Trade News

Honda will use its forthcoming CR-V Hybrid to hold onto EV-minded buyers until its Prologue electric crossover arrives at U.S. dealerships in 2024.

Shoppers for the hybrid compact crossover, which goes on sale this fall in two well-equipped trims, the Sport and Sport Touring, will be able to opt into a two-year lease that will let them easily swap into a Prologue electric vehicle when it reaches dealership lots.

While final details have not been worked out, "there will be some sort of benefit to purchasers of the Prologue from having taken the lease, whether it's a financial incentive or something else," said Gary Robinson, American Honda's assistant vice president of product planning.

Robinson said the CR-V serves as a steppingstone to other Honda crossovers. "About 60 percent of CR-V buyers are repeat Honda customers," he said. "They're buyers who continue to stay in the brand."

Honda predicts that half of all CR-V buy…

Tesla Inc. posted record sales numbers in the third quarter, but analysts are expressing doubts about the EV leader's ability to power through an economic slowdown — despite CEO Elon Musk's assurance that the company is "certainly recession-resilient."

As of market close Thursday, Oct. 20, the high-flying stock is down 48 percent so far this year, including a nearly 7 percent decline following Tesla's third-quarter earnings report last week. By comparison, the Nasdaq Composite Index is down 33 percent this year.

Tesla's third-quarter revenue and vehicle deliveries missed analysts' estimates. At least six brokerages lowered their price targets on the stock, according to Reuters, with Tesla bull Wedbush Securities making the biggest cut of $60, bringing its target to $300 a share.

Part of the doubt concerns Musk's sales target of growing by about 50 percent a year into the foreseeable future — along with his predictions that Tesla could become the most v…

PAHRUMP, Nev. — Countless data points gathered by vehicles every day on public roads can be used to improve safety and traffic flow and speed up emergency response times.

British automotive data startup Wejo hopes to play a major role in getting the auto industry to that point by using data to learn how drivers behave in every use-case scenario.

The goal is to predict what happens "within three meters on this road at this time of day in these specific road conditions," Wejo CEO Richard Barlow said during a demonstration of the company's technology near Las Vegas in late September.

The Manchester-based company has collected data on vehicle and road conditions from about 19 million vehicles worldwide to date, including 85 billion drives and billions of miles driven on U.S. roadways and elsewhere.

As vehicles become more connected and offer more automated features, automakers, governments and service providers want to leverage that data to make roa…

DETROIT — Battery-electric vehicles could command half of the market in the premium segments in as little as five years. Meanwhile, leasing will continue to be a challenge for premium brands as rising interest rates and inflation push up prices, the president of Audi of America said.

Daniel Weissland, 49, who has led Audi of America since 2019, said his brand and others in the premium space can't accurately gauge the true demand for EVs right now because of production constraints that are limiting inventories. But, he said, the growth in acceptance and demand has been surprisingly fast.

"I think the tipping point [to majority EV] is coming much faster than we think in the premium segment," Weissland said during a visit to Automotive News' offices here, putting a five-year time frame on hitting majority EV sales among premium brands. "I could be surprised, because of the Inflation Reduction Act, maybe it's going to accelerate, especially in the …

American Honda Motor Co. has two electric vehicles on the horizon: the Honda Prologue and the Acura ZDX.

Both are co-developed with General Motors and will use the Detroit automaker's new flexible and scalable electric architecture powered by the Ultium battery pack.

The partnership allows Honda to leverage the investments GM has been making in its Ultium drive system and its upcoming wave of EVs while it readies itself for its own zero-emission future.

But one surprise benefit Honda will get from the collaboration could not have been foreseen by any crystal ball: a $7,500 pricing advantage.

When the Prologue and ZDX come to market in 2024, both are likely to land a spot on the coveted list of vehicles approved for the new federal tax credit under the Inflation Reduction Act — thanks to GM's electrification playbook.

