Trade News

INGOLSTADT, Germany — Audi dealers' current inventory woes may not abate until well into next year as the premium brand continues to struggle to secure enough microchips to keep its factories running, though the shortage in wire harnesses resulting from Russia's invasion of Ukraine has eased, a top brand executive said.

Oliver Hoffmann, head of technical development at Audi AG, discussed the production challenges during a press briefing on upcoming battery-electric and combustion-powered models.

Audi's U.S. dealers have been scraping by with few new vehicles to sell for much of the last year as supply shortages have hampered production at its factories in Germany and Mexico. Sales were down 35 percent in the first quarter to 35,505, and the inventory tracker on its audiusa.com website showed just less than 16,000 new vehicles in stock at its dealerships in the continental U.S. midweek.

Hoffmann did say, however, that wire harness s…

NEW DELHI/SHANGHAI - General Motors said on Friday it had called off the sale of a shuttered Indian plant to China's Great Wall Motor after it failed to obtain regulatory approvals, amid a tougher stance by New Delhi towards investments from Beijing.

GM struck a deal in January, 2020 to sell the plant to Great Wall, with the Chinese SUV-maker expected to pay up to $300 million as part of a broader plan to invest $1 billion to establish a presence in India's growing car market.

The agreement, extended twice, expired June 30.

"We have been unable to obtain the required approvals within the time frame of the deal," George Svigos, executive director of communications at GM International, told Reuters.

"Our strategy in India remains unchanged and we will now explore further options for the sale of the site," he said, adding the company "hopes to achieve a price that reflects the value of the asset".

"Great Wall M…

U.S. light-vehicle sales slid 15 percent to 578,507 in the second quarter at General Motors, enough for the automaker to reclaim the U.S. sales crown from Toyota Motor Corp., as global parts shortages and shipping woes continue to hobble output at automakers, leaving showrooms largely empty of new cars and light trucks for a year now.

Deliveries dropped 11 percent at Chevrolet, 14 percent GMC, 56 percent at Buick and 6.7 percent at Cadillac in the April-June period. GM's U.S. sales have now dropped four consecutive quarters, though sales have increased sequentially three straight quarters and it expects to gain market share for the third consecutive quarter.

The automaker, citing "strong" second-quarter production, said it ended June with 247,839 vehicles in U.S. dealer inventory, including cars and light trucks in transit to showrooms. GM's second-quarter vehicle wholesale shipments were negatively impacted by ongoing semiconductor shortages and other supply …

Hyundai Motor Co. is trimming its car lineup to focus on crossovers and its budding battery-electric Ioniq subbrand.

For the 2023 model year, the Korean automaker will cut the Accent subcompact sedan, the Veloster N hatchback and both the hybrid and plug-in hybrid variants of the Ioniq compact car.

The last sedans standing for the brand will be the Ioniq 6 all-electric midsize sedan that will go on sale in early 2023, and the midsize Sonata and compact Elantra, which Hyundai says are both still in demand in a market now dominated by crossovers.

"Like some of our competitors, we have decided to stay in the passenger car business, and some of our best-performing vehicles, like Elantra or like Sonata, are still doing quite well," Hyundai Motor Co. COO Jose Munoz said during a media briefing this week at the company's R&D center in Michigan.

Through June, sales of the Sonata slid 64 percent and sales of the Elantra slid 34 percent,…

WASHINGTON — The new chief of the nation's top auto safety regulator said the agency hasn't been holding back as it works through a backlog of regulatory to-dos, sorts through first-of-its-kind crash data and steps up an investigation into Tesla Inc.'s Autopilot.

"I think we've probably increased the scrutiny on all automakers since last year," said Steven Cliff, who was confirmed by the Senate in May as NHTSA's 16th administrator. The agency had been without a permanent leader since 2017, when Mark Rosekind resigned as the Trump administration took over.

"We're making sure that the regulations we have on the books are implemented," he said. "If we don't have regulations but there's still a safety defect, we're addressing those issues and getting new regulations on the books as quickly as we can — and all in an effort to enhance safety."

Cliff, 52, spoke Wednesday from his office at the U.S. Department of Transportation in his first interview with Automo…

MILAN -- Lamborghini plans to invest at least 1.8 billion euros ($1.88 billion) to produce a plug-in hybrid lineup by 2024 and more to bring out its full-electric model by the end of the decade, CEO Stephan Winkelmann told Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper.

