Trade News

HOLLAND, Mich. — For good reason, much has been made of the new high-voltage battery systems automakers and suppliers have designed to power the next generation of electric vehicles.

But don't forget about the humble 12-volt battery.

Low-voltage batteries remain a fixture in battery-electric vehicles, helping to power everything from locks and lights to engine control units. As the name would suggest, the batteries make the vehicle's low-voltage systems run even as high-voltage battery packs propel the vehicle.

But like the rest of the industry, suppliers of low-voltage batteries have been innovating to keep up with the changing needs of their automaker customers. Look no further than Clarios, the world's largest supplier of low-voltage batteries and whose batteries are in about 1 in every 3 vehicles on global roadways today.

The company's factory in Holland, Mich., on the west side of the state, has become a hub of sorts for Clarios' emerging l…

Automakers removed 27,700 more vehicles from their production plans worldwide because of the microchip shortage last week, largely driven by cuts in Asia, according to the latest estimate by AutoForecast Solutions.

That figure represents a sharp reduction from last week, when AFS added more than 200,000 vehicles to its running tally of the number of vehicles lost because of the semiconductor shortage. About 2.26 million vehicles have been eliminated so far this year.

About 25,500 vehicles at plants in Asia outside of China were added to the year-to-date total over the last week, with about 2,200 lost in North America. 

No further microchip-related cuts were reported in Europe, China, South America, the Middle East or Africa during the last week. Still, vehicles continue to be axed for other reasons, particularly in China, where COVID-19 restrictions have hampered the industry in recent weeks and months.

“Lowered output in China has been larg…

A year and a half in, General Motors' new delivery and logistics entity, BrightDrop, has outlined plans for at least two electric delivery vans, logged more than 25,000 orders from e-commerce heavyweights including FedEx Express and Walmart, and recruited several executives from the advanced autonomous technology, software and robotics sectors.

"The demand for electric vehicles [is] only growing to replace and supplement the existing fleet that's out there," Rachad Youssef, BrightDrop's chief product officer, told Automotive News. "The key to our success is to not solve the problem by simply putting more vehicles on the road, but to really come up with more efficient systems. How would you redesign delivery if you were to dream it up today, knowing the impact and knowing the consumer demand that exists?"

BrightDrop is a key piece of GM's electrification strategy and of the automaker's goal to double its annual revenue to about $280 billion by …

The Internet of Things revolution is powered by a combination of connectivity, sensing and intelligence, enabling formerly dumb "things" such as vehicles to understand and respond to their environment, driving improvements in efficiency and safety.

The widespread adoption of connectivity, sensing and intelligence in millions of vehicles not only helps to make them individually safer and more efficient, but it also has the secondary effect of generating huge volumes of connected-car datasets, providing insight on road and road-adjacent situations wherever connected cars are driven.

In the last few years, automakers have become wise to this largely untapped opportunity, and a range of companies that offer data ingestion platforms and marketplaces have emerged, including Otonomo, Here and Wejo. These platforms support automakers by normalizing datasets among brands, enriching them with location context and facilitating access to a wide range of c…

Kia's dealership network will now have access to a more modern, tech-based service lane platform via a partnership with Affinitiv, a software firm specializing in automotive solutions.

The new digital platform, called Ultimate Service Lane, will help Kia dealers simplify the service lane process, prioritize efficiency and profitability as well as keep the customer connected throughout the service experience.

Service managers will be able to leverage the tool to assign the right technician to each job and keep tighter control over the time spent on individual appointments. It will also assist in standardizing the vehicle inspection process and allocating the proper billable hours to each repair order.

The digital solution also aligns the service side of the dealership with consumers' demand for more transparency during vehicle inspections and services as well as the desire to interact more in a digital environment.

Custo…

DETROIT — The Ford Bronco was billed as a thorn in the side of the Jeep Wrangler that would challenge the venerable model for off-road bragging rights ahead of its release a year ago.

It's still early, but the Bronco's long- awaited return appears to have expanded the segment instead of just eating into the Wrangler's base. There looks to be room for more than one trail cruiser in the SUV market.

Even as the Bronco steadily carves out its own space, the Wrangler has been able to maintain its market share in the face of its first direct competition in years, according to an S&P Global Mobility report. The Bronco's share has climbed to as high as 6 percent at times, S&P said, while the Wrangler continues to account for 7 to 9 percent of the compact SUV segment as defined by S&P.

