Trade News

Tesla has stopped taking orders for its upcoming Cybertruck pickup truck outside of North America, according to the automaker's official website.

The automaker is only taking reservations for the Cybertruck in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the website showed.

Tesla declined to comment on the matter.

CEO Elon Musk has said Tesla will start production of the Cybertruck next year at its plant in Austin, Texas.

"We have more orders of the first Cybertrucks than we could possibly fulfil for three years after the start of production," Musk said last week at the FT Future of the Car 2022 conference.

He also said Tesla could stop taking orders as demand for some of its vehicles exceeds production "to a ridiculous degree."

Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck in 2019. It previously aimed to begin production late this year but has pushed back the plan to the first quarter of 2023.

Dealership marketing company AutoWeb says its board will explore strategic alternatives for the company, including a potential sale or restructuring, as "substantial doubt" exists about its ability to continue as a going concern.

The Tampa, Fla.-based company said Monday that a special board committee will evaluate strategic alternatives, including obtaining new debt or equity funding; selling the company or assets; and restructuring, including through federal bankruptcy protection.

AutoWeb said in a statement that its current cash and liquidity situation led management to determine "that it has substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of one year" after its first-quarter financial statements were issued.

"The company's ability to continue as a going concern is contingent upon the successful execution of strategic alternatives and management's near-term operating plans," according to the release. "There ca…

Carvana Co. is under scrutiny once more, this time in Illinois, where state officials last week suspended the online used-vehicle retailer's license to sell cars and trucks.

Illinois Secretary of State Police temporarily blocked Carvana's dealer license on May 10 because the company failed to properly transfer titles for vehicles it sold and misused issuing out-of-state temporary registration permits, said Henry Haupt, an Illinois Secretary of State spokesman.

The Secretary of State's police department opened an investigation into consumer complaints about Carvana in February, Haupt told Automotive News. The investigation spans about 90 signed complaints, Haupt said. He said he couldn't provide an exact date as to when Carvana might see the suspension lifted.

Carvana will need to "resolve the issues at hand" before that can happen, Haupt said.

A Carvana spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Carvana has complia…

The Center for Automotive Diversity, Equity & Inclusion will host its fifth annual DE&I summit, Rev Up 2030, on Tuesday, May 24, at the Michigan State University Management Education Center in Troy, Mich.

The event will feature industry experts, panel discussions and case studies around the theme "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Staying the Course."

Telva McGruder, chief diversity officer at General Motors, will deliver the keynote address. Other speakers include leaders and DE&I experts from American Axle and Manufacturing, AutoZone, BorgWarner, Brose, Cruise, Deloitte, Eaton, Lear, Liberty Mutual, Martinrea, Nemak, Nexteer, Schaltbau North America, Standard Motor Products, Stellantis, Vitesco Technologies and Walser Automotive Group.

The event will also feature a hands-on workshop that will focus on how to address pushback and deal with difficult conversations in the workplace.

"This in-person workshop will equip DEI champions, HR t…

WASHINGTON — A group of 17 Republican attorneys general is suing the EPA over its decision to reissue a waiver allowing California to set its own auto tailpipe rules and zero-emission vehicle mandates that are more stringent than federal standards.

The attorneys general, led by Ohio's Dave Yost, allege the Clean Air Act waiver violates the Constitution's equal sovereignty doctrine.

In addition to Yost, officials from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and West Virginia have joined the federal lawsuit, which was filed last week.

The EPA in March reinstated the waiver and withdrew its portion of the interpretation of the Clean Air Act that would prohibit other states from adopting California's more stringent vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards.

The action was driven by President Joe Biden's executive order in January 2021 that directe…

Tesla Inc. customers might love the carmakers’ nifty keyless entry system, but one cybersecurity researcher has demonstrated how the same technology could allow thieves to drive off with certain models of the electric vehicles.

A hack effective on the popular S and Y Tesla cars would allow a thief to unlock a vehicle, start the electric motor and speed away, according to Sultan Qasim Khan, principal security consultant at the Manchester, UK-based security firm NCC Group. By redirecting communications between a car owner’s mobile phone, or key fob, and the car, outsiders can fool the entry system into thinking the owner is located physically near the vehicle.

