Trade News

Jaguar Land Rover reported a quarterly loss before tax of 524 million pounds ($632 million), compared with a loss of 110 million pounds a year earlier.

Quarterly revenue fell 11 percent from a year earlier, mainly due to a weaker model mix, inflation and adverse currency movements.

The prolonged semiconductor shortage, surging commodity prices and a slow ramp up of the new Range Rover and new Range Rover Sport, also contributed to the loss, JLR owner Tata Motors said in a statement on Wednesday.

COVID-19 lockdowns in China also impacted production and sales in the quarter.

JLR's retail sales fell 37 percent to 78,825 vehicles in the quarter.

However, demand for JLR vehicle…

TOKYO -- Toyota Motor Corp. will cut domestic production by around 4,000 vehicles in July, it said on Wednesday, after heavy rain disrupted parts supplies, raising the possibility it could fall short of its global target for the month.

Heavy rains, especially in its home prefecture of Aichi in central Japan, impacted procurement of parts and will force it to stop production at a total of three lines in two domestic factories, Toyota said in a statement.

A Toyota spokesperson said the temporary halt would likely make it difficult for it to reach its global production target of around 800,000 vehicles for July. Toyota has struggled to meet its global production goals in recent months, hit by shortages of semiconductors and the impact of COVID-19-related lockdowns in China.

The latest stoppages start from the night shift on Wednesday at one line and are due to start tomorrow at the other two and will run until Friday, the carmaker said. One of the lines is …

Bentley has pushed back production of its first electric car to 2026 from 2025, CEO Adrian Hallmark said.

Hallmark denied reports that software delays were responsible for the slip in timing for the car, which is part of Audi’s Artemis project.

The car – expected to be a coupe -- will still be revealed in 2025 as planned, Hallmark said. The delay is a “matter of months,” he told Automotive News Europe.

He gave no reason for the schedule change. Volkswagen Group, which owns Audi and Bentley, is working to a tight timetable to launch cars on the Scalable Systems Platform (SSP) electric architecture that will underpin cars in the Artemis project.

Audi’s first car from the project has been delayed to the end of 2026, sources told Automotive News Europe sister publication Automobilwoche.

Bentley said in November 2020 that it would drop internal combustion engines from its cars by 2030 and switch its entire model range to full-electric vehicles.…

The automotive semiconductor market will equal $250 billion by 2040, based on rapid development of electric and luxury vehicles.

That's the conclusion of a report from consultant KPMG titled "Automotive Semiconductors — Accelerating Into the New ICE Age."

KPMG's study follows a 2019 analysis that estimated the industry would reach $200 billion by 2040. It predicted the "internal computing engine," which is much more reliant on semiconductors, would take over as the "heart" of the automotive industry.

Two years of pandemic, supply chain woes and chip shortages later, and that prediction has only accelerated. In 2021, the semiconductor industry jumped 26 percent from 2020, and the firm predicts another double-digit jump in 2022.

The forecast comes with record confidence. The Semiconductor Industry Confidence Index, made up of market signals and KPMG analysis, was placed at 74 for 2022 — the highest recorded in the measurement's lifetime.

Much…

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate voted 64-32 on Tuesday to advance legislation to dramatically boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing in a bid to make the domestic industry more competitive with China.

The legislation provides about $52 billion in government subsidies for U.S. semiconductor production as well as an investment tax credit for chip plants estimated to be worth $24 billion.

The Senate is expected to vote on final passage in coming days and the U.S. House could follow suit as soon as later this week.

President Joe Biden and others have cast the issue in national security terms, saying it is essential to ensure U.S. production of chips that are crucial to a wide range of consumer goods and military equipment.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called the vote "a symbol of the strong bipartisan coalition working to build more chips in America. These chips keep our economy strong and our country safe."

The bill aims to ease a persisten…

WASHINGTON — NHTSA has ended a safety probe into 2016 Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country minivans but isn't ruling out that a potential safety defect exists, according to a report released Tuesday.

NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation launched the probe in July 2021 to investigate more than 300 consumer complaints alleging one or both of the sliding doors on those vehicles could not be opened either by using the mechanical handle or electronic remote switches or controls.

The investigation, formally closed Friday, covered an estimated 233,084 vehicles in the U.S., with complaints totaling 439, according to the report.