The Wrangler was the Bronco's most conquested vehicle during the nine-month period the study examined, from July 2021 through March 2022. In February, the Wrangler ma…

"Someday" has a funny way of becoming "now" a lot faster than you expect.

Like a number of car shoppers who are on the fence about electric vehicles, I've been thinking: "Someday, I'll take the EV plunge."

I figured I would get one more traditional ICE car — maybe something as silly and/or fun as my current BMW 230i convertible — after the lease runs out next month. That would give me some time to pick and choose from the flood of EVs coming in the future product pipeline over the next few years. Surely EV prices will come down, ranges will go up, Washington will finally get its act together on longer-term federal EV subsidies and the charging network will be more robust.

Someday.

The last three weeks have changed my mind. I'm in the market for an EV. Now.

As evidenced by the ongoing rise in EV registrations, I bet there are a lot of consumers like me.

The week of Memorial Day, I and dozens of o…

TrueCar CEO Mike Darrow said the company hopes to expand its TrueCar+ digital sales tool into additional markets by the third quarter, with used vehicles likely expanding faster than new vehicles.

Darrow told Automotive News on Friday that the goal is to have used vehicles available nationwide through TrueCar+ early in 2023 and new vehicles available in three to four more markets outside of Florida along the East Coast by the end of this year.

And TrueCar's acquisition this month of digital retailing provider Digital Motors already has produced new features for TrueCar's own online sales platform.

The integration of Digital Motors' technology comes as TrueCar, of Santa Monica, Calif., aims to expand the reach of its TrueCar+ tool, which allows consumers to choose a vehicle, set up financing, add protection products, arrange delivery and complete a transaction all primarily within TrueCar's platform. It started as a pilot in Tampa, Fl…

VW's Scott Keogh says automakers and dealers are ready for bumps in the economy. Kia hopes to stir up more buyers with new EV models. Volvo shuffles its executive ranks. Tesla's Elon Musk is hit with a lawsuit. Plus, a conversation with Shawn Butler of Bristol Honda in Tennessee.

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Indexes from J.D. Power and Black Book both show that wholesale used-vehicle prices grew in May, as is typical in the spring selling season. But the growth was muted, another indication that prices are not surging on the scale they did in 2021.

J.D. Power's Used Vehicle Price Index stood at 218.2 in May, up nearly 2.1 percent from April.

Last year was a different story: The index showed wholesale prices rose 6.9 percent in May 2021 from April 2021.

Prices remain up 20.4 percent year over year, according to J.D. Power's index.

Black Book index

Black Book's Used Vehicle Retention Index rose 1.8 percent from April to May, its first tick up since January.

The index reached 188.8 points in May, 3.4 points higher than its April level, Black Book said June 9. The May index number is up 18.3 percent from May 2021 and up a whopping 78.1 percent from May 2020.

Wholesale prices were in a bit of a cooldown in February, March and April, ac…

Volvo Cars broke ground Friday on a new technical center specifically for electric vehicles at its headquarters in Mahwah, N.J.

The 12,800-square-foot facility is expected to open next March and will be used to train dealership technicians from the U.S., Canada and South America.

Anders Gustafsson, Volvo's senior vice president of the Americas and president of Volvo Car USA, declined to say how much the automaker is investing in the new training center, but indicated it is a major project. The center will be located on a 20-acre parcel of land and have 50 charging stations. Some of those charging stations could eventually be made available to the public.

Gustafsson, speaking via video with Automotive News, said the training center is vital to Volvo's plans to transition to an all-EV future.

The company's 280 U.S. dealerships, he said, are short roughly 200 technicians.

"We need to attract new technicians. Th…

Artificial intelligence company CarBeast launched a new app on Thursday that diagnoses automobile problems and warns users of future repair and maintenance costs for $.99 per vehicle per year.

CarBeast data scientist Kunal Joshi told Automotive News that the app uses hundreds of millions of vehicle service records and technology from Ubiquiti Inc. to analyze current needs and forecast future repair and maintenance issues. In a statement, CarBeast, of Ann Arbor, Mich., said the app is constantly being updated with new data to help predict defects.

The app includes two features according to the statement: CarBeast Insight and CarBeast Foresight. CarBeast Insight allows users to enter in the problem their vehicle is experiencing and the app will search for records of similar cases and recommend potential repairs. CarBeast Foresight uses records of vehicles of similar year, make and model to provide users with potential future costs and repairs that may need to be …