Trade News

Comedian Jay Leno, in his first interview since suffering severe burns while working on one of his classic cars on Nov. 12, said he initially ignored doctors' recommendation that he go to a hospital for treatment.

He eventually spent nine days at a burn center, where he underwent skin graft surgery and received hyperbaric oxygen therapy to help the healing process.

Leno, on NBC's "Today," said he was injured while trying to unclog the fuel line on a 1907 White steam car. He asked a friend, Dave Killackey, to help by blowing some air through the line.

"Suddenly, boom, I got a face full of gas, and the pilot light jumped and my face caught on fire," Leno said.

Killackey pulled Leno from under the car and put out the flames. He described the injuries as "horrific."

"He was really engulfed. I couldn't even see his face," Killackey said. "It was a wall of fire."

Leno said his right ear had to be reconstructed, and his fingers were burned …

BERLIN - Volkswagen shareholders renewed their criticism of CEO Oliver Blume's dual roles on Friday, even as they rubber stamped a roughly 9.6 billion euro ($10.2 billion) special dividend following the Porsche AG listing.

Blume, who became group chief executive in September, has continued as CEO of luxury brand Porsche even after its listing, prompting concerns among some investors about the pressures on his time and potential conflicts of interest.

At a shareholder meeting to approve the special dividend, Blume said Volkswagen was performing well in hard times, with his first 100 days spent on tasks such as reshuffling senior roles, defining its strategy for China and North America, and revising its software and platform strategy.

Shareholders voted in favor of the special dividend on Friday, with 99.9% of votes.

Yet some investors including DWS and investor association SdK used the opportunity of the speeches ahead of the vote to criticize Blum…

TuSimple Holdings Inc. appointed interim financial chief Eric Tapia on a permanent basis and reconstituted its audit committee, the self-driving trucking firm said on Friday, weeks after an internal probe revealed links to a China-backed firm.

The company reappointed former CEO Cheng Lu as its top boss last month after it fired his predecessor Xiaodi Hou following the probe.

The investigation by its board revealed that some employees spent paid hours last year working for Hydron Inc, a startup working on autonomous trucks mostly in China.

TuSimple also said on Friday it had appointed three new independent board members last week.

"With the appointment of Eric as permanent CFO, three new independent board members in the last week, the reconstitution of the Board's Audit Committee and other board committees, we're moving forward with our plan to restore accountability and transparency to this company," CEO Lu said.

Tapia joined TuSimple in 20…

A top Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Inc. shareholder is opposing a takeover of auto salvage and parts auction company IAA Inc., a business it calls "distinctly inferior."

Luxor Capital Group, which owns about 3.6 percent of Ritchie Bros. shares, said an 18 percent drop in the company's share price since the deal was announced Nov. 7 indicates investors' "clear distaste" for the transaction.

"The IAA Merger will permanently subject RBA investors to the vagaries of operating a weaker and declining second place player with far less appealing business dynamics than those currently enjoyed by RBA, as a dominant leader with a long runway of growth ahead," Luxor said in a letter dated Friday to the company, a copy of which Bloomberg reviewed.

A spokesperson for Ritchie Bros., based in Burnaby, British Columbia, said the company couldn't comment on a letter it had not seen. They said the deal with IAA will unlock additional service revenue and be accretive within th…

Tesla Inc. is building 3,000 Model Y crossovers a week at its new Austin, Texas, factory — a sign the electric-car maker is making up for lost time at the money-losing plant.

Teslashared the new production figure in a tweet Thursday. The milestone comes a week after Bloomberg reported that Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk had asked the head of the company's China division to get the Austin factory up to speed.

Extrapolated out over a year, that production rate would get Tesla to about 156,000 vehicles, still short of the annual target of 250,000 the company promoted in its third-quarter letter to shareholders.

But it's a long way from the slow start Tesla experienced in Austin, due in part to the company pivoting at the last minute to using older battery cells after it found a new design wasn't ready for volume production.

Partners expanded their General Motors store counts by two, including buying a dealership from public auto retailer Lithia Motors Inc., while other dealers and groups expanded their dealership holdings in separate third-quarter and fourth-quarter deals.

Here's a look at the deals involving domestic and import dealerships and stores in Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Iowa and Virginia.

One transaction involved an auto retailer ranked on the Automotive News list of the top 150 dealership groups.

Partners buy two Midwest Chevy stores, including one from Lithia Motors

Stephen Shane, Seth Severin and Kevin Chernikoff purchased two Chevrolet stores in the last five months — one in Ohio and another in Michigan that was owned by Lithia Motors for just over a year.

The three partners on July 26 purchased Mathews Chevrolet-Buick in Bucyrus, Ohio. The store, renamed Chevrolet of Bucyrus, was purchased from Tim Mathews, Tom Weston, Dave Columber and Doug Mo…

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ GM trails in effort to make most vehicles with automatic emergency braking

Although General Motors signed on to a voluntary agreement to make automatic emergency braking a standard feature in almost all of its new vehicles by the 2023 model year, it has not met the goal and lags the rest of the industry, according to data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Just 73 percent of GM's light-duty vehicles were produced with automatic braking systems in the 2022 model year.

In 2016, GM and 190 automakers pledged to make automatic emergency braking a standard feature on more than 95 percent of the light-duty vehicles they produce by the 2023 model year, according to an agreement with the U.S. Department of Transportation and IIHS. Light-duty vehicles are those 8,500 pounds and under.

GM is well below its American-based counterparts, all of which have met the 95 percent goal.

The Detroit automaker is one of f…

Tesla Inc. and the Mexican border state of Nuevo Leon are firming up plans for a factory site in an automotive corridor that is home to assembly plants for Kia and General Motors, according to sources quoted by the Milenio newspaper.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the state government are "fine-tuning the final details," Milenio said this week, "in order to announce the installation of a factory in the state, which is expected to be made public in early 2023."

Tesla, which has disbanded its press office, didn't respond to an email seeking comment. The media office for the state of Nuevo Leon, which borders Texas, didn't respond to a phone call seeking comment.

Milenio said land near Monterrey, the Nuevo Leon capital, had been chosen for the plant. "The sources said the land for the plant had already been acquired and there is a commitment to finalize the investment in early January," the newspaper said. Nonetheless, Milenio said it couldn't find records of a l…

Automakers are starting to team up with electric utilities to accelerate the push to build out the infrastructure needed to make electric vehicles a viable option for more U.S. consumers.

One of the biggest questions surrounding the mass adoption of EVs is whether U.S. power grids will be able to power the batteries of vehicles that are charged at businesses and homes.

More than 530,000 new battery-electric vehicles were registered in the U.S. through September. Recognizing that the demand is coming, traditional automakers are setting up new business units to tackle the issue.

This week, Toyota said it will collaborate with Oncor, a Dallas electric transmission and distribution company, on a pilot project testing out its vehicle-to-grid technology. V2G allows EVs to send energy from their batteries back onto the electric grid.

This marks the first partnership between the Toyota Electric Vehicle Charging Solutions team and a U.S. public utility foc…

Ford Motor Co. has raised the price of the cheapest variant of its F-150 Lightning electric truck 9 percent to $55,974, the company's website showed on Thursday.

The automaker has raised prices for its electric pickup trucks twice in three months, as it navigates higher costs and supply chain snags.

Automakers across the globe, including Tesla and Rivian are also struggling with higher prices of raw materials such as lithium and have warned high costs were here to stay.

Ford, which previously said it was targeting annual production of 150,000 Lightning pickups by the fall of 2023, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for a comment on the price hike.

The company's shares were down about 3.5 percent in afternoon trade amid declines in the broader market.