Trade News

Tesla Inc. has staged a remarkable comeback in terms of vehicle production in China, with May output more than tripling despite the electric carmaker only recently getting a Shanghai factory back up to speed after the city’s punishing lockdowns to contain COVID-19 outbreaks.

The U.S. electric vehicle maker produced 33,544 vehicles at its Shanghai plant last month, versus 10,757 in April, China Passenger Car Association data released Thursday showed. Shipments came in at 32,165 units, with 22,340 of those EVs exported to markets in Europe and the rest of Asia, and 9,825 of the vehicles going to domestic buyers.

Tesla has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep its factory in China up and running during Shanghai’s months-long lockdown to eliminate the spread of Covid-19. The facility, which is capable of making 2,100 EVs a day in normal times, was shut for three weeks through mid April and staff were only recently able to resume double shifts, working around the cl…

Digital auto retail and finance platform AutoFi tapped Santander Consumer USA head of pricing and strategy Josh Baer as its president.

Baer, whose resume also includes more than a decade at Capital One, will run AutoFi's lender and enterprise segments. AutoFi on Thurday said he will focus on speeding growth in those businesses with "transformative retail and financing experiences" which will help clients meet consumer preferences.

AutoFi's software allows consumers to browse dealership inventory and see financing offers tailored to the dealership's preferences. It handled more than 1 million financing requests to lenders and was associated with more than $3 billion in sales last year.

"AutoFi is a pioneer in the digitization of the auto industry," Baer said in a statement Thursday. "The company is uniquely positioned with manufacturers, retailers, and lenders to deliver digital experiences that will drive the future of the market. The opportunity to shap…

Volkswagen Group is offering compensation to employees at a car assembly plant in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, if they agree to quit voluntarily.

The offer of financial compensation and medical insurance until the end of 2022 is available to about 200 people working at the plant, a VW spokesperson said.

The VW Taos compact crossover, along with the Skoda Octavia, Karoq and Kodiaq models, are produced at Nizhny Novgorod.

VW said in March that production at its Kaluga and Nizhny Novgorod sites would be suspended until further notice because of Western sanctions, and vehicle exports to Russia would be stopped with immediate effect.

While VW owns its Kaluga plant directly, employing around 4,200 workers there, it does not own the Nizhny Novgorod plant but has a contractual agreement with owner GAZ Group to assemble its models there.

The U.S. treasury department in January shortened two licenses for GAZ Group, which has been sanctioned since 2018 …

Mercedes-Benz expects electric vehicles to account for about half of its U.S. sales by 2030, executives revealed at the brand's national dealer meeting this month.

The German luxury marque is in the early days of an EV product offensive that will bring a handful of zero-emission models over the next year.

That effort will be critical to Mercedes' aspirations of delivering about 350,000 vehicles in the U.S. next year, according to a retailer who attended the event.

Mercedes aims to sell up to 45,000 EQ-branded electric vehicles in 2023, said the dealer, who asked not to be identified. In contrast, Mercedes sold 352,129 units in 2019, before the pandemic and a global supply chain crisis kneecapped production industry-wide.

Mercedes launched its all-electric EQ subbrand with the debut of a battery-powered S-Class sedan late last summer. This year, the automaker will unleash three EV models in the U.S., including the EQB compact crossover, EQE midsiz…

Nissan Motor Co.'s second-bestselling model — the Altima midsize sedan — is being freshened with an updated design, more standard safety features and new technology.

The 2023 Nissan Altima will go on sale in the fall. Pricing was not disclosed.

Nissan sold 38,295 Altimas in the U.S. during the first quarter, up 20 percent from a year earlier.

The updated Altima is offered with two four-cylinder powerplants — a 2.0-liter Variable Compression Turbo or a 2.5-liter double-overhead-camshaft engine.

The VC-Turbo, available on the Altima SR front-wheel-drive model, provides the acceleration of a V-6 engine with the fuel economy of a four-cylinder.

The front fascia features an updated interpretation of Nissan's V-Motion grille that adopts the redesigned brand logo, Nissan said. The SR trims sport a "black chrome" grille finish and a unique grille design.

Other exterior elements include now standard LED headlights with integrated turn signa…

PARIS -- The auto industry’s main lobbying group, ACEA, said it was "concerned" that the European Parliament had rejected efforts to weaken a 100 percent reduction in CO2 emissions from new cars from 2035, essentially outlawing sales of internal-combustion engines in the bloc after that date.

"Given that the transformation of the sector is dependent on many external factors which are not fully in its hands, ACEA is concerned that MEPs voted to set in stone a minus 100 percent CO2 target for 2035," the group said in a statement on Thursday, following Wednesday night’s vote by the parliament.

