Trade News

The nation's largest new-vehicle retailer has begun a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign aimed not at car shoppers, but at potential employees.

AutoNation's "Go Be Great" campaign began airing on TV networks including ESPN, CNBC and NBC last week, ahead of the Indianapolis 500 race on Sunday, May 29. AutoNation is a sponsor of Indy 500 driver Helio Castroneves. The race aired on NBC.

The campaign, which also appears in radio, print, online and social media, was developed by AutoNation, I Think Studios and Zimmerman Advertising.

Marc Cannon, AutoNation's chief customer experience officer, in an email to Automotive News did not specify how much the retailer plans to spend on the campaign.

Cannon said the ads highlight AutoNation employees, "the people who make us a great place to purchase, sell or service a vehicle."

AutoNation's jobs page last week showed 1,263 results for positions ranging from sales associate, finance and insurance…

Automotive News has added to its multimedia team and hired a social media editor.

Laura Harris joined Automotive News as a video reporter and anchor. The Chicago native last worked in South Carolina.

Harris, 26, is a graduate of the University of Missouri's journalism school and earned a master's degree at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Her background includes documentary storytelling and hosting her own show.

Marisa Marcinkowski has joined Automotive News as a social media editor. Marcinkowski, 28, brings expertise in social media, content creation and brand management.

Most recently she was brand manager for the Agency Hall & Hunter in Birmingham, Mich.

Marcinkowski also was social media manager for Crain Homes, managing its Instagram, Facebook and TikTok accounts and producing video content.

She will help develop and execute Automotive News' social media strategies.…

There may never be the perfect time to sell your dealership. Dealer principals who consider selling are motivated by many reasons; some are related to market conditions and others related to personal goals. Thus, it is rare in our industry to find a dealer who is 100 percent certain that (a) selling is the best option and (b) now is the best time to sell.

I won't give advice regarding personal reasons to sell, but the market conditions that exist right now have opened a window of opportunity that may not come around again for a while. If there is ever a time when the stars are lined up for sellers, that time is now.

Consider how the following factors affect buy-sell activity and dealership valuations, and how these factors may change in the next year.

Cost and access to capital: Buyers care about two things: the cost of borrowing capital and access to capital. When access is high and cost is low, more buyers are on the hunt. These conditions create a se…

Hyundai Motor Group was slow to jump on the hybrid-powertrain bandwagon, as rivals surged ahead with the fuel-sipping technology.

But the Korean lines are making up for lost time.

Hyundai Motor Co. is on an aggressive path to electrification that seeks 7 percent of the global battery-electric market by 2030.

In the U.S., Hyundai hopes half of its new-vehicle sales will come from EVs in that time frame.

But part of transforming itself into an electric automaker is offering a conventional hybrid-electric or plug-in hybrid variant for every model in its gasoline-powered lineup.

That approach represents a pivot for the automaker.

"What prompted the change was a significant shift in strategy" to go all electric, Jose Muñoz, Hyundai Motor Co.'s global COO, told Automotive News in an exclusive interview.

"We see hybrid buying habits as the next step toward electrification," he said.

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Comedian Jay Leno loves cars but says driving the Ford F-150 Lightning converted him into "a truck guy."

Leno tested one of Ford's new electric pickups — with CEO Jim Farley riding along — for an episode of his CNBC show, "Jay Leno's Garage," that will air this fall.

"As much as I love my internal combustion engines, this has sold me," Leno said on CNBC this month. "It's very impressive."

Leno said he was particularly impressed by the truck's quick acceleration, quiet cabin and ability to function as a generator during a power outage. To demonstrate the Pro Power Onboard feature, Leno said he had the lights for his interview with Farley plugged into the pickup instead of the electrical grid.

In a teaser video, Farley is shown telling Leno that the automaker had a number of internal disagreements about the Lightning.

"We were arguing about this truck more than almost any vehicle I've seen in my career," he said.

Ford originally appr…

CJ Moore, a former Autopilot software engineer for Tesla Inc., has left Apple's secretive autonomous-vehicle project after just seven months.

