Trade News

TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp. may be hoping to rack up record vehicle output for this fiscal year. But the unrelenting pandemic and global supply chain chaos are steadily chipping away at its production targets, setting back the world's biggest automaker at least some 400,000 vehicles from its goal.

Toyota's latest dial-down came Wednesday, June 22, when the Japanese carmaker cut its original worldwide production schedule for the month of July by 50,000 vehicles to 800,000.

The slowdown expands Toyota's tally of lost production to about 400,000 vehicles in the fiscal year that started April 1.

Despite the fallback, Toyota said it is keeping its production goal unchanged at 9.7 million vehicles for the full fiscal year, an all-time high if actually achieved.

But the automaker has been missing the lower production targets as well. The pace suggests it may be hard for Toyota to reach its record goal.

It had planne…

TOYOTA CITY, Japan — Imagine zipping down the highway of tomorrow in a self-driving pod car. You're on a long-haul, cross-country trip; you don't have time to stop for a restaurant.

With the push of a button, the meal is ordered. Before long, a drone catches up to your speeding vehicle. It hovers near a roof portal, and in comes a boxed lunch of club sandwiches.

This vision for meals on wheels is far out, but suppliers are conceptualizing, developing and gearing up to produce such products and technologies. In Japan, Toyota Boshoku Corp., one of the world's biggest auto suppliers, sees innovations such as this, and dozens of others, as a road to growth.

If conventional wisdom holds, the coming age of autonomous ride-sharing and robotaxis spells big challenges for automakers and parts suppliers alike. With more people hailing rides and being chauffeured around, fewer will be buying their own cars. Vehicle sales as we know them could shift into reverse.<…

European auto factories had to cut 25,000 more vehicles out of their production schedules last week because of the worldwide shortage of microchips, and North American producers cut a similar number, according to the latest report on the situation by AutoForecast Solutions.

At the same time, plants in Asia outside of China have reduced production plans by more than 23,000 vehicles, according to AFS, which has been monitoring the impact of the chip shortage since it emerged in early 2021.

AFS now forecasts that automakers will lose more than 3.1 million vehicles from their global 2022 plans because of inadequate chip availability — separate from other supply chain problems the industry may be dealing with. 

That forecast reveals a gradual worsening of the impact this year, despite hopes that the situation was improving. The forecast has added 800,000 vehicles to the full-year tally in just the last 60 days.

Source: AutoForecast Solutions Inc…

The head of global public policy at traffic analytics company Inrix details a new partnership with General Motors which combines data from cars on the road with other information to provide insights on road safety and help cities thwart trouble spots.

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Dealership technology giant CDK Global is getting out of the cookie business.

CDK is closing Fresh Beginnings, a bakery that Hugh Hathcock and his wife, Judy, started in 1985 as a source of gourmet gifts to help his dealership clients build relationships with their customers.

CDK acquired the bakery in 2018 when it bought eLead1One, a provider of customer relationship management software to dealerships, from Hathcock for more than $500 million.

Fresh Beginnings, based in Valdosta, Ga., shipped cookies, brownies, pretzels and chocolate-covered confections to customers across the U.S.

It produced some 45 million cookies around Christmas alone, Automotive News said in a 2019 story about Hathcock's newest automotive venture, ReconVelocity.

A notice on the Fresh Beginnings website said that the company — which also used the name Tincredible Treats — was canceling orders placed after June 14 and ceasing operations Thursday, June 30.

"As…

A Northern Pacific rattlesnake hitched a ride inside a Ferrari for nearly 300 miles across western Canada before slithering out into the showroom of the brand's dealership in Vancouver.

Employees first mistook the snake for a harmless garter and named it Enzo in honor of Ferrari's founder and the reptile's apparent "need for speed," the Wildlife Rescue Association of British Columbia said in a Facebook video. But after experts identified the snake as venomous, a nearby animal hospital whisked it away and discovered that it had been microchipped as part of a research project.

Enzo was given a decidedly less exotic ride back to its home near Osoyoos, British Columbia. Dr. Adrian Walton of the Dewdney Animal Hospital put the snake in a bucket in the bed of his Toyota Tacoma and documented the return trip in another video. It was released in the exact spot where researchers had last tracked it 12 days earlier.

