Trade News

I never liked the term "new normal." What's "normal" is always changing, ever-new, like a new model year.

But sometimes we see more tectonic shifts: The $5 day. The Flint sit-down strike. The chicken tax. Nader. Transplants. Tesla. COVID-19.

We're not done with COVID, but it's become less of an immediate threat, individually or economically — at least in the West. China is another story.

We're not done with the chip shortage, either, but like COVID, it's becoming a less acute pain point. After more than 10 million light vehicles of production were lost for lack of semiconductors in 2021, fewer than half that many were lost in 2022, according to AutoForecast Solutions.

Looking back, though, this was not the recovery year I had anticipated. Russia's invasion of Ukraine took the legs out of European production, which remains a significant part of the globally integrated auto industry.

And although production c…

Auto retail giant AutoNation, large privately owned Ken Garff Automotive Group and two other auto retailers expanded their dealership portfolios with acquisitions in third and fourth quarters.

Here's a look at the deals involving domestic, luxury and import dealerships and stores in Colorado, Ohio, North Dakota and Arizona.

Two transactions involved an auto retailer ranked on Automotive News' top 150 dealership groups list.

AutoNation adds four Colorado stores

Auto retail giant AutoNation Inc. has closed on the acquisition of four Colorado dealerships, a purchase the company announced in October, as it expands its presence in the Centennial State.

AutoNation in a Dec. 5 Twitter post said it had added two locations in Colorado Springs: AutoNation Acura Colorado Springs and AutoNation Dodge-Ram Colorado Springs. And on Dec. 9, in a tweet, it said it had added AutoNation Dodge-Ram Broadway and AutoNation Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram Cañon City. Read more

A look back at the year Stellantis had in 2022 with Automotive News reporter Vince Bond Jr. Plus, new car dealers will probably need to wait until at least next year for the tax relief they were hoping for from Congress. And Buick dealers face a $300,000 investment to sell future EVs.

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A California used-vehicle dealer has accepted a decade-long ban from the industry and paid the state $1.7 million as part of a settlement to resolve violations the state says include 650,000 misleading advertisements, 20,000 instances of "power-booking" and another 1,500 ads for which Paul Blanco also bears personal responsibility.

These finance-and-insurance-related actions admitted by the group and Blanco violate both the state's Unfair Competition and False Advertising laws, according to a Nov. 7 judgment.

But Blanco, former CEO and co-owner of Paul Blanco's Good Car Company Auto Group, said he and his wife Putu Blanco, co-owner and CFO, had simply been worn down by the California Justice Department into settling. He denied virtually all of the allegations the judgment said he and the company committed. He described language in the document as a creation of the state and out of his control.

"Many Californians rely on their car to travel to work, sch…

WASHINGTON — Despite bipartisan efforts in the House and Senate, new-car dealers looking to Congress for legislation on LIFO tax relief may need to wait until next year.

The nearly $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package unveiled Tuesday was seen as one of the last legislative vehicles for a bill that would have provided relief to dealerships that use the "last in, first out" inventory accounting method and have struggled to maintain inventory levels because of the global semiconductor shortage.

Congress is preparing to pass the package before a weekend deadline. The bill, which funds the federal government through Sept. 30, leaves out the much sought-after LIFO relief.

"There is strong, bipartisan, bicameral support in Congress for providing LIFO relief to dealers. However, the omnibus spending bill released Tuesday did not include any business tax provisions such as LIFO," NADA spokesman Jared Allen said in a statement to Automotive News. "NADA will co…

SHANGHAI -- As China's massive wave of COVID-19 infections begins its march across a country roughly the size of Europe, the ripple effect on business is accelerating.

From its original epicenter in the north, including the capital Beijing, COVID-19 infections are spreading throughout the country and cases are impeding workforces in manufacturing belts, including the Yangtze River Delta, near Shanghai.

Retail and financial services businesses have been hard hit by a shortage of staff, with automakers and other manufacturers not far behind, according to an international business organization operating in China.

"The retail and client facing sectors are in deep trouble. Obviously, they have limited staff that are available to work because of illness, so many of our large-scale retailers are not even opening their doors," said Noah Fraser, managing director at the Canada-China Business Council.

With mass testing halted after China abruptly dropped i…

Frank Hasenfratz, 86, a Hungarian refugee to Canada who later created the auto parts powerhouse Linamar Corp., died Jan. 8.

He went into business after his boss at a previous job wouldn't consider the importance of reducing scrap waste, a quality metric that would distinguish Linamar for decades.

The 29-year-old machinist constructed his first machine shop in his backyard in 1966 and incorporated the business under the name Linamar, after daughters Linda and Nancy and his wife, Margaret. Linamar today employs 29,000 people in 17 countries and most recently reported revenues of $5.8 billion a year.

Over time, Linamar expanded from high-volume precision vehicle parts production into aerospace, defense, and agricultural and industrial equipment.

MaryEllen Green Dohrs, a pioneering automotive designer who created the interiors of high-end General Motors cars in the early 1950s, died Jan. 12 at age 92.

Dohrs was one of the first female designe…

Efforts to push and prod the U.S. Postal Service into ensuring electric vehicles make up a greater portion of its new mail truck fleet have delivered.

The agency said Tuesday it will purchase more EVs through 2028 than initially anticipated. In total, 66,000 EVs will be included in the Postal Service's overall plans to buy 106,000 vehicles between now and 2028.

There had been uncertainty surrounding the agency's willingness to further commit to electrifying the largest and oldest vehicle fleet owned by the U.S. government. But in August, Congress essentially directed the Postal Service to electrify most of its new mail truck fleet by approving $3 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act for such purchases.

With Democrats retaining control of the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, and the Biden administration requesting the Postal Service further examine its plan to buy primarily gasoline-powered vehicles, it had appeared more EVs were on the horizon. Read more