Trade News

For months, a battle over EV charging has taken place across the auto industry, playing out in headline after headline and pitting one type of connector against another to gain dominance and win consolidation into a single standard.

But set aside electric vehicles for a moment: There's another charging connector transition underway that affects far more vehicles and exponentially more consumers. And it's coming to an instrument panel and rear seat near you — if it hasn't already arrived.

The Universal Serial Bus-A connector — the thin, rectangular hole with the plastic tongue that's been a part of automotive equipment since 2006 — is being replaced by the smaller, more efficient USB-C. The USB upgrade has been ongoing in the larger world since 2014, with computer, cellphone and electronics manufacturers migrating steadily to the new standard.

In the auto industry, the transition remains a work in progress.

Just how widespread is the switch to USB…

A theft of tooling from a supplier in Mexico has forced Nissan Motor Co. to delay the U.S. launch of the next-generation Kicks, people briefed on the matter told Automotive News.

Production of the subcompact crossover in Aguascalientes, Mexico, now will start next June, with U.S. deliveries following shortly, one of the people said.

This is the second delay of the redesigned Kicks, originally scheduled to begin production in December. The vehicle's failure to pass crash safety tests set the schedule back a month and a half, a source said.

The latest delay — which tacks on about five additional months — is related to tooling that was stolen from a supplier factory in Mexico, the sources said. They did not reveal the supplier's identity or say which Kicks part is affected.

Nissan confirmed the launch delay this week but did not say why.

"The arrival of the next-generation Kicks is delayed slightly due to an unexpected factor outside the com…

BERLIN -- Tesla Inc. lowered the production target of its German plant to 4,350 a week in July and August after hitting 5,000 a week in March and plans to reduce it further, according to a Business Insider report citing internal documents and anonymous sources.

The U.S. automaker had posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, in late March that it hit 5,000 cars per week at the plant in Gruenheide near Berlin, but workers who declined to be named told Business Insider that this was a one-off, and average output since then had been much lower, the article said.

Tesla said in June it was hiring fewer temporary workers than it did in the beginning because they were no longer needed but that its production targets were on track.

Business Insider said pictures showing Tesla's internal workflow software indicated that the U.S. EV maker had lowered its target for July and August to 870 cars per day.

Even this goal was not always …

Stellantis is considering a tie-up with a Chinese electric vehicle company as Europe’s second-largest automaker by sales seeks to bolster its presence in the world’s biggest auto market, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

The parent company of Chrysler, Ram, Jeep and several global brands has explored potentially working with Chinese EV makers such as Zhejiang Leapmotor Technologies Ltd., the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. Following in the footsteps of its rivals, Stellantis is weighing options such as investing in a local EV firm and a business partnership that would help it grow in China, the people said.

Considerations are ongoing and no final decisions have been made, the people said. Other global automakers including Volkswagen Group have also expressed interest in a potential tie-up with Leapmotor, one of the people said. Reuters reported VW's talks with Leapmotor this month.

Spokespeople…

Leasing an electric vehicle is the most affordable way to get a new car of any kind, considering favorable government EV incentives amid high interest rates, according to a new study from a nonpartisan energy and environmental policy firm.

The study, released by Energy Innovation on Wednesday, said leasing an EV can save drivers more than $400 per month compared to leasing a comparable gasoline vehicle or buying an EV or combustion engine vehicle.

"The financials work out quite a bit in favor of electric vehicles many of the times, especially when there's a fairly close MSRP between the gas vehicle and its electric vehicle counterpart," said Rachel Goldstein, a research and modeling manager at Energy Innovation and report co-author. "Those operations and maintenance costs, those fueling costs of the EVs, are just going to win out."

As EVs remain more expensive upfront than their gasoline-powered counterparts, leasing could present an attractive option …

Kia America's Rio subcompact car will not return for the 2024 model year, the company confirmed. It follows the demise of its small Hyundai counterpart, the Accent, discontinued after the 2022 model year.

Though Kia said it will remain in the sedan business, Americans are leaning toward larger, higher-riding crossovers. Light trucks, a category that includes minivans, crossovers, SUVs and pickups, accounted for 79 percent of all new U.S. vehicle sales for the first six months of 2023 .