Enzo's road trip started at a retreat for Ferr…

A Tesla Model S that had been totaled in a crash suddenly ignited after sitting in a California junkyard for three weeks, and firefighters struggled to put out the 3,000-degree flames for more than an hour.

Firefighters thought they had extinguished the blaze multiple times, only for the battery pack to rekindle, even after junkyard workers helped turn the car on its side to allow for spraying the battery directly, The Washington Post reported last week. Finally, crews used a tractor to dig a water-filled pit and submerge the car.

A spokesman for the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District said the effort required 4,500 gallons of water — about the same amount used to put out a typical building fire — and that officials didn't know why the car "spontaneously caught fire."

It was the first time the department had battled a burning Tesla, though such occurrences are expected to be more common as electric vehicle sales increase.

"This is a whole new an…

The U.S. dealership buy-sell market so far is tracking at a similar pace to a busy 2021, widely considered the biggest year for store acquisitions in history.

Data compiled by buy-sell experts and Automotive News for this year's first quarter showed that deal-making has largely continued its momentum.

Kerrigan Advisors, a sell-side firm in Incline Village, Nev., estimated in its latest Blue Sky Report that dealership transactions in the first three months of 2022 increased 9.1 percent to 72. Transactions, as counted by Kerrigan Advisors, can be single- or multiple-store deals.

Kerrigan Advisors estimated that 22 multiple-dealership transactions occurred in the first quarter, representing 31 percent of the buy-sell market.

Haig Partners, a buy-sell firm in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., estimated in its latest Haig Report that 86 dealerships sold during the first quarter, down 13 percent from 99 stores sold in the same period i…

BMW's redesigned 2023 7 Series has upped the ante on in-vehicle entertainment with an optional Theater Screen system that transforms the rear compartment into a media room on wheels. A 31-inch multimedia display delivers content in 8K resolution and runs on the Amazon Fire TV operating system. The screen lies flat against the sedan's panoramic sunroof when not in use. But at the press of a button, it drops down behind the front-seat backrests. A pair of electric motors control the screen's orientation, allowing it to fold and slide back and forth on articulated rails.

The display has three viewing angles that can be controlled with a 5.5-inch touch screen built into the rear doors. When the screen is in use, shades for the side and rear windows and the panoramic sunroof are closed, and ambient lighting in the rear is dimmed. A 36-speaker audio system packs a 1,965-watt amplifier and uses exciters in the seats with "magnetically controlled vibrations" to improve bass…

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Volkswagen showroom that shares a home with Del Grande Dealer Group's headquarters features a mural of surfers in nearby Santa Cruz, hand-painted columns by a local artist and classic VW Beetle and microvan models with their beachy, Northern California vibe.

But don't be fooled by the casual atmosphere.

Like its high-tech neighbors in the heart of Silicon Valley, Del Grande means business. And that means satisfying sky-high expectations of customers and employees by nurturing a team culture that encourages soft skills such as caring and hard ones including financial results.

Silicon Valley is one of the most competitive job markets in the country. Operating a traditionally low-margin retail business in such an environment isn't easy.

Living expenses are high, so Del Grande offers salaries that meet or beat the market's going rate — plus benefits, training programs and employee appreciation through in-work events and off-si…

Genesis is pushing back the launch of the Electrified G80 sedan after a planned spring showroom debut. The automaker didn't disclose the reason but said more details about pricing and the on-sale date will not be available until late summer or early fall.

As recently as Wednesday, June 22, Genesis' website said the electric sedan was "coming spring 2022." It is being assembled at a plant in Ulsan, South Korea, alongside the standard G80 sedan and GV80 crossover.

The global microchip shortage and other supply chain bottlenecks have disrupted multiple product launches and vehicle availability around the world. They have had an impact more recently in Asia, notably China, where stringent COVID controls have upended output for automakers and suppliers.

The Electrified G80 will come with all-wheel drive only and two 136-kilowatt electric motors — one at the front and one at the rear — that are powered by an 87.2-kilowatt-hour battery. Combined output will be…