Lamborghini said last year it would invest $1.5 billion to shift its current models - the Huracan and Aventador sports cars, and the Urus SUV - to plug-in powertrains by the end of 2024.

"We have earmarked 1.8 billion, but in reality, it will be much more - the biggest investment in the history of Lamborghini Automobili," Winkelmann told the paper, adding that the figure did not include the development of the full-electric model.

"The investment will be huge because we have to face the full electric era while maintaining the values of Lamborghini's DNA. It will be a very difficult challenge."

Like its rivals Ferrari, Aston Martin and McLaren, Lamborghini is wrestling with how to shift its lineup to batt…

Volvo Cars will invest 1.2 billion euros ($1.25 billion) to build a new manufacturing plant in Kosice, Slovakia, capable of making 250,000 electric vehicles a year, the automaker said on Friday.

Volvo aims to be an electric-only brand by 2030 and to reach that goal it has said it would need to add another plant in Europe.

Construction of the Kosice factory is set to start next year. Series production of Volvo's next-generation EVs is scheduled to start in 2026, the company said, adding that about 20 percent of the investment is expected to be covered by the Slovakian government.

“Expansion in Europe, our largest sales region, is crucial to our shift to electrification and continued growth," Volvo CEO Jim Rowan said in the release.

Volvo's first new plant in Europe in almost 60 years will be it's third in the region, joining factories in Torslanda, Sweden, and Ghent, Belgium, which have a combined annual capacity of 600,000 vehicles.

Volvo…

A lawsuit alleging CDK Global Inc. omitted crucial information related to its pending sale to investment firm Brookfield Business Partners has been voluntarily dismissed, but six other federal lawsuits alleging similar behavior against the dealership technology company are still active.

The lawsuit, which was voluntarily dismissed by plaintiff Matthew Hopkins on Friday, was filed May 4 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. It alleged that CDK filed a solicitation statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that left out "material information with respect to the Proposed Transaction" that made the statement "false and misleading." Hopkins was seeking the filing of a new statement and to block Brookfield's acquisition.

The voluntary dismissal came after a federal judge issued an order to show cause on June 10, noting that the plaintiff "has not identified any concrete harm resulting from the lack of this information, and he h…

DETROIT — Automakers are expected to keep up a brisk pace of new-vehicle introductions over the next four years as the industry recovers from supply constraints and continues pivoting toward electric vehicles, according to the annual "Cars Wars" study of the U.S. product pipeline.

John Murphy, a senior auto analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said he expects automakers to launch roughly 245 new models over the next four years. That averages out to 61 per year — 50 percent higher than the average over the past two decades.

Of those new vehicles, 60 percent will be either electric or hybrid while 40 percent will be internal combustion.

"It is still very clear from our analysis that the advent of alternative powertrain vehicles, most notably battery-electric, is here, which is encouraging," the study said.

The new model mix from 2023 to 2026 is expected to be 78 percent crossovers and light trucks and 22 percent cars.

Murphy predicts …

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday declined to hear American Axle & Manufacturing Inc.'s bid to revive its patent on technology for quieting driveshaft noise, in a case that may have clarified the circumstances under which inventions warrant a patent.

The justices turned away American Axle's appeal of a lower court ruling that invalidated the Detroit-based company's patent in a legal fight with rival Neapco Holdings. Critics have said court precedent on patent eligibility has produced unpredictable decisions and undermined the U.S. patent process.

President Joe Biden's administration in May urged the high court to take up the case, saying American Axle's invention was a classic example of a patent-eligible industrial process.

The Supreme Court last addressed patent eligibility in a 2014 ruling called Alice Corp v. CLS Bank International that helped establish a two-part eligibility test. The test requires courts to determine if an invent…

Audi, the Volkwagen Group's luxury brand, started building a new plant in the northeast city of Changchun on Tuesday, bidding to ramp up output of electric vehicles in China, the biggest global market for such vehicles. 

The factory, set to come online by the end of 2024, will be dedicated to producing models based on Audi’s new Premium Platform Electric architecture designed for EVs, the company said. 

The plant will be capable of producing more than 150,000 vehicles a year, with the first three models to be marketed under Audi’s A6 e-tron and Q6 e-tron series, the German luxury brand added, without divulging additional details on the models.

The EV factory will be operated by a newly established EV partnership between Audi, Volkswagen Group and China FAW Group Corp. It will be joined by a new adjacent facility to assemble high-voltage batteries, Audi said. Audi produces four EV models in China, all crossovers: the e-tron and battery vers…

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…