Trade News

Interest rate risk

Cox Automotive in March argued that certain automakers' customers could be more exposed to rising interest rates on auto loans because of their brands' higher new-vehicle prices or higher average interest rates - or both. Cox assessed the risk based on 2021 data and a threshold it set of a $50,000 vehicle and a 4.5% interest rate.

A Cox Automotive analysis of new-vehicle sale prices and average interest rates suggests certain General Motors and Stellantis brands have the greatest exposure to higher rates.

Cox's assessment March 28 came about two weeks after the Federal Reserve raised the federal funds' target rate to 0.25 to 0.5 percent, planned to sell debt holding and anticipated that "ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate." The Fed's next meeting will be May 3 and 4.

Its actions trickle down to auto loan interest rates. Cox Senior Economist Charlie Chesbrough said monetary policy was ch…

NEW YORK — Ram plans to unveil a concept of its electric 1500 pickup this year.

The Stellantis truck brand has shown a few images of what its first battery-electric pickup could look like, but it's preparing to take the next step with a live concept ahead of the truck's slated 2024 release, said Ram CEO Mike Koval.

Koval said the company is consulting the public about the electric pickup's design through its Ram Real Talk Tour, a series of conversations with consumers at various events. The brand says these interactions will help it better understand what the next generation of Ram pickups and vans "must do to meet their needs."

Koval revealed last summer that a battery-electric 1500 was in the works, adding another contestant to the burgeoning electric pickup space.

"A lot of our Ram Real Talk feedback is influencing that design," Koval told Automotive News during the auto show here. "That design will then influence the product that we bring to m…

Even for the world’s richest person, $43 billion is a steep price.

Elon Musk’s proposed all-cash offer to buy Twitter Inc. represents about one-sixth of his $259.3 billion fortune. Yet the vast majority of that wealth is tied to his stake in Tesla Inc., the electric carmaker he co-founded that has surged in value over the past two years and lifted him to the top of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The purchase isn’t straightforward, but Musk has several financing paths. One option is to sell some Tesla shares outright. Another is borrowing against them to stage a leveraged buyout, possibly with outside partners. Musk, 50, currently has about $3 billion in cash or other somewhat liquid assets after spending $2.6 billion buying a 9.1 percent stake in Twitter in recent months, according to Bloomberg calculations.

For Musk to raise the additional $36 billion in cash needed to buy the rest of Twitter would require selling about 36.5 million Tesla shares, or…

Lawyers for Bob Brockman say his cognitive functioning has deteriorated after a recent illness and that the former Reynolds and Reynolds Co. CEO is not competent to stand trial on federal charges of tax evasion and wire fraud.

Brockman, 80, contracted COVID-19 in December and was hospitalized a month later with acute prostatitis and toxic metabolic encephalopathy, according to a court filing Wednesday. The medical conditions caused his cognitive decline — the result of dementia, "most likely caused by Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease" — to worsen, his attorneys wrote.

Follow-up visits with his primary care doctor, the neurologist treating him for Parkinson's disease and Dr. Thomas Wisniewski, a neurologist at New York University who served as an expert witness for the defense at a competency hearing in November, "confirm that Mr. Brockman's cognitive function has declined, and provide further support that he is incompetent to stand trial," his lawyer…

Ford Motor Co. and its joint ventures sold roughly 125,000 vehicles in China in the first quarter, a drop of 19 percent from the same period last year.

Ford’s China unit blamed the drop on the persistent semiconductor chip shortage and the negative impact from resurgent coronavirus outbreaks in the country. 

Lincoln deliveries edged up 0.8 percent to 19,471 during the period and Ford-brand passenger vehicles fell 17 percent to 46,719. 

Ford operates two joint ventures in China. 

Changan Ford, a partnership with Changan Automobile Co., produces Ford-badged sedans and crossovers as well as four Lincoln models -- the Corsair, Aviator and Nautilus SUVs and the Zephyr sedan. 

Jiangling Motors Corp., a partnership with Jiangling Motors Group, builds crossovers, SUVs, multi-purpose vehicles and vans for the Ford brand. It also assembles JMC-badged SUVs, pickups and trucks. 

Ford China didn’t disclose sales of Ford-b…

The second-generation Kia Niro crossover, available in three electrified variants, will go on sale in the U.S. this summer in all 50 states, the automaker said Wednesday.

Steven Center, Kia America's COO, called the gasoline-electric hybrid, plug-in hybrid and all-electric Niro "the trifecta of electrification." The latest Niro is built on what the automaker calls its K3 chassis.

