Trade News

TOKYO — Hiroto Saikawa, former CEO of Nissan who presided over the arrest and ouster of his boss and mentor Carlos Ghosn — only to be drummed out of the company himself — is back in the business almost four years after the scandal nearly derailed the Renault-Nissan auto alliance.

After finishing a two-year noncompete agreement, the 68-year-old industry veteran is in talks to consult on autonomous urban mobility and is writing a book about his experience.

The Nissan lifer shocked Japan by accusing Ghosn of rampant financial misconduct at a news conference the night of the chairman's arrest. Now, Saikawa is weighing in on the carmaker's fitful recovery from the ensuing chaos and talking about Ghosn's legacy.

Saikawa insists he would have been perfectly happy to have Ghosn, now 68, continue at the helm of the Renault-Nissan alliance, had it not been for what Saikawa called overwhelming evidence of misconduct.

Ghosn's de…

DETROIT — Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis likens the sound created for the electric Charger Daytona Concept to a church pipe organ.

A key question is whether the artificial noise — generated by an amplifier and tuning chamber at the rear — will help Dodge convert consumers into believers of battery-powered muscle or repel them.

Some analysts say a quiet Dodge electric vehicle will never work and that it has to deliver a roar, even if there's no gasoline-burning engine. On the flip side, they wonder whether some devoted followers of the rumbling V-8 engines the brand built its image around could be put off.

"I think people are going to like it, but I do think it will be polarizing," said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights for Edmunds. "I don't think it is that necessary. It really is a vanity type of thing."

Mike Harrington, general manager at Huntington Beach Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram in Southern California, wasn't expect…

An aspect of vehicle safety getting increased scrutiny is how crashes affect women differently than men.

In a Feb. 15 letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, 66 members of Congress called for updated federal policy to address disparities in crash outcomes between women and men. Citing 2019 data from NHTSA, the letter said a female driver is 73 percent more likely to be seriously injured than a male driver in a vehicle crash and 17 percent more likely to die.

While dummies modeled on women and children are becoming more commonplace, the industry traditionally has used crash test dummies based on men's bodies — a complaint cited in the congressional letter to Buttigieg.

The letter calls for the U.S. Department of Transportation to require the use of "accurate, up-to-date female crash test dummies in NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program and Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards."

In a January report, "Equity …

U.S. vehicle inventory has finally begun to climb out of the narrow band it was mired in since the beginning of the year, ticking up to 1.21 million units last month, the highest level since June 2021, according to data compiled by Cox Automotive and the Automotive News Research & Data Center.

The figure represents a recovery of nearly 200,000 vehicles over the month prior, just outside the 1 million-to-1.1 million band where it sat the previous seven months.

Cox said the figure represents a 40-day supply, up 43 percent from a year ago, and three days higher than the previous month, based on its practice of using the selling rate from the most recent 30-day period. Days' supply has trended higher over the previous year each month since May but remains well below 2020 and 2019 levels. A depressed selling rate, hampered in part by low inventory along with rising prices and rising interest rates, is contributing to the recovery, Cox said.

Subcompact c…

In case you missed it, the dog days of summer have been anything but for the auto industry.

Automakers, suppliers and retailers have been slogging to untangle themselves from supply chain crises precipitated by COVID shutdowns in Asia and war in Europe. New-vehicle sales slumped in the first half of the year as automakers struggled to keep assembly lines running and dealer lots supplied.

Rising inflation now threatens future sales and profitability for carmakers and their retailers. And more instability lies ahead as new legislation driving EV adoption in the U.S. upends the EV manufacturing plans of global automakers and supply chain sourcing. Meanwhile, electrification plans rapidly unfold as automakers pivot from combustion engines to batteries.

Here's a quick recap of the big stories from summer 2022.

President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in late August, designed to incentivize domestic E…

NEW YORK -- Toyota Motor Corp. reached a settlement potentially worth $150 million to resolve U.S. class-action litigation tied to recalls of about 3.36 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles whose defective fuel pumps could cause engines to stall.

A preliminary settlement was filed on Wednesday night in federal court in Brooklyn. It requires a judge's approval.

