from the competition.

A technician terminated by the new owners of a California Honda store has sued for age discrimination and retaliation, accusing the store of bias against older technicians and questionable and unsafe service practices.

Alfredo Maldonado had worked at the store since 2013 under two previous franchisees, Ocean Honda and Robertson Honda, according to the complaint filed Dec. 12 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

It alleges the current dealership, North Hollywood Honda, terminated or forced the resignation of about a dozen of its 16 to 20 technicians, most of them over 40, after it acquired the store last June.

"Shortly after the defendants purchased the dealership, management and ownership implemented new policies and procedures that had a discriminatory effect on its older workforce, specifically the service technicians," the complaint said.

That included 43-year-old Malodonado, who was discharged last October.

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Tesla Inc. said it plans to invest $3.6 billion in two new factories to build electric vehicle batteries and its all-electric Semi heavy-duty truck near an existing production site in Reno, Nev.

The new battery operation will make Tesla’s latest so-called 4680 cells with capacity for use in as many as 2 million vehicles a year, Tesla said in a statement Tuesday on its website. It will also build a “high-volume” facility for its Semi which debuted late last year, but the company did not provide estimated production numbers.

Tesla’s sprawling factory in the region already makes electric motors and battery packs, as well as energy storage products like the home battery known as the “Powerwall.” It broke ground on the so-called gigafactory in June 2014.

Elon Musk’s company handed over the first Semi trucks to PepsiCo last month. Tesla has said it aims to produce 50,000 Semis for North America in 2024.

“It will create more than 3,000 good-paying jobs i…

An Illinois regulatory official said Tuesday the state has agreed to settle a long-running regulatory dispute with Carvana Co.

Per the settlement agreement, Carvana can continue to operate in the state, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said in a Tuesday video announcement. The retailer admitted to violating Illinois law and agreed to abide by new restrictions, according to a news release from his office.

The settlement allows the Illinois Secretary of State to suspend and revoke Carvana’s dealer license again if it fails to comply with either the agreement or state laws, according to the agency.

The online used-vehicle retailer's dealer license was twice suspended and ultimately restricted by Illinois over motor vehicle registration and titling issues last year.

The Illinois Secretary of State's office first suspended Carvana’s dealer license in May 2022, alleging the retailer failed to properly transfer titles for vehicles it sold an…

Well-known dealer Terry Taylor added a dealership to his portfolio, a former Lithia Motors Inc. general manager bought his first store and other dealers expanded their store holdings in third-quarter and fourth-quarter transactions in 2022.

Here's a look at the deals involving import, luxury and domestic dealerships and stores in New Jersey, California, Tennessee and Missouri. One transaction involved a group ranked on Automotive News' top 150 dealership groups list.

Terry Taylor, who owns Automotive Management Services Inc. in West Palm Beach, Fla., bought a Hyundai-Genesis dealership in New Jersey in the third quarter, according to the store's former dealer principal.

Taylor on Aug. 29 bought Hyundai-Genesis of South Brunswick in Monmouth Junction, N.J., from Janet Feliciano, John Grifonetti and John Geraci, Feliciano told Automotive News.

Taylor renamed the store Route 1 Hyundai-Genesis of Brunswick. Monmouth Junction is between New York Cit…

Dodge, Ram, Audi, Mazda, GMC, Volkswagen, Acura and Mercedes-Benz are all in the heat of a "nomad retention challenge" in the U.S., a report from S&P Global Mobility shows.

This means these eight brands face the challenge of keeping their conquest customers from being "one and done" and going elsewhere after one purchase, the research firm said.

These brands were one of three major groupings identified in the S&P Global analysis of retention and defection of so-called nomadic customers with unidentifiable loyalty patterns.

On the other side of this challenge are Tesla, Subaru, Jeep, Kia, Hyundai and BMW — brands with a high share of the nomads returning to market and higher retention. Tesla was a standout here, with a share of first-time owners at 83 percent and the lowest one-and-done rate of all the measured brands at 39 percent.

Finding greater loyalty from conquests is both a short- and long-term necessity, S&P Global's report sa…

BERLIN -- Ford will decide by mid-February on how many jobs will be cut in Europe, a spokesperson for German labor union IG Metall said.

Union representatives will meet with Ford's management on Saturday for the next stage of talks, said the spokesperson for IG Metall, which has threatened disruption if the U.S. automaker axed roles in Germany and across the region as feared.

Management figures presented a worst-case scenario to 12,000 workers in a packed assembly hall at Ford's Cologne site on Monday of up to 2,500 job cuts in product development and a further 700 in administration.

A second scenario was also on the table, the spokesperson said, declining to provide details.

Ford has declined to comment, referring to a Jan. 20 statement in which it said that the shift to electric-vehicle production requires structural changes and it would not say more until plans are finalized.

The automaker has committed to an all-electric lineup in Europ…