Trade News

General Motors is forming a separate business unit in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area to expand Chinese imports of some of its most popular and profitable vehicles built and sold mostly in North America.

The Detroit automaker signed a letter of intent with the Pudong New Area government to invest $100 million in the new business, GM’s China unit saidThursday. 

“The new Premium Import business, tailored for China, will present a curated collection of iconic GM products through an innovative platform-based business model,” GM China said.

The import business, with a product portfolio comprised of full-size SUVs, pickup trucks and performance cars, likely under the Chevrolet, Cadillac and Hummer banners, will “address evolving demand in the niche market, complementing GM’s locally produced model and brand lineup,” GM China said. 

GM produces and markets Cadillac, Buick and Chevrolet cars and light trucks at SAIC-GM, a joint venture it established…

Light-vehicle production in Shanghai, China’s industrial hub and financial center, has recovered to normal levels after the city came out of a two-month pandemic-triggered lockdown on June 1, the China Automobile Dealers Association said.

Among the four major vehicle manufacturers that assemble vehicles in the city, Tesla started to produce at full capacity at its Shanghai plant in early June.

By mid-June, combined daily local output at three other automakers – SAIC Motor Corp., SAIC-General Motors and SAIC-Volkswagen – had climbed back to pre-lockdown levels. of 13,000 vehicles. 

SAIC-GM is SAIC’s joint venture with GM while SAIC-VW is SAIC’s partnership with Volkswagen Group. 

Auto output in Shanghai tumbled 75 percent to some 53,500 vehicles in April from a year earlier, as government authorities imposed stringent COVID containment measures that brought much of the city’s economic activity to a standstill. Output slipped another 19 pe…

Ford Motor Co.’s China unit is launching direct sales of the redesigned Ford F-150 Raptor as it continues to explore the market for pickup trucks. 

The F-150 Raptor to be marketed in China -- a two-row, four-door SuperCrew model -- will be priced from 686,800 ($102,510).

The truck will be sold directly to customers with orders offered exclusively on Chinese online messaging app WeChat’s “Ford Pick-up Community” channel. 

Preorders for the pickup began on June 21 with a 20,000-yuan deposit, and deliveries are expected to start toward the end of the third quarter, Ford China said last week. 

Ford China plans to select service agents for the new F-150 Raptor from franchised dealerships at Jiangling Ford Automobile Technology Co., a 49-51 joint venture formed in January between Ford and local partner Jiangling Motors Corp.

Since the introduction of the F-150 Raptor in 2017, the F-150 line has remained the top-selling imported ful…

Geely Holding Group Co., the largest private Chinese automaker, said it delivered the first batch of the world’s first methanol-battery hybrid vehicle. 

The vehicle, priced at 129,800 yuan ($19,373), was adapted from a compact sedan under Geely’s Emgrand brand and is initially being marketed in China.  

It is fitted with a 1.8-liter methanol-powered engine and ternary lithium batteries, with fuel economy that is 40 percent better than a corresponding gasoline model, Geely said.

Geely is one of the few Chinese automakers hoping to develop and sell methanol-powered vehicles in volume. 

It has invested more than 3 billion yuan to develop methanol vehicles since 2005 and has delivered some 27,000 methanol cars and trucks in China, Geely said.

Geely is also seeking to sell methanol vehicles in Europe. Earlier this year, it started to test methanol-powered cars and heavy-duty trucks in Denmark and Iceland. 

General Motors said it is reviving a decade-old program to train first responders on electric vehicles.

The revamped program, named "EV First Responder Training", will focus on fire services, and plans to teach firefighters how to safely respond to incidents involving electric and hybrid vehicles, GM said Thursday.

Some firefighting techniques based on gasoline-powered vehicles, such as puncturing holes in vehicle hoods for water channels, can be dangerous to perform on EVs due to different component placement.

It also aims to combat misconceptions around EV batteries, such as water being dangerous around lithium battery fires.

"Our primary goal is to provide key information directly to first and second responders," Joe McLaine, GM global product safety and systems engineer, said in a statement. "This training offers unique material and hands-on experiences that can help increase responders' awareness of procedures to help maintain safety while in…

BERLIN -- Inflation would spiral even further in Germany if it were not for business with China, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess said in an interview with the weekly Spiegel.

