Trade News

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday said it will issue proposed guidance for the critical mineral and battery component requirements in March, effectively delaying those eligibility restrictions in the $7,500 tax credit for new electric vehicles.

Under the recently signed Inflation Reduction Act, the department was required to issue proposed guidance by Dec. 31 that will further define how to meet the revamped EV tax credit's eligibility rules, which are designed to incentivize domestic EV production, reduce reliance on foreign supply chains and prevent wealthy buyers from getting a discount.

Instead, Treasury said it will release information before the end of the year that will outline the "anticipated direction" of the critical mineral and battery component requirements that new EVs must meet to qualify. The information also will help automakers "prepare to be able to identify vehicles eligible for the tax credit when the new requirements go i…

Kia will return to the Super Bowl for the second straight year. A brand representative last week confirmed the buy for an ad that will be handled by agency-of-record David & Goliath.

For last season’s game, Kia used a cute robotic dog in an ad that plugged its electric EV6, part of a wave of auto brands that used the 2022 game to tout their electric vehicle ambitions, including BMW, General Motors, Nissan and Polestar.

Kia sat out the 2021 game after appearing in 11 straight Bowls prior to that. The Korean brand is the first automaker to confirm its Super Bowl ad buy for 2023.

A Quebec lithium mine poised to become the only Canadian site actively producing the key battery metal has received the final government permit required to start up operations, according to developer Sayona Mining Ltd.

The regulatory nod from Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans clears the way for the open pit mine near Val-d’Or in northwestern Quebec to begin producing lithium-rich spodumene concentrate in the first half of 2023, the Australia-based miner said Dec. 13.

“With this major advance, Sayona will become the only producer of lithium concentrate in Quebec and in Canada. This is a very promising position for our region, which puts us at the forefront of the emerging energy transition,” Annie Blier, vice-president of environment at Sayona Québec, said in a statement.

Sayona said its North American Lithium project has received more than 130 permits from provincial and federal regulators as the company steers the site back toward production. …

A look at the year General Motors had in 2022. The cooling economy chills investment in EVs and mobility. A new report shows EVs cost about as much as ICE vehicles to own. And Tesla investors try to keep up with CEO Elon Musk's activity on Twitter.

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Growing Cavender Auto Family expanded its presence in Oklahoma, which it entered this year, with its latest acquisition.

Cavender Auto Family, of San Antonio, on Dec. 12 bought Hudiburg Chevrolet and Hudiburg Buick-GMC, both in Midwest City, and Hudiburg Subaru in Norman, from Hudiburg Auto Group, Cavender Auto Family CEO Stephen Cavender confirmed to Automotive News in an email.

Midwest City is east of Oklahoma City, the state's capital, while Norman, home to the University of Oklahoma, is south of Oklahoma City.

The stores were renamed Confidence Chevrolet, Confidence Buick-GMC and Cavender Subaru of Norman, Stephen Cavender said.

"The Hudiburg family has a 65-year tradition of automotive excellence and customer service in Oklahoma," Stephen Cavender said in a statement. "David Hudiburg and his family have been top-performing auto dealers for many years."

Stephen Cavender noted that Hudiburg Auto Group still owns a Ford dealership in Wel…

WASHINGTON -- U.S. auto safety regulators confirmed a fifth Takata airbag inflator crash death in 2022 and reiterated urgent calls for owners to get repairs.

Stellantis and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said they had confirmed a third Takata airbag inflator death.

Over the last decade, more than 67 million Takata airbag inflators have been recalled in the United States and more than 100 million worldwide, in the biggest auto safety callback in history.

In November, Stellantis urged owners of 276,000 older U.S. vehicles to immediately stop driving after the crash death reports, but just 2,000 owners have gotten repairs since then.

More than 30 deaths worldwide -- including 24 U.S. deaths -- and hundreds of injuries in various automakers' vehicles since 2009 are linked to Takata airbag inflators that can explode, unleashing metal shrapnel inside cars and trucks.

The latest death was in a 2010 Chrysler 300, one of three St…

DETROIT — Electric vehicles nearly match internal combustion vehicles in cost of ownership and the ownership experience, according to a new J.D. Power index gauging the industry's shift to EVs.

But wide gaps in four of the six categories measured — including charging infrastructure and consumer interest in EVs — show there is still a long way to go before the two forms of propulsion are on equal footing.

