Trade News

DETROIT — General Motors has asked its global suppliers to sign a pledge of carbon neutrality, development of social responsibility programs and implementation of sustainable procurement practices in their supply chain operations.

"There are economic and social imperatives in lowering emissions and addressing climate change while cultivating a just transition," Jeff Morrison, GM vice president of global purchasing and supply chain, said in a statement Monday. "As we accelerate toward our vision of an all-electric future, our commitment to bringing everybody along includes our global suppliers whose collaboration is critical to promoting a sustainable, safe and better world."

Many suppliers have already set their own carbon neutrality targets. Magna, for instance, is aiming for global carbon neutrality by 2030, and Bosch says it has been carbon neutral since 2020.

In addition to carbon neutrality, the GM-backed pledge calls for social and governance comm…

Subaru's first electric vehicle, the 2023 Solterra, will be priced from $46,220, including shipping, and top out at more than $53,000 when it goes on sale this summer.

The EV, developed under a partnership with Toyota Motor Corp. and built in Japan, is available in three trims: Premium, Limited and Touring. Subaru anticipates receiving 6,500 units to deliver in the U.S. this year, and a spokesman said the crossover is essentially sold out through the rest of the calendar year.

"We have not opened up sold orders for the rest of the model year yet but would anticipate doing so as we work through delivering vehicles to reservation holders," Subaru spokesman Todd Hill said Monday.

Subaru, the only major automaker with average U.S. new-vehicle incentives below $1,000 in the first quarter, is not expected to offer major deals on the Solterra.

The compact crossover is eligible for a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 and might qualify for additional sta…

NORMAL, Ill. — As vehicle panels are being pressed into the shape of an R1T pickup at Rivian Automotive's gleaming central Illinois factory, CEO RJ Scaringe points toward the assembly line and proudly proclaims, "that is someone's car."

That pride was evident throughout a media tour this month of the former Mitsubishi Motors plant in the university town of Normal. From the stamping department through general assembly and the paint shop, Scaringe points out cool details at every station.

Rivian bought the site for $16.5 million in 2017 and has turned it into a modern facility making some of America's first electric pickups. Some former Mitsubishi workers — and their grown children — now assemble the R1T, along with an SUV and electric delivery van.

Rivian added 700,000 square feet to the original building, which had housed a joint venture between Mitsubishi Motors and Chrysler before Mitsubishi took over the plant. Mitsubishi closed it in 2015. Rivian sa…

General Motors will launch electrified versions of the Chevrolet Corvette sports car starting next year, GM President Mark Reuss said Monday.

Reuss told CNBC that GM will launch an "electrified" version of the Corvette in 2023, followed by a fully electric version later.

The all-electric Corvette will be powered by GM's proprietary Ultium battery platform.

In September 2020, GM reassigned engineers who worked on the midengine Corvette to an EV team in an effort to give future EVs a high-performance flair. 

GM aspires to have an all-electric lineup by 2035.

So far, the Chevy Bolt, GMC Hummer pickup and Cadillac Lyriq crossover EVs are on the market. GM has also announced plans for an electric GMC Hummer SUV and Sierra pickup, along with an electric Chevy Silverado, Equinox and Blazer. Cadillac's Celestiq flagship EV is expected to go on sale next year.

"We are ramping up the launches right now," Reuss said. "Our Ultium platform…

SHANGHAI -- Volkswagen Group's Shanghai factory has started gradually resuming production, the automaker said.

The company’s factories in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun, which it runs in a joint venture with China's FAW Group, continues to ramp up production volumes, it added.

VW halted work at its factory in Shanghai, which is a joint venture with SAIC Motor, as the city introduced a lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19.

DETROIT -- General Motors has launched a feature within its Ultium battery platform that repurposes energy to enable longer range, faster charging speed and sportier driving.

The Ultium energy recovery feature is standard on all electric vehicles powered by the automaker's proprietary Ultium battery platform, GM said in a statement Monday. It has already helped enable the GMC Hummer pickup's Watts to Freedom mode, which accelerates the pickup from 0 to 60 mph in three seconds by pre-cooling the propulsion system.

"Having a ground-up EV architecture gives us the freedom to build in standard features like Ultium's energy recovery capabilities," Doug Parks, GM executive vice president of global product development, purchasing and supply chain, said in the statement. "This helps us squeeze more efficiency, performance and overall customer benefit out of our EVs."

The system is based around an automotive-grade heat pump that repurposes wasted energy, wh…

Executive Editor Jamie Butters gives you the top headlines and talks about Tesla CEO Elon Musk's goal of building a fully automated vehicle by 2024 with Automotive News reporter Laurence Iliff.

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NEW YORK -- Elon Musk clinched a deal to buy Twitter Inc. for $44 billion cash on Monday in a transaction that will shift control of the social media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world's richest person.

It is a seminal moment for the 16-year-old company that emerged as one of the world's most influential public squares and now faces a string of challenges.

Discussions over the deal, which last week appeared uncertain, accelerated over the weekend after the Tesla Inc. CEO wooed Twitter shareholders with financing details of his offer.

Under pressure, Twitter started negotiating with Musk to buy the company at the proposed $54.20 per share price. Read full story

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," Musk said in a statement.

Musk, one of Twitter’s most prolific users with more than 83 mill…

With the microchip shortage and other supply chain hiccups making new vehicles hard to come by in 2021, auto retailers boosted their focus on selling used cars and trucks as they faced heightened consumer demand.

Big publicly owned retailers with a hefty online presence expanded their used-vehicle sales volumes in 2021, and traditional dealership groups put their backs into reeling in more used cars to bolster their inventories. The resulting sales became a lifeline for their businesses as they dealt with fewer new vehicles to offer customers.

Those efforts were reflected in Automotive News’ annual list of the top 100 retailers ranked by used-vehicle sales. The vast majority of companies on the list reported gains in the number of used vehicles they retailed in 2021.

CarMax Inc. kept its spot as the No. 1 used-vehicle retailer in the nation, with 924,338 sales in its fiscal 2022, which ended Feb. 28. That reporting period most closely corresponds to th…

TOYOTA CITY, Japan — Lexus, which sold fewer than 6,000 electric vehicles worldwide last year, says it will be ready to make 1 million EVs annually by 2030, a mere eight years from now.

But achieving sustainable operations at such volume remains a tricky business, executives say.

Entering the EV era will require Toyota Motor Corp.'s premium brand to not only engineer battery-electric vehicles but reengineer the production process that builds them, says Takashi Watanabe, chief engineer of Lexus Electrified, the division charged with making the marque gasoline-free.

That will mean more flexible manufacturing — including more EV- dedicated lines and even more mixed production with the mass-market Toyota brand. The shift will also mean relying on a new automotive operating system across the Toyota Group that will speed product development.

Most importantly, it will require greater focus on demand trends with nimble reflex…

Volvo Cars' venture capital arm has invested in battery technology startup StoreDot, betting the company's fast charging tech could be a game-changer as the automaker rolls out new electric vehicles.

"We believe StoreDot has very interesting battery technology," said Alexander Petrofski, head of the Volvo Cars Tech Fund. "They specialize in anode material, improving charging times quite significantly. Given that electrification is a major priority for Volvo Cars, this is technology that is of significant interest to us."

Volvo did not disclose how much it invested in StoreDot, which has received funding from companies including Daimler, VinFast and BP in previous rounds. Petrofski said Volvo's investments usually account for less than 10 percent of a company's value.

"We don't want to control the company because if we wanted to control it, we could buy it," he said. "But we don't want to. We want it to prosper standing on its own legs."

StoreDot,…