Trade News

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…

TOKYO -- Honda will create a new division in a bid to strengthen and speed up its electrification business as part of an overhaul of its organizational structure.

The shake-up is part of the automaker's bid to catch up in the fast-growing market for full-electric vehicles, led by Tesla and China's BYD.

Japanese automakers have been at risk of falling behind their European and U.S. rivals in the EV market.

In changes effective April 1, the new division would consolidate Honda's electrification strategy and development of automobiles, motorcycles and power products such as generators, it said.

The automaker also said it would combine six regional operations to three, composed of North America, China and associated regions including Japan, the rest of Asia and Europe.

Integrating to the three was to "rapidly develop the implementation of resource shifts in accordance with the future lineup strategy in line with the electrification acceleration…

SAN FRANCISCO - Elon Musk told jurors on Monday he was sure he had locked up financial support from Saudi investors in 2018 to take his electric car maker Tesla Inc. private, and could even have used his stake in rocket company SpaceX to fund a buyout.

At the trial in San Francisco federal court, the billionaire, who said he was tired from a lack of sleep, spoke quietly and calmly during roughly five hours of testimony.

"With SpaceX stock alone, I felt funding was secured" for the buyout, he told a jury, referring to the aerospace company where he is also CEO. He added later that he chose not to take Tesla private due to a lack of support from some investors and a wish to avoid a lengthy process.

Musk is defending against claims that he defrauded investors by tweeting on Aug. 7, 2018, that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private at $420 per share, and that "investor support is confirmed."

The trial tests Musk's penchant for taking to Twitte…

Workers at Windsor, Ont., auto parts plant TRQSS Inc. have voted to join Unifor, notching a major organizing win for the union that President Lana Payne said gives Unifor added momentum in Canada's automotive sector.

"This is by far the largest auto parts facility that we've organized since the beginning of Unifor," Payne told Automotive News Canada.

"It's exciting that these workers have voted to have a say in their future working conditions."

TRQSS, which employs nearly 600 workers, makes seatbelts for Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada and several other automakers in Canada and the United States. It is part of the TRAM Group, a North American subsidiary of Japan-based supplier Tokai Rika Company Ltd.

TRQSS also supplies General Motors, Mazda, Nissan and Subaru.

Payne said the unionization vote was the culmination of "many, many years" of discussions with staff at the plant. Workers cast their ballots over a 48-hour period in early Decembe…