Trade News

Elon Musk testified that Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund "unequivocally" wanted to take Tesla Inc. private in 2018, a core element of his defense to claims that his tweets about the take-private plan misled shareholders.

The shareholders contend in a class-action lawsuit that the tweets were lies that cost them big losses from wild stock price swings over a 10-day period before the plan was abandoned.

As he resumed testifying Monday after a brief appearance on the witness stand Friday, Musk told jurors that he had met on July 31, 2018, with representatives of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, at Tesla's Fremont, California, factory, and discussed the transaction. He said the amount required for the fund was "potentially" less than $10 billion. Court filings indicate that Musk himself owned about 19 percent of Tesla at the time. The billionaire would have needed more than 50 percent to take the company private.

"The th…

An exclusive interview with Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida, who says EV growth is prompting his company to make another big investment in a U.S. plant. ZF Friedrichshafen and Wolfspeed plan to build a $3 billion factory in Germany to make chips for EV and other applications. And GM may be in the market for a new battery partner.

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WASHINGTON -- U.S. auto safety regulators on Monday closed a six-year-old investigation into 1.47 million Ford Explorers over reports of exhaust odors in vehicle compartments and exposure to carbon monoxide without seeking a recall.

NHTSA said it conducted an in-depth investigation that included review of more than 6,500 consumer complaints from 2011-2017 model year vehicles -- including police versions of the large crossover -- and found no evidence of a safety issue.

NHTSA said its investigation found "that the 2011-2017 Ford Explorer vehicles when accurately measured produce occupant compartment (carbon monoxide) levels which fall below current accepted health standards."

Ally Financial said its revenue rose 2.7 percent to a record $8.43 billion in 2022, and the lender also produced a record net interest margin for the year.

However, the Detroit bank on Friday said its net income still fell 44 percent to $1.71 billion last year as the bank set aside more money for potential losses on loans, paid out more in expenses outside of interest and brought in less revenue from channels outside of lending.

"In 2022 Ally continued its strategic evolution while navigating a fluid macroeconomic environment," CEO Jeffrey Brown said in a statement. "The optimization across our businesses was evident in our ability to generate record net interest margin and total revenue."

Ally's 2022 ended with its net income before taxes from its key auto finance business falling to $437 million in the fourth quarter, down 48 percent from a year earlier. Looking at the entirety of 2022, Ally's auto finance income fell 34 percent year-over-year to $2.25…

ZF Friedrichshafen and Wolfspeed plan to build a $3 billion wafer factory in Germany’s Saarland to make chips for electric vehicles and other applications, a boon for a region dependent on combustion-engine components, according to people familiar with the matter.

The go-ahead for the project is subject to commitments on subsidies amounting to a quarter of the total investment, the people said, declining to be named discussing private information.

ZF will hold a minority share in the factory with its U.S. chipmaking partner, located in Ensdorf near Saarbrücken.

ZF operates its largest factory nearby where 9,000 employees make transmissions.

The plan will see the site of a former coal-fired power plant converted into the world’s largest factory for silicon carbide semiconductors, used in EVs and photovoltaic converters.

The move will create hundreds of jobs, the people said, providing relief over concerns for Saarland state’s 40,000 auto i…

DAYTON, Ohio — When Reynolds and Reynolds Co. leaders head to Dallas this week for the annual NADA Show, they'll have a key goal in mind: Demonstrate to auto dealers that the company is shedding its inflexible and difficult past.

For two years, the dealership technology giant has been remaking itself under new leadership following the departure of longtime CEO Bob Brockman, whose tenure at the company ended in November 2020 after he was indicted in what the federal government has called the largest tax evasion case ever brought against an individual in the U.S.

Under Brockman, who died in August at age 81 while awaiting trial, Reynolds and Reynolds gained a reputation in the industry as a challenging business partner, with complicated contracts and rigid policies. Executives say the change at the top — Tommy Barras, the company's former president and COO, took over as CEO after Brockman stepped down — was the "inflection point" that prompted th…

The convention of franchised auto dealers, officially called the NADA Show, later this week in Dallas gives us a good opportunity to talk in this issue about the trends and pressures auto retailers everywhere are dealing with right now.

And there's a bucket of them.

There's the ongoing dance between dealers and factories to set agreeable ground rules on how electric vehicles will be sold and serviced. There's the issue of the languishing leasing market. There's the confusion over how tax credits are going to be doled out on EV purchases. And there's the likelihood that higher interest rates are going to turn store floorplanning back into a cost for retailers to contend with.

We delve into all that and much more this week.

These are new issues looking to be resolved. And the NADA Show is a yearly reminder that the car business is flush with resources and powerful in the wisdom of it…

Japanese tire maker Bridgestone Corp. is developing tires for use by crewed rovers on the moon. The tires are metal and airless, designed to withstand the moon's extreme temperatures, rocky terrain and cosmic radiation better than traditional tires. Because the moon surface is covered in a layer of incredibly fine sand, Bridgestone opted for a double-tire structure with two tires attached to each wheel — like on large trucks here on Earth. That results in a contact patch area roughly six times that of standard passenger car tires, allowing for pressure to be dispersed across a larger surface. Bridgestone believes that some of its lunar solutions will help it develop new ideas for advanced concepts here at home.

As someone who has been selling new Toyotas for more than 50 years, Steve Gates said he never would have believed that he and his fellow brand dealers could have had as much success as they did last year with so few vehicles in stock.

"I was absolutely certain, when this all started, I thought I needed to jump off a bridge because I didn't think that there was any way that we could survive with virtually no inventory," said Gates, dealer principal of Gates Auto Family, a group of 11 rooftops in Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana that includes three Toyota stores.

Gates is a dealer council veteran but is taking his first spin as a chairman, with the Toyota National Dealer Advisory Council. He's also a former chairman of the American International Automobile Dealers Association. Gates said he has been selling Toyotas since he was a senior in high school, and the current sales process looks surprisingly familiar.

"My dad became a Toyota dealer in 1970, and th…