The hack, Khan said, isn’t specific to Tesla, though he demonstrated the technique to Bloomberg News on one of its car models.

Rather, it’s the result of his tinkering with Tesla’s keyless entry system, which relies on what’s known as a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol.

There’s no evidence …

Executive Editor Jamie Butters gives you the top headlines talks about why buyers are aggressively acquiring dealerships, and will continue to do so in the near term, with Presidio Group President George Karolis.

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General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler parent Stellantis said on Sunday they are reinstating a requirement that employees wear masks in southeastern Michigan where there are high levels of COVID-19.

The Detroit 3 automakers said in early March they would allow auto workers to stop wearing masks at workplaces where U.S. health officials said it was safe to do so.

That month, the automakers said they would adopt revised guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) allowing workers at U.S. facilities to not wear masks regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status, if those facilities were not in high-risk counties.

The masking guidelines issued in February shifted from a focus on the rate of COVID-19 transmission to monitoring local hospitalizations, hospital capacity and infection rates.

Six counties in southeastern Michigan -- including Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw -- are again listed by the CDC as having high COVID-19 …

BERLIN -- Audi is pausing production of key models at one of its German factories because of supply chain problems.

Production of the A4, A5 and A8 cars in Neckarsulm will be suspended from May 16 to May 20, Audi said.

The pause results from the war in Ukraine, the ongoing semiconductor shortage, and COVID-19 lockdowns in China, the automaker said.

The supply situation "remains volatile and short-term changes are always possible," an Audi spokesman told Automoitve News Europe by email.

The A6/A7 model family will continue to be manufactured in Neckarsulm as usual. That also applies to the sports cars R8 and E-Tron GT, which are built at the Boellinger Hoefe site in Heilbronn, according to the spokesperson.

Audi has also extended short time working for employees at its Neckarsulm and Ingolstadt sites until May 31 because of supply chain difficulties.

Renault will sell its majority stake in AvtoVAZ to a Russian science institute, the automaker said on Monday, adding that the deal included a six-year option to buy back the stake.

The Western automaker most exposed to the Russian market said that its holding of nearly 67.69 percent in AvtoVAZ would be sold to the Russian Central Research and Development Automobile and Engine Institute, called Nami.

"The closing of these transactions is not subject to any conditions, and all required approvals have been obtained," Renault said in a statement.

Its 100 percent shares in Renault Russia will go to the city of Moscow.

"Today, we have taken a difficult but necessary decision, and we are making a responsible choice towards our 45,000 employees in Russia," CEO Luca de Meo said in the statement.

The move preserved the group's performance and its ability to return to the country in the future in a different context, he added.

In March, Renau…

Self-driving truck developers are promising they'll launch commercial service as soon as next year. One of the key remaining engineering hurdles involves safely coaxing these 80,000-pound robots to the side of the road when things don't go according to plan.

As driverless-deployment timelines draw nearer, many of the leading companies are focused on perfecting this particular fail-safe maneuver — even more than on expanding their routes or solving other edge-case scenarios.

"We can talk until we're blue in the face about technology capabilities and the maneuvers a truck can handle and the way it interacts with traffic and all that stuff," said Don Burnette, CEO and co-founder of Kodiak Robotics. "But at the end of the day, in order to launch this technology safely, when there is something that isn't quite right, there has to be that capability to then safely pull the truck over to the side of the road."

For a variety of reasons, t…

For the first time in months, North American assembly plants did not add vehicles to their long list of production schedule cuts caused by the global microchip shortage, according to the latest weekly estimate by AutoForecast Solutions.

Factories in Europe, China, South America, the Middle East and Africa also held firm on their production plans, AFS reports. But the global total of vehicle cuts nonetheless rose by about 26,400 units because of chip shortages affecting assembly lines in Asia, outside of China.

Despite the sudden leveling off, after a year and a half of production trims, the shortage is still widely expected to continue denting schedules for the remainder of the year — and beyond.

“The supply of automotive-grade semiconductors continues to hamper global output of trucks and passenger cars, even if the short-term losses do not seem to reflect this slowdown,” Sam Fiorani, AFS vice president of global vehicle forecasting, said in an email.<…