The settlement covers owners and lessees of dozens of Toyota and Lexus vehicle models manufactured in the 2013 to 2020 model years and equipped with Denso low-pressure fuel pumps.

Drivers complained that defective pumps caused vehicles to "run rough," lose engine power, and stall, especially at low speeds.

Toyota has said problems were reported more often in the southern U.S., where weather is warmer.

More than 5.8 million vehicles worldwide were recalled in 2020 and 2021 over the defect.

To see all of Automotive News' recall coverage, click here.

Under the settlement, Toyo…

Wholesale used-vehicle prices fell "substantially" in August to cap off a summer that had been marked by more gradual monthly price declines.

Cox Automotive said Thursday that wholesale prices declined 4 percent in August compared with July. The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index — an indicator of used-vehicle market pricing trends — declined to 210.8, down from 219.6 in July.But wholesale prices remained elevated year over year. They were 8.4 percent higher in August than in the year-earlier period, when the index stood at 194.5. Those numbers are adjusted for mix, mileage and seasonality.

On a nonadjusted basis, the index fell 2.6 percent in August from its July level, with prices up 5.9 percent year over year.

Used-retail sales did see some growth, rising 11 percent in August from July. But sales were down 9 percent compared with the same time last year, when they were more robust, according to Cox Automotive.

Average wholesale prices for 3-year…

A new survey shows retailers are getting more worried about the economy. Japan says new EV tax credits might violate international trade law. Jeep and GM make big EV rollouts. Plus, North American International Detroit Auto Show co-chair Thad Szott previews next week's event.

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Mullen Automotive Inc. acquired a controlling interest in fellow electric vehicle manufacturer Bollinger Motors, of Oak Park, Mich.

Mullen, headquartered in Brea, Calif., bought a 60 percent stake in Bollinger for $148.2 million, the company said Thursday.

The deal marks Mullen's first foray into the electric truck market, with Bollinger Motors introducing both electric SUVs and chassis cabs in the past half-decade.

Just last week, Bollinger said it would produce the Bollinger Motors B4 — a battery-powered Class 4 chassis cab. The automaker did not include a production timeline in the announcement.

"This acquisition is one of the largest in the EV industry to date and provides Mullen with the unique opportunity to aggressively expand into the high-demand commercial EV space," Mullen CEO David Michery said in a statement.

Since its launch in 2015, Bollinger Motors has been plagued by problems, especially surrounding its release windows. In J…

The Chinese market for new passenger vehicles expanded for the third-straight month in August in an extended rebound, the China Automobile Dealers Association said Thursday. 

Last month, retail sales of new sedans, crossovers, SUVs and multi-purpose vehicles industrywide jumped 29 percent year on year to top 1.87 million, according to the trade group’s tally.

The extended market rally came after the lifting of a two-month pandemic-triggered lockdown on Shanghai -- China’s financial center and industrial hub, and the roll-out of a six-month tax incentive for gasoline vehicles on June 1. 

Under the tax incentive program, purchase tax was halved to 5 percent for new light vehicles with engine sizes of up to 2.0 liters and priced at 300,000 yuan ($43,103) or below.

The market rebound also came as a result of explosive demand for electrified vehicles. 

In August, the retail volume of new electrified passenger vehicles spiked 111 p…

Volvo Car Corp.’s China deliveries surged 31 percent year on year to 17,179 vehicles in August. 

It was the third straight month the Swedish carmaker recorded sales growth in the market after Shanghai, China’s largest city and auto production hub, came out of a two-month lockdown in June.

Last month, Volvo delivered 1,337 electrified vehicles in China, a 22 percent jump from a year earlier. The volume includes 845 plug-in hybrids and 492 full electric vehicles, according to Volvo’s tally.

For the first eight months, Volvo sold 102,899 vehicles in China, its largest single market worldwide, slumping 16 percent from the same period last year.

During the period, its electrified-vehicle sales rose 13 percent to 7,194. The tally is composed of 5,474 plug-in hybrids and 1,720 EVs. 

While registering robust sales recovery in China, Volvo said its local production was contained by power crunch and stringent anti-pandemic measures in the c…