In 2016, Chrysler — part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and now under Stellantis — issued a technical service bulletin to its dealership network, instructing technicians to replace one or both of the sliding door lock actuators when vehicle owners described an issue with the locks not functioning or "emitti…

DETROIT -- General Motors has lost nearly $5 billion since 2018 trying to build a robotaxi business in San Francisco, and now as the automaker's Cruise unit starts charging for rides, the losses are accelerating.

GM said on Tuesday it lost $500 million on Cruise during the second quarter -- more than $5 million a day -- as it began charging for rides in a limited area of San Francisco.

Cruise's costly effort to transform autonomous driving technology from a long-term research project to a profit-spinning business comes as investors are backing away from riskier bets on technology, and reassessing how soon robot vehicles of any kind will be deployed in large scale on public roads.

Shares of autonomous vehicle technology company Aurora Innovation Inc., for example, are down 80 percent for the year to date. Shares of robo-trucking company TuSimple Holdings Inc. have lost more than 70 percent of their value. Some automakers, including Ford Motor Co., have s…

WASHINGTON — A coalition of consumer safety groups and automotive experts is once again urging automakers, regulators and other stakeholders to adopt standard terms for advanced driver-assistance systems.

AAA, Consumer Reports, J.D. Power, the National Safety Council, Partners for Automated Vehicle Education and SAE International on Tuesday released a set of updated and expanded terms for driver-assist features that they say will reduce driver confusion as the technologies become more common.

The group started the effort in 2019 with an initial list of standardized names that was endorsed by the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2020 during the Trump administration.

"ADAS features have become increasingly prevalent in new vehicles and have the potential to reduce traffic crashes and save thousands of lives each year," the group said in a statement. "However, the terminology used by automakers to describe ADAS features varies widely, which can confuse…

Sono Motors has debuted the production design of its Sion, a battery-electric crossover that uses solar cells to generate electricity and extend range.

The Munich-based startup, which trades on the Nasdaq under SEV, pitches the Sion as "the world's first affordable solar electric vehicle."

At a Munich event Monday, Sono also unveiled a solar kit for diesel buses that transit services can use to supply power to subsystems such as HVAC and reduce fuel consumption and emissions.

But in the Sion, solar will help refill the batteries that power propulsion. The vehicle features 456 solar half-cells that generate enough energy to add about 70 to 150 miles per week to the range, depending on weather and driving conditions. It's enough solar power to "enable self-sufficiency on short journeys," the company said. The Sion's 54-kilowatt-hour lithium iron phosphate battery has an estimated range of 189 miles.

Selling point of solar

Supplementing the v…

WASHINGTON — U.S. auto safety regulators have opened five separate safety probes into nearly 1.9 million vehicles manufactured by Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Stellantis, according to documents released Tuesday.

The largest of the probes covers an estimated 1.3 million Jeep Cherokees from the 2014-20 model years. Water may leak into those vehicles and cause the electronic parking brake to activate and stop the vehicle while in motion.

NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation said it had received 80 complaints about the issue and opened the preliminary evaluation to "assess the scope, frequency and safety-related consequences of the alleged defect."

Separately, the agency is investigating 2016 Dodge Journey and Jeep Compass and Patriot vehicles after receiving 127 complaints alleging crankshaft or camshaft sensor failures that may cause the engine to stall while driving.

FCA US, now Stellantis, recalled certain Journey, Compass and Patriot ve…

Volkswagen of America said it has started salable local production of the brand's ID4 battery-electric compact crossover at its assembly complex in Chattanooga, and it expects to produce up to 7,000 vehicles per month there by the fourth quarter.

The German automaker, which has been doing pilot builds of the ID4 at the plant for much of this year, said Tuesday it would begin making customer deliveries "as early as October" while it ramps up further.

The local production, paid for by an $800 million investment in the plant, represents a threefold or fourfold increase in ID4 availability for VW dealers in the U.S., compared with current versions, which are imported from Germany, VW executives have said.

Through the second quarter of this year, VW sold 4,415 ID4s in the U.S. — all imported — down 29 percent compared with the period of March-June 2021. The ID4 went on sale in March 2021.

"We're just starting to write a new chapter for Volkswagen …