ACEA expressed general support for the target, however, and called for a halfway progress report to determine post-2030 targets

"Such a review will first of all have to evaluate whether the deployment of charging infrastructure and the availability of raw materials for battery production will be able to match the continued steep ramp-up of battery-elec…

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday said it is proposing a rule that would set minimum standards and requirements for federally funded electric vehicle charging stations.

The standards will help ensure that a national EV charging network is accessible, user-friendly and interoperable among different charging companies and across a broad range of vehicles, White House and administration officials said.

"These new standards will make sure that these chargers can be used by everyone — no matter what car you drive, where you live or how you pay," Mitch Landrieu, the White House's infrastructure implementation coordinator, said during a press call.

The Federal Highway Administration said the proposed rule is expected to publish in the Federal Register next week. A final rule may be published after public comments are reviewed.

The proposal comes as the federal government moves forward on a plan to build a nationwide network of EV chargin…

SHANGHAI -- Tesla Inc. was proceeding with an online hiring event in China on Thursday and added two dozen new job postings for the country, a week after CEO Elon Musk threatened job cuts at the automaker and said the company was "overstaffed" in some areas.

Tesla has 224 current openings in China for managers and engineers under that category, according to a separate post on its WeChat account, 24 of which were newly posted on Thursday.

Among the posted positions are managers and engineers to supervise the operation of its 6,000-ton die casting machinery known as Giga Press, one of the world's biggest.

Tesla regularly holds such hiring events online in China, with the latest one held in May for summer interns.

Tesla's China revenue more than doubled in 2021 from a year ago, contributing to a quarter of the total income for the U.S. automaker.

The Shanghai plant, which manufactures Model 3 and Model Ys for domestic sale and export, produc…

Jaguar Land Rover said it will integrate geolocation program What3words into more than 350,000 existing vehicles to streamline in-vehicle navigation.

Only vehicles with the Pivi Pro infotainment system will be able to download the update, and all new vehicles with the system will include What3words. The Jaguar F-Type, which utilizes a different infotainment system, will be excluded.

The update, announced Thursday, follows the company's February release of Amazon Alexa for nearly 200,000 of its vehicles. Unlike that rollout, What3words will not require an online pack subscription, said Frankie Cowan, public relations manager for What3words.

The navigation software had been previously implemented in a number of new Land Rover vehicles that were chosen "semi-randomly," Cowan said. The software has been adopted by other brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Subaru, but Jaguar Land Rover will be the first to implement the system into vehicles already on the road.<…

HONG KONG -- China's Didi is in talks with state-backed Sinomach Automobile to buy a third of its electric-vehicle unit, two sources said, signalling the ride-hailer's regulatory troubles are in the rear view mirror as it focuses on growth.

The deal, if completed, would accelerate Didi Global Inc.'s strategic expansion in the world's largest EV market and help cushion the impact of the pandemic on its core ride-hailing business.

Scrutiny from Beijing for suspected violation of data security has forced Didi to pursue a delisting from New York and rein in its business but there are signs of a thaw. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that regulators are set to conclude their investigations into the company.

Didi aims to acquire shares in small automaker Sinomach Zhijun Automobile from minority shareholders and inject new capital into the company, one of the sources told Reuters. A stake of that proportion would cost Didi more than 1 billion yuan ($…

BEIJING - Baidu's electric vehicle arm Jidu Auto on Wednesday launched a "robot" concept car, the first vehicle to be revealed by a Chinese internet company.

The concept, which is free of door handles and can be fully controlled via voice recognition, was launched through an online press conference held on Baidu's metaverse-themed app Xirang.

Jidu, an EV venture controlled by Baidu and co-funded by Chinese automaker Geely, plans to mass produce the model, which would be 90 percent similar to the concept car, in 2023.

The 'robot' EVs will possess autonomous Level 4 capabilities that need no human intervention as well as utilize Qualcomm's 8295 chips, which will enable users to access voice assistance offline when internet connection is poor. 

Baidu's EV ambitions come as tech companies around the world race to develop smart cars after Tesla Inc.'s success in commercializing electric vehicles.

Besides equipping the vehicle with autonom…

WASHINGTON — Ford Motor Co., along with BMW Group, Honda, Volkswagen and Volvo Cars, on Tuesday filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit to support California and defend the EPA's reinstatement of a waiver that restored the state's authority to limit vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

The action comes after a group of 17 Republican attorneys general last month sued the EPA over its decision to reissue the waiver allowing California to set its own auto tailpipe rules and zero-emission vehicle mandates that are more stringent than federal standards.

"Two years ago, after EPA relaxed federal greenhouse gas emission standards, Ford and four other automakers entered into settlement agreements with California to abide by GHG emission standards that were stricter than EPA's then-relaxed standards," Steven Croley, Ford's chief policy officer, said on a press call Tuesday. "We believe that was right then, and we think so today."

General Motors, which aspi…