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Mr. October plans to be actively involved in the dealership's operation — so much so that he intends to buy a home nearby and live there part time.

"I'll have a place here probably within 12 months," Jackson, 75, told The News & Observer at the grand opening of Reggie Jackson Airport Honda in Raleigh at the end of April. "I'll purchase a condo or get an apartment or something. Rick had a conversation with me and said, 'Reggie, you can do what you want ... but you should consider sticking to it. Stay in the deal.' I said, 'I'm going to take your advice. You can count on me to stick to it and to be a person that'll be part of the community.' "

Jackson, a five-time World Series champion with the Oakland Athletics and New York Yankees, has owned a stake in a Hendrick Chevrolet dealership in Naples, Fla., since 2015. He now plans to make a full leap into auto retailing with the 75,000-square-foot Honda store that bears his name.

"I think Rick and I talk…

The partner in McKinsey & Co.’s Center for Future Mobility explores the opportunity and risks for automakers in an EV-dominant future and the urgency needed in accelerating that transition.

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Just as Swedish electric vehicle maker Polestar prepares to go public, the financial market is looking uncertain.

When Polestar revealed plans last fall to go public, interest in EV stocks was hot as investors hoped to get in early on the next Tesla.

The exuberance sent some company valuations into overdrive, creating what some see as a stock market bubble. Luxury EV maker Lucid Group commanded a $42 billion valuation after it went public in July, and in November, electric utility-vehicle maker Rivian Automotive's initial public offering had a $66.5 billion valuation.

"Everyone's trying to invest in the next Tesla," Morningstar equities analyst David Whiston said. "But there's only one Elon Musk and he's already spoken for."

But now that Polestar prepares to begin trading on the Nasdaq next month, the EV stock bubble is at risk of popping under the twin threats of rising interest rates and looming economic recession.<…

The first place many consumers encounter self-driving vehicles will not necessarily be in their driveways.

They might instead see autonomy at work in vehicles that haul away their trash or deliver their mail.

That's the premise of a new collaboration between Oshkosh Corp. and Robotic Research Inc., two companies that intend to focus on automating garbage trucks, fire engines and other specialty vehicles.

Competitors are pursuing deployment of robotaxis and long-haul autonomous trucks, but Oshkosh and Robotic Research believe vehicles operating at low speeds on repeatable routes in limited areas make for ideal first applications of autonomy.

Human safety operators may be considered constraints in those other operations, but in these work trucks, they're a key asset: They can monitor automated systems while performing other jobs.

"We're going to have the safety driver for quite a while, so let's just face t…

Stellantis challenged groups of college students to devise apps that use real-time vehicle data to "gamify" driving.

The April "hackathon" in Detroit yielded numerous creations meant to encourage safer behavior behind the wheel and make commutes more engaging.

The winning team was awarded $15,000 for an app that dishes out points for safe driving techniques, while deducting points for riskier behaviors. The idea is that users could compare their performance with other drivers and leverage high scores to get discounts for vehicle service, merchandise and insurance.

Watching the projects come together gave Stellantis a view of perspectives and ideas that the company can layer into its plans, said Charlie Cross, Stellantis' head of connected services.

"We gave them this challenge and said we have all of this data we can get from vehicles — we have all these different capabilities," Cross told Automotive News. "Basically…

Tesla Inc. sued a former engineer claiming he illegally transferred confidential information on its supercomputer technology to his own computer and turned over a “dummy” laptop for inspection to cover up the theft.

Tesla is developing an in-house supercomputer, dubbed Project Dojo, to deal with massive amounts of data, including video from Tesla cars, and using it to create autonomous driving software. Alexander Yatskov was hired in January as a thermal engineer to help design cooling systems for the computer, which generates a lot of heat, Tesla said in the complaint.

“These thermal designs and data are confidential and tightly guarded within Tesla,” the electric-car maker said.

But Tesla said Yatskov admitted to downloading confidential information from his Tesla devices to his personal devices, after he was confronted. He turned over a “dummy” computer for inspection by Tesla to try and cover his tracks, the company said.

Yatskov quit on May 2…

A dealership's employee diversification strategy can't be just empty words. It requires an intentional mindset from leadership to set the tone for the rest of an organization, said Frank Williams, who owns four RML Automotive Group dealerships in Alabama and Tennessee.