This will give the Honda and Acura brands a competitive edge against automakers importing the…

PAHRUMP, Nev. — Countless data points gathered by vehicles every day on public roads can be used to improve safety and traffic flow and speed up emergency response times.

British automotive data startup Wejo hopes to play a major role in getting the auto industry to that point by using data to learn how drivers behave in every use-case scenario.

The goal is to predict what happens "within three meters on this road at this time of day in these specific road conditions," Wejo CEO Richard Barlow said during a demonstration of the company's technology near Las Vegas in late September.

The Manchester-based company has collected data on vehicle and road conditions from about 19 million vehicles worldwide to date, including 85 billion drives and billions of miles driven on U.S. roadways and elsewhere.

As vehicles become more connected and offer more automated features, automakers, governments and service providers want to leverage that data to make roa…

Constellium, one of the world's biggest aluminum suppliers, has a message for the auto industry that it's prepared to support the shift to electric vehicles with lighter-weight metal for vehicle production. But it's not enough to simply be lighter anymore, the aluminum industry recognizes. Automakers now want their supply chains to show how they will achieve carbon footprint reductions. Andreas Afseth, 51, technical director for Constellium's North American automotive sheet metal business, spoke with Senior Editor Lindsay Chappell about how it is innovating that effort. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: Constellium's rivals in the steel industry make a point of saying that aluminum production has a bigger carbon footprint than steel. How do you counter that?

A: When you produce primary aluminum, made from bauxite aluminum oxide through electrolysis, it consumes a lot of electricity. And your carbon footprint is linked to that electricity generation. But when you re…

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ Waymo to expand robotaxis to Los Angeles

Waymo, the driverless-vehicle unit of Alphabet, plans to expand its robotaxi service to Los Angeles, the third region where it will be offered.

The company will follow the same playbook for the service, called Waymo One, that it has elsewhere, according to an announcement Wednesday. Local employees will try the program first, followed by "trusted testers" who sign nondisclosure agreements, followed by unaccompanied, paying members of the public. Waymo One is already open to the general public in the Phoenix metro area and is in the advanced testing stage in the more crowded downtown areas of Phoenix and San Francisco.

Robotaxi services are gradually debuting in more U.S. cities, though adoption remains far from mainstream. Waymo's chief rival, Cruise, the self-driving car startup majority-owned by General Motors, said in September that it plans to expand its robotaxi business to Phoenix …

DETROIT — The exclusive club of pickup trucks sporting six-figure price tags is getting a new member. The $107,000 GMC Sierra EV Denali Edition 1 arrives just over a year from now.

The first of three planned trim levels, the Sierra EV Edition 1 is powered by a pair of electric motors, for a rating of 754 hp. The pickup will have a range of 400 miles, towing capability of 9,500 pounds and a brisk 0-to-60 mph time of just 4.5 seconds, GMC says.

And like the GMC Hummer EV, the Sierra EV Denali Edition 1 will be able to do the crabwalk.

The top-of-the-line Denali brings a laundry list of luxury, safety and convenience features, including quilted seats, real wood trim and three screens, including one for the heads-up display. The Super Cruise hands-free driving system will be configured for trailer towing.

The truck can power a house or recharge another vehicle, such as a Chevrolet Bolt. Its 350-kilowatt charging system can inject 100 miles of range …

Federal government data show 10 fatal crashes, each involving Tesla Inc. vehicles, were reported between June and September involving models equipped with advanced driver-assist systems.

NHTSA has reported 16 fatal crashes involving vehicles with Level 2 ADAS systems since the agency in June 2021 ordered vehicle, equipment and software manufacturers to report them. The agency and safety experts have said the data are preliminary and lack context but are still useful for transparency.

Vehicles with Level 2 systems are widely available and feature common driver assistance such as lane-centering, while fully automated Level 3-5 systems are unavailable to consumers but are being tested and deployed on a limited scale on public roads.

No fatal crashes involving fully automated vehicles have been reported since NHTSA began collecting the data.

NHTSA issued the general order to identify flaws and driver misuse and to understand how crashes occur.

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