"Part of our electrification strategy is to sell electric cars everywhere, not just to comply with regulations and the exempt states, or the California standard states," Center said. "People want electric cars all over the country."

The Korean automaker said the all-electric Niro's range increases 14 miles to 253 miles. Recharging time on a Level 3 charger from 10 to 80 percent also will drop below 45 minutes compared to previous charge times of more than an hour.

The plug-in version of the Niro also gets a boost in all-electric range, up 7 miles to 33 miles, with a lar…

Vietnamese electric automaker VinFast set pricing for a battery-lease program and introduced a partnership with Electrify America for fast-charging on its national network.

VinFast, which started making gasoline cars in 2019 and delivered its first EV last year, is showing three electric crossovers at the New York auto show. The automaker is targeting initial sales of the midsize VF 8 two-row crossover and the larger VF 9 three-row crossover in the U.S. by the end of the year.

The young automaker is introducing a battery-lease model in the U.S. to make its vehicles more accessible. VinFast will sell vehicles without the battery pack included in the price, and then lease the battery for a monthly fee based on miles traveled.

For drivers who don't rack up a lot of miles, VinFast is offering a flexible plan with a monthly subscription of $35 for the VF 8 and $44 for the VF 9. The price includes 310 miles of use each month. After that l…

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares on Wednesday took a bullish stance on the U.S. market despite rising fears of a downturn.

Speaking at the automaker's annual shareholders' meeting, Tavares said Stellantis was confirming its forecast for double-digit operating income margin this year, and added that expected sales in North America, especially in its highly profitable U.S. business, should rise 3 percent.

The company, whose brands include Peugeot, Fiat, Opel and Maserati, reported an above-target adjusted operating profit margin of 11.8 percent last year, with a record 16.3 percent in North America, where it sells highly profitable Jeep and Ram pickup truck models.

Tavares also said the company expected sales to be up or stable in all of its major markets in 2022 and reiterated a forecast for a positive cash flow at the end of this year.

Light vehicle sales fell 16 percent in the U.S. in the first quarter, as a global chip shortage and the Ukraine cris…

Massachusetts lenders can't charge fees when a consumer cancels a guaranteed asset protection waiver financed as part of an indirect auto loan, the state's Division of Banks confirmed this year.

Nisen & Elliott Managing Partner Kenneth Rojc, whose law firm's specialties include auto finance, asked the division in August 2020 about GAP cancellation fees on behalf of a national bank client. The agency provided a formal opinion Feb. 10.

GAP coverage pays the difference between the amount a borrower owes on a vehicle and the actual cash value paid out by a traditional auto insurer in the event of a total loss. Rojc told the commonwealth that GAP termination fees don't appear in the retail installment sales contracts dealers sell lenders because the customer might not cancel GAP, and the fees when they do aren't financed.

Rojc asked whether banks could charge GAP cancellation fees of $25 to $60 in Massachusetts.

Deputy Com…

Though the rankings were shuffled a bit, the same 10 lenders from 2020 led their peers in new-car-loan market share last year, according to Experian data.

In the used-vehicle market, Carvana shot up the leaderboard six slots and 0.64 percentage points of share to 10th with 1.74 percent of that segment's loan volume.

Carvana said its finance receivable originations more than doubled from $3.58 billion to $7.31 billion last year. Its "other" gross profit per unit rose 49 percent to $2,453 last year, which the company attributed in a letter to shareholders to "strong finance execution and the impact of higher industry-wide vehicle prices on average loan size."

Credit Acceptance Corp. fell out of the used-vehicle top 10 based on Experian's data, dropping from ninth to 12th with 1.48 percent of the market, a 0.52-point reduction in share.

The company reported its consumer auto loan volume fell 21 percent in 2021 to 268,730 loans. It said volumes were…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. will launch its F-150 Lightning electric pickup April 26, CEO Jim Farley said Wednesday on Twitter.

The automaker plans an event that day at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Michigan to celebrate the official start of production and first customer deliveries, which are expected soon afterward.

"We will be celebrating the team behind this incredible vehicle and that F-150 Lightnings will be on their way to customers across America," spokeswoman Emma Bergg said in an email.

The event will be livestreamed and feature a select group of customers, Bergg said.

Ford has capped Lightning reservations at about 200,000 vehicles, although executives have not yet said how many reservation holders have converted to orders. The company has said more than 70 percent of Lightning reservation holders are new to Ford and to pickups.

"I do think it's a game-changer," Ford CFO John Lawler said Wednesday during a Bank of America pre…