The J.D. Power EV Index, which launches Jan. 17, underscores a dichotomy in the transition to fully electric powertrains, even as global automakers plow billions of dollars into the rollout.

On one hand, U.S. customers who buy EVs rarely go back to internal combustion engine vehicles, and most find today's battery-powered cars affordable when considering the cost to drive and maintain them as well as their resale value.

On the flip side, rising EV adoption ironically creates bigger infrastructure headaches. That's bec…

Van Horn Automotive Group has not acquired any dealerships in 2022, but nonetheless was involved in a transaction in which its majority owner shifted from one person to nearly 400 of its employees.

Van Horn Automotive employees previously owned 30 percent of the company as part of an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, which launched Dec. 31, 2015. The company opted to launch the plan in part to help boost hiring and retention and add to its dealership count. It can also help with succession planning, ESOP experts say.

In March, Van Horn Automotive's majority owner and co-CEO Chuck Van Horn left to focus on Van Horn Development, a separate real estate development and property management company and the automotive group's employee ownership rose to 77 percent.

"It was basically just Chuck's way of exiting the business," said Jeff Niesen, president at Van Horn Automotive, of Plymouth, Wis. "When he sold his percentages [to the ESOP], the way we had t…

Mounting financial losses, a plunging stock price, nervous creditors and regulatory roadblocks in several states have online used-car giant Carvana Co. on the ropes as it enters 2023 with used-market conditions in decline and facing doubts about its ability to survive without major restructuring.

Carvana must tread carefully in the early months of 2023 as it tries to reduce cash burn, cut costs and squeeze more profit from each used car and truck it sells, say financial analysts closely watching the former stock market darling.

This year has marked a severe tumble for Carvana from the euphoric heights it reached in 2021, when its market valuation at one point topped $60 billion and investors were eager to go along for the ride. Now, Carvana's market capitalization is below $1 billion after a year in which a slowing market, soaring inflation and interest rate spikes shackled its growth plans. The company made sweeping job cuts in May and again i…

Carvana faces ultimate challenge in new year

When you see a stock fall by 98 percent, questions are going to come up.

When a company restructures its staff twice in a year, one has to wonder.

When a still-young company loses about half a billion dollars in each of three straight quarters, you have ask: Are these guys gonna make it?

As we near the end of this 2022 that has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for Carvana, the online, used-vehicle retailer, reporter C.J. Moore set out to ask that fundamental question — and the others surrounding it — in this week's front-page story:

■ Is Carvana getting tossed around simply because its business is concentrated on the most-challenging part of the consumer-facing auto industry?

■ Or does it have special liabilities, such as under-developed title processing, that acts as a bottleneck on growth?

■ Did the acquisition of ADESA's physical auction business stretch the co…

A Cox Automotive employee was shot on an interstate near Birmingham, Ala., following "road rage" on Dec. 15, according to local police.

Vestavia Hills Police Department responded to a report of a person shot on Interstate 65 at about 7 a.m. on Thursday, according to a Facebook post from the department. Vestavia Hills is 13 miles south of Birmingham.

One person was injured and taken to a Birmingham hospital, where they were treated and released, according to the post. Cox Automotive confirmed the person is a Cox Automotive Mobility Fleet Services mobile technician in an email statement to Automotive News.

"We can confirm that our driver was the victim of an incident that occurred earlier this morning. At Cox Automotive, we are committed to the safety of our team members," Cox Automotive wrote in a Dec. 15 statement. "We are fully cooperating with local law enforcement on their ongoing investigation and ask that you contact them for more information."

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Hanging on a wall in my home office is a framed copy of the last Sunday magazine The Dallas Morning News published, featuring a cover story written by me. Framed along with it is a tongue-in-cheek letter from the executive editor at the time saying it couldn't be officially determined whether my excessive freelance writing for the magazine led to its demise.

I was a woefully underpaid young reporter (a redundant phrase, to be sure) at the Morning News and would try to pad my city desk salary by taking extra work writing for the magazine.

Thirty-some years later, here I am again witness to another magazine ceasing publication. After a lot of discussion at Automotive News, the decision was made to stop publishing Fixed Ops Journal. This issue will be the last.

But unlike the Sunday magazine, there is a second act for Automotive News' coverage of service, parts and collision. More about that in a minute.

The decision t…