Williams said such an approach was on display when Black Entertainment Television co-founder Robert Johnson partnered with the McLarty-Landers Automotive Group in 2007. At the time, Johnson said one mission of the RLJ-McLarty-Landers Automotive Group, now known as RML Automotive, was to recruit and train minority entrepreneurs to manage dealerships while putting them in a better position to raise capital to buy their own stores.

The company carried out this vision and made Williams its first minority dealer partner in 2008, when he assumed control of Landers McLarty Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep-Ram in Huntsville, Ala. Williams, after getting his opportunity, brought the same commitment to diversity over …

SONOMA, Calif. — The massive investment Jaguar Land Rover made in the Land Rover brand could not have come at a better time. Nearly all of the brand's SUVs are in high demand as the current, waning Jaguar lineup heads toward extinction in less than three years.

First came a new a Defender in late 2019. Then the second-generation Range Rover Evoque arrived a few months later. Other Land Rovers have been given midcycle freshens. This year, Land Rover will replace its two highest-profit vehicles, the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport.

JLR's North American CEO Joe Eberhardt spoke with Staff Reporter Richard Truett on the sidelines of the Range Rover's media debut here. Eberhardt waved off questions about a significant new strategic repositioning plan in the works for JLR, referred to as the Reimagine plan. He said details of that plan are in development. But the outlook for the company's products at hand made for a broad discussion. Here are edit…

For Basil Family Dealerships in western New York, selling big trucks and vans to commercial clients is big business.

Basil is one of many retail groups across the country to make a successful business out of selling and outfitting light-duty trucks and cargo vans for electricians, plumbers, landscapers and other commercial clients.

From dump trucks and dry freight trucks to cutaway vans and cargo vans, about 1,000 vehicles are sold by Basil for commercial use every year, said Bill O'Brocta, commercial fleet sales director for the group, which has Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen and used-vehicle stores in markets outside Buffalo.

The group also has two commercial vehicle centers.

"We do small fleet, larger fleet, lots of government business and small business," he said. "Vehicles can range from cargo vans to pickup trucks to cube vans. We're not No. 1 in one particular area. We kind of spread the wealth around and help e…

For Basil Family Dealerships in western New York, selling big trucks and vans to commercial clients is big business.

Basil is one of many retail groups across the country to make a successful business out of selling and outfitting light-duty trucks and cargo vans for electricians, plumbers, landscapers and other commercial clients.

From dump trucks and dry freight trucks to cutaway vans and cargo vans, about 1,000 vehicles are sold by Basil for commercial use every year, said Bill O'Brocta, commercial fleet sales director for the group, which has Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen and used-vehicle stores in markets outside Buffalo.

The group also has two commercial vehicle centers.

"We do small fleet, larger fleet, lots of government business and small business," he said. "Vehicles can range from cargo vans to pickup trucks to cube vans. We're not No. 1 in one particular area. We kind of spread the wealth around and help e…

SONOMA, Calif. — The massive investment Jaguar Land Rover made in the Land Rover brand could not have come at a better time. Nearly all of the brand's SUVs are in high demand as the current, waning Jaguar lineup heads toward extinction in less than three years.

First came a new a Defender in late 2019. Then the second-generation Range Rover Evoque arrived a few months later. Other Land Rovers have been given midcycle freshens. This year, Land Rover will replace its two highest-profit vehicles, the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport.

JLR's North American CEO Joe Eberhardt spoke with Staff Reporter Richard Truett on the sidelines of the Range Rover's media debut here. Eberhardt waved off questions about a significant new strategic repositioning plan in the works for JLR, referred to as the Reimagine plan. He said details of that plan are in development. But the outlook for the company's products at hand made for a broad discussion. Here are edit…

Wholesale used-vehicle prices ticked down again in April, marking three full months of slight cooldown after a long stretch of record elevation last year.

Cox Automotive said Friday that its Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, which tracks vehicles sold at Manheim's U.S. auctions, fell 1 percent in April compared with March.

Even though wholesale prices are showing signs of decline, they remained 14 percent higher in April than they were in the year-earlier period. Those numbers are adjusted for mix, mileage and seasonality. On a nonadjusted basis, the Manheim Index rose 2.9 percent from its March level, with prices up 16.4 percent year over year.

Retail prices didn't show an increase that's typical for April, when more car buyers are getting their tax refunds. In fact, retail prices fell 13 percent from March to April, and they're down 21 percent from the same time last year, according to Cox.

In part that is because just 68 percent of 2022's poten…