"Germany would look completely different" if it turned away from China, Diess told the Spiegel, adding that such a move would harm growth, wealth and employment.

WASHINGTON — The nation's top auto safety regulator is seeking more information from American Honda Motor Co. to aid an investigation into more than 1.7 million vehicles for alleged unintended activation of the automatic emergency braking system.

In a letter sent June 14 to Jeff Chang, Honda's division head for product safety, NHTSA is requesting more information concerning the automaker's "collision mitigation braking system," its components and operation.

NHTSA launched the formal safety probe in February after receiving 278 reports alleging inadvertent activation of the braking system in 2018-19 Honda Accord midsize cars and 2017-19 Honda CR-V compact crossovers with no imminent collision hazard present.

The agency is now seeking further details related to the AEB system, including all associated sensors, control modules, hardware, software, data and wiring, and has expanded the scope to include information for all 2017-18 Acura RDX, 2017-19 Honda Ci…

Three dealership groups, including one of the country's largest privately owned auto retailers and a Canadian firm expanding in the U.S., bought dealerships in May and June transactions.

Here's a look at the deals involving import and domestic brand dealerships in Texas, Utah and Tennessee. Two transactions involved retailers ranked on Automotive News' top 150 dealership groups list.

Group 1 Automotive divestiture in Texas

Growing Canadian retailer Steele Auto Group, of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, expanded its U.S. footprint in Texas with the acquisition of a Hyundai store from auto retail giant Group 1 Automotive Inc.

Steele Auto bought Sterling McCall Hyundai South Loop in Houston from Group 1 on June 22, according to Peter Porteous, vice president of business development at Steele Auto.

The dealership was renamed Steele South Loop Hyundai.

"We are thrilled to be growing our presence in the U.S. and Texas," Steele Auto President Kim D…

At least 34 union auto technicians at Mercedes-Benz of San Diego went on strike as the two sides negotiate a new contract.

Technicians from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local Lodge 1484 walked off the job on June 17. Ten technicians remain on the job, a dealership spokesman said.

Pedro Gomez, a technician at the dealership and shop steward for Local Lodge 1484, said the union had been treated unfairly during negotiations by the dealership's owner, Penske Automotive Group Inc.

"We're in the middle of negotiating our third contract. They wanted to take away some of our benefits, including our weekly guarantee," Gomez said. "We feel like it's to the point where they want to intimidate us into submission so that we'll accept the deal we got."

Anthony Pordon, executive vice president at Penske Automotive, said the dealership has adjusted to the shortage of workers at the store.

The dealership offered a 15.1 p…

Toyota Motor Corp. produced 5.3 percent fewer vehicles in May than a year earlier as it slowed output due to supply chain disruptions afflicting automakers around the world.

Toyota's output totaled 634,940 vehicles in May, the Japanese carmaker said Wednesday. The company sold 761,466 vehicles globally last month, down from 840,303 vehicles a year earlier.

Toyota said earlier this year it intended to pause production for the April-June quarter due to global supply-chain issues, with President Akio Toyoda warning that a push to boost output under such conditions could lead to "exhaustion."

Toyota is still shielding itself relatively well from the tumult, including fallout from the Covid lockdown in Shanghai, and intends to significantly raise output in the coming months. The company last week said it aims to boost July-September production 40 percent from a year earlier, churning out an average of 850,000 vehicles a month.

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Tesla Inc. has laid off hundreds of workers on its Autopilot team as the electric-vehicle maker shuttered a California facility, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

Surprisingly, the majority of those who were let go were hourly workers, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. As recently as last week, CEO Elon Musk had outlined plans to cut 10 percent of salaried staff but said he would be increasing hourly jobs.

Teams at the San Mateo office were employed in evaluating customer vehicle data related to the Autopilot driver-assistance features and performing so-called data labeling. Many of the staff members were data annotation specialists, all of which are hourly positions, one of the people said.

About 200 workers were let go in total, according to the people. Prior to the cuts, the office had about 350 employees, although some had been transferred to a nearby facility in recent weeks.

Tesla …