Moore's latest employer is Luminar, a company that makes lidar. Lidar is a technology used by most companies working on autonomous-driving systems — except Tesla, which uses only cameras for its Full Self-Driving feature and has labeled lidar a "crutch."

Moore's departure from Apple signals another shake-up for Project Titan, the tech company's meandering effort to develop an autonomous vehicle.

Meanwhile, Luminar has managed to hire top talent from around the tech and auto industries; it also added Taner Ozcelik, the founder of Nvidia's automotive business, last week.

"We're attracting the best leaders in the world in their fields to execute our vision and deliver on the future of transportation," Luminar CEO Austin Russell said in a statement.

Russell has dubbed himself the "…

TOKYO — Nissan Motor Co. has stopped taking U.S. preorders for its new Japanese-built Ariya electric crossover, as the critical EV launches into an industry beset by supply chain mayhem.

Nissan COO Ashwani Gupta said it is better to limit orders to what can realistically be delivered in a timely manner rather than potentially aggravate eager customers by making them wait too long.

"Every customer wants to have it, and we don't want customers to wait," Gupta said, adding that Nissan is simultaneously juggling high demand for the model from the U.S., Japan and Europe. The model will go on sale this fall in the United States.

"Ariya has been successfully accepted around the world," Gupta said. "Even in the United States, we had to request our customers to stop the orders."

The crossover is Nissan's second EV after the Leaf, which has grown long in the tooth. The automaker also faced delays in getting the vehicle's new p…

While Acura speeds toward an all-electric future, it's first putting some emphasis on what will be the brand's last gasoline-powered new vehicle: the return of the Integra as a 2023 model.

That's because premium Acura needs to fill the void left by its more conservative entry-level ILX compact sedan and grab the last remaining millennial buyers who still care about driving performance.

"Positioning the Integra is really an important thing, as a true gateway to the brand, and a worthy successor of the original Integra," Emile Korkor, assistant vice president of Acura national sales, told Automotive News.

"We are excited about what this latest generation is going to do for building a loyal customer base as we build toward electrification," Korkor said.

The Integra — a nameplate last offered in 2006 — gets a different personality from the ILX it replaces. The ILX was a much more conservative entry into the Acura brand, according to Stephanie Brinle…

Does anything around here ever really happen at lightning speed?

We've been telling you a lot lately about the lightning speed of change that's roiling the auto industry. And it's true, of course.

But in this week's issue, it's interesting to observe that rapid change in the car business isn't always a slam dunk. Auto companies, decision makers, investors, dealers, suppliers and — most of all — customers are a diverse bunch with a lot of different perspectives.

On Page 1, reporter Larry Vellequette captures the moment at Volkswagen, where Group CEO Herbert Diess is moving rapidly to establish a new SUV and truck brand in the U.S. called Scout. No details yet, but Diess hopes to have a site selected by year-end for a new multi-billion dollar manufacturing plant.

But — hold on. VW's American dealers are saying to the mighty automaker: Can you just pause for a minute to tell us where we fit into these big plans?

Their questions aren't going…

The automotive policy advisor with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago discusses the ways in which electric vehicles must reach parity with their conventional counterparts to ensure a widespread growth trajectory.

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Stellantis last week said it will spend $2.8 billion to retool a pair of assembly plants in Canada in preparation for making electric vehicles.

The automaker said it will turn its Windsor and Brampton plants into "flexible, multi-energy vehicle assembly facilities" and build two new R&D centers in Windsor focusing on EVs and battery technology.

The governments of Canada and the province of Ontario each will give Stellantis up to $398 million toward the projects. Stellantis, during contract negotiations with Unifor, committed to spend up to $1.1 billion to retool Windsor Assembly Plant, which builds Chrysler minivans.

Stellantis said the Windsor retooling will "diversify the company's capacity by introducing battery-electric or hybrid models to the production line to meet growing consumer demand for low-emissions vehicles."

It didn't say which new products will eventually be assembled in Windsor.

"We are i…