Trade News

Elon Musk misled Tesla Inc. shareholders when he tweeted in 2018 about taking the company private with "funding secured" and cost them millions of dollars, a lawyer for investors told jurors at the chief executive officer's securities fraud trial.

"His lies caused regular people, like Glen Littleton, to lose millions and millions of dollars," attorney Nicholas Porritt said in his opening arguments Wednesday, referring to the named plaintiff in the class-action case. In order for markets to operate normally and fairly, it's "critical that he is held, and the company is held, liable," Porritt said.

Alex Spiro, Musk's lead lawyer, countered in his address to jurors that Musk's intention to take Tesla private was "indisputably true," and the messages on Twitter "didn't materially matter to the market."

Funding to take Tesla private wasn't a problem, Spiro said, explaining that Musk was "serious" about taking the company private, but used the "wrong words." H…

Electric truck and charging station company Forum Mobility is teaming up with CBRE Investment Management on a $400 million joint venture.

The partnership between Forum and CBRE's investment arm to electrify the infrastructure of California's coastal port communities and small independent truck operators is the latest deal involving a major real estate player and an electric or autonomous truck technology company.

Last year, real estate firm Alterra Property Group inked a deal with Embark Trucks, a San Francisco self-driving company, to build hubs for autonomous trucking. Industrial warehouse giant Prologis signed a similar deal with Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving technology subsidiary, last year.

Forum Mobility, of Oakland, Calif., and CBRE Investment Management's joint venture plans to install electric truck depots at several California ports. These include Long Beach and Oakland.

The venture comes as the California Air Resources Board is conside…

The investment division of Volvo Group has made an undisclosed investment in Canadian autonomous driving technology company Waabi Innovation.

The investment by the company that manufactures Volvo and Mack heavy-duty trucks represents its view that the commercialization of autonomous driving will come in freight movement before passenger cars.

"Volvo Group can add considerable strategic value to the development of their business. We are currently exploring ways to cooperate," says Martin Witt, Volvo Group Venture Capital president.

Volvo Trucks North America, the U.S. division of the Swedish company, already has a partnership with Aurora Innovation and plans to test autonomous trucks on freight routes.

Fully autonomous trucking would add to freight capacity, increase efficiency through better utilization of expensive Class 8 trucks and improve safety, Volvo Group said.

In a blog post, Waabi said the trucking industry is challenged by a persi…

Bank interest rates will grow to 6.9 percent on direct 60-month new-vehicle loans and 7.8 percent on direct 48-month used-vehicle loans over the course of the year, Bankrate chief financial analyst Greg McBride predicts.

McBride's projections this month give dealership staff seeking to match customers with indirect auto loans from partner lenders a sense of the APR competition they'll face if those consumers already secured direct financing from banks. The average new-vehicle interest rate from a dealership loan reached 6.5 percent in the fourth quarter, while the average used-vehicle dealership APR reached 10 percent, according to Edmunds.

Five-year new-vehicle loans directly from banks started last year at 3.9 percent interest Jan. 5, 2022, and rose to 6.1 percent by Dec. 28, 2022, according to Bankrate. APRs on four-year used-vehicle bank loans climbed to 6.8 percent from 4.4 percent during the same time, Bankrate said.

McBride's new- and used-vehicl…

Volkswagen of America will promote two longtime executives into sales and marketing roles and has parted ways with a former Honda sales executive.

Hein Schafer, 43, currently senior vice president of product marketing and strategy, will become senior vice president of sales operations for the German brand's North American region. Schafer — a 2020 Automotive News Rising Star — is a native of South Africa who's been with VW since 2006, including a stint in Brazil, where he worked from 2015 to 2018 alongside current VW of America CEO Pablo Di Si. In his current role, Schafer manages the brand's product planning in the region.

He will succeed Ray Mikiciuk, a 30-year veteran of American Honda who joined VW in October 2020. He has left the company, VW said.

Rachael Zaluzec, 42, will be promoted to a newly created position of senior vice president of customer experience and brand marketing. Currently, Zaluzec, who has been with VW since 2008, is vice president …

The transition from gasoline to electric vehicles mainly depends on the supply chain for batteries and their materials.