That trend was reflected in Rio sales. The Rio ended 2022 with sales of just 26,996, a 14-percent decline, according to the Automotive News Data & Research Center. Through July of this year, Rio sales are down 2 percent.

The automaker's smallest vehicle is built at its factory in Monterrey, Mexico, where Kia appears to be planning to produce two small electric vehicles after the plant is retooled for electrification.

Also assembled in Mexico is the Forte compa…

VinFast's shares more than doubled Tuesday to the highest since Vietnamese electric vehicle maker's blowout Wall Street debut after Reuters reported that South Korea's Star Group Industrial plans to open factory in Vietnam.

In the latest volatile session since its backdoor listing last week, VinFast's stock was last up 127 percent at $40.24, giving it a market capitalization of $95 billion. The stock traded as high as $46.98 earlier in the session. The stock finished up 108.87 percent at $36.72 when the market closed Tuesday.

Last Tuesday, the cash-burning company soared as it started trading on the U.S. stock market with an opening price of $22 following its tie-up with SPAC partner Black Spade Acquisition.

With 99 percent of the EV firm controlled by founder Pham Nhat Vuong, the tiny amount of publicly available shares has made the stock prone to volatility. It has jumped or slumped 14 percent or more every day over the past six sessions.

The …

U.S auto safety regulators said Tuesday that major automakers could comply with a Massachusetts vehicle data law that seeks to allow car owners to get repairs completed by independent shops.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told nearly two dozen major automakers in June not to comply, saying it poses significant safety concerns because it required open remote access to vehicle telematics and vehicle-generated data.

The agency said Tuesday in a letter to the Massachusetts attorney general's office that the agency believes automakers can comply by providing repair shops "wireless access to a vehicle from within close physical proximity to the vehicle, without providing long-range remote access."

NHTSA proposes a rule that would require automakers to equip vehicles with seat belt warning systems. EV battery producer Northvolt raises $1.2 billion. And a fire creates a parts shortage impacting Toyota. Plus, a look at key issues in UAW negotiations.

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When searching for used-vehicle inventory through wholesale avenues, Ricart Automotive Group would typically cast a net about 200 miles in any direction from its Columbus, Ohio, base. That meant finding cars as far away as Pittsburgh, Indianapolis or Detroit.

But the scarcity of attractive used vehicles has caused the group to use a bigger net. Its search area now has a radius of 400 miles — stretching potentially to Philadelphia; Raleigh, N.C.; Nashville; and St. Louis.

"That's what you've got to do to find the vehicles that you know your customers like to buy," said CEO Rhett Ricart.

When the pandemic and the ensuing chip shortage reduced new-vehicle supply, many consumers switched from new to used models and snapped up the best inventory. Now, the supply of used models remains constrained, both by the loss of production in recent years and by the reduction in leasing as a share of that smaller market.

In response, dealers are getting creative …

A Detroit-based electric vehicle charging startup centered on streamlining the installation process has raised $10 million to help scale up operations.

Drive Technologies Inc., doing business as Treehouse, raised the funds from a group of venture capital firms, which was led by Montage Ventures and Trucks Venture Capital and included Invest Detroit and Detroit Venture Partners.

The funding will help the company expand operations and build on its staff of 18, which includes software engineers, electricians and customer service professionals, said Eric Owski, CEO and co-founder of Treehouse who lives in Detroit. The fundraising round marks a breakthrough for the 2-year-old startup.

"What's unique about our vision and approach to the market … we are delivering the jobs ourselves," Owski said. "We own the customer experience end to end, and we deliver the job through licensed electricians who work for Treehouse."

The company's value proposition is …

STOCKHOLM/LONDON — Swedish lithium-ion battery producer Northvolt has raised $1.2 billion from investors including BlackRock and several Canadian pension plans as it prepares to build new factories in Europe and North America, its finance chief told Reuters.

The fresh funding, through a convertible note, comes as investor demand for companies set to benefit from the move to a low-carbon economy picks up pace, aided by policy initiatives in both regions to accelerate the transition.

"It's a very capital intensive industry... finding the right mix is always hard in this new greenfield kind of transitional projects," Chief Financial Officer Alexander Hartman said in an interview.

Leading the round alongside BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager, were Canada Pension Plan, Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and, as previously reported, pension investor Investment Management Corporation of Ontario.

"The battery manufacturing sector h…