Domestic shortages of lithium and other critical minerals have plagued U.S. auto manufacturers trying to keep up with EV demand, which is growing at a steep 30 percent annually, according to EVAdoption.com.

The largest shortfall is domestic lithium production. Australia accounts for half of the 100,000 tons of lithium produced globally, according to the World Economic Forum. Chile and China are next. The U.S. lags far behind, producing fewer than 1,000 tons of lithium annually.

The same is true for other critical minerals used in batteries. The U.S. has relied on countries like Russia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, while U.S. mining has stagnated.

As the U.S. EV market expands, the federal government and industry players are looking to build out a domestic mineral supply chain.

Th…

Volta Inc. said on Wednesday that a Shell Plc subsidiary would take over the electric vehicle charging network operator in an all-cash deal valued at about $169 million.

Shell USA Inc will acquire all outstanding shares of Class A common stock of Volta for 86 cents apiece in cash in a deal that is expected to close in the first half of the year, Volta said.

Shell and other companies such as France's EDF and Norway's Statkraft have been investing in EV charging infrastructure to cash in on the growing demand for electric vehicles.

The announcement follows other investments in the EV charging infrastructure space, including Mercedes-Benz, which is poised to invest billions of dollars to build 10,000 fast-charging points in North America, Europe and China by 2030.

As part of the deal, Shell USA will also provide loans to Volta to help the company through the closing of the deal.

The acquisition of Volta — which installs chargers with large vid…

The Illinois Automobile Dealers Association filed an appeal in Chicago challenging a December court ruling that allows Rivian Automotive and Lucid Group to continue direct EV sales in the state.

The appeal, filed Friday, had been expected.

In the Dec. 19, 2022, ruling, Associate Judge David Atkins decided the Illinois secretary of state was correct in issuing dealer licenses to the EV startups, as it previously had for Tesla Inc. The ruling opens the door for manufacturers to follow Tesla's direct-sales model. Joe McMahon, the association's executive director, previously told Automotive News the decision gives special treatment to EV makers.

Direct sales from manufacturers result in a monopoly with no price benefit, McMahon said in a Jan. 5 statement.

The state's dealer association, which represents 700 dealerships, cited the Illinois Vehicle Code and Illinois Motor Vehicle Franchise Act as stating that public vehicle sales must be made through li…

PARIS -- Stellantis and Terrafame have struck a deal for the Finnish company to supply the automaker with nickel sulphate over a five-year period, starting from 2025 onwards.

"This agreement is part of the key raw material sourcing to fit with our electrified vehicle battery pack needs,” Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said in a statement.

Stellantis wants 100 percent of its European passenger car sales and 50 percent of its U.S. passenger car and light-duty truck sales to be full-electric vehicles by 2030.

The automaker said the agreement with Terrafame "will cover a significant portion of the needs for sustainable regionally sourced nickel."

Last week, Stellantis struck a deal with Australian miner Element for the supply of manganese sulphite, the latest in a series of accords for the procurement of raw materials for electric batteries.

"I quit from a dealership environment, and I went and ran an independent facility, and that was a huge education for me. I got to learn the parts, I got to learn the payroll, the hiring, the taxes — all of these things I would have never gotten to learn had I just stayed an adviser." — Fixed Ops Director Shawn Butler of Bristol Honda in Tennessee on what he learned from running an independent repair facility on the Jan. 9 episode of the "What the Fixed Ops?!" podcast. Butler's turnaround of the Bristol Honda service department was the subject of two Automotive News reports last year.

A former service adviser who was replaced after several hospitalizations has sued a Kalamazoo, Mich., dealer group for disability discrimination and violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Heather Crummel's suit, filed Dec. 21, accuses Maple Hill Auto Group of illegally discharging her without warning while on medical leave and without showing the leave posed any problems for the store. The company has Subaru, Hyundai, Volvo, Volkswagen, Genesis and Audi franchises.

Owner and general manager Jim VandenBerg told Automotive News he couldn't comment on the case.

The store hired Crummel as a service adviser in October 2017, and she was initially hospitalized in early 2019, according to the complaint. Maple Hill notified her that she was eligible for medical leave under FMLA, and she used it several times before her December 2019 termination, it said.

The month before the termination, management gave her high job perfor…