Trade News

The ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine has shone a stark light on existing supply shortages for vital metals for lithium ion batteries, the dominant chemistry in electric vehicles and energy storage systems. Even prior to sanctions against Russia, a key supplier of nickel, prices for the metal have been steadily rising.

Since nickel improves energy density in batteries and therefore the overall driving range of electric vehicles, many automakers have increased the percentage of nickel in battery cathodes in recent years while reducing cobalt. Tesla has been using cathodes with up to 90 percent nickel in some applications. If nickel prices continue their upward trajectory, automakers will be forced to increase the sticker price of EVs which would obviously deter the progress we've seen on EV adoption.

But it's not just cost that's an issue — we could potentially run out of supply. Spurred on by the energy transition, the lithiu…

A former General Motors manager was indicted with conspiracy to commit bribery after allegedly accepting $3.4 million from an international parts supplier.

Hyoung Nam So, 46, who goes by Brian So, was a global purchasing and supply chain manager at GM who oversaw parts used to build interiors of North American vehicles.

In October 2015, So promised a contract to the owner of a South Korean parts company in exchange for $5 million in cash, a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California said last week. The indictment said the owner of the company met So at a hotel near Detroit, in Troy, Mich., to deliver $1 million to him personally.

After receiving the cash, So learned the company was no longer the lowest bidder. On Dec. 8, 2015, So still nominated the company, and it was awarded the contract the same day.

The indictment said So did not inform the supplier of the contract until after he received $2.45 million…

Shares of Volta Inc. plunged to all-time lows after the electric-vehicle charging company announced the abrupt departures of two of its top executives, both of them founders of the firm.

The resignations of CEO Scott Mercer and President Chris Wendel came a week after the San Francisco-based firm postponed reporting its latest quarterly earnings, although it was unclear if there was any connection between the events.

Mercer will continue in the CEO role for a transition period as the company’s board searches for a replacement.

Volta shares fell as much as 20 percent Monday in U.S. trading, its biggest drop in nearly six months. The shares were down 18.6 percent to $3.36 when the market closed Monday. The company deploys charging stations equipped with large video displays for advertising in store parking lots. Volta went public seven months ago through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

“With Volta’s listing as a public company l…

Mike Bacosa from CNA National discusses how the company maintains top customer satisfaction marks, how to hire and retain great employees and the benefits of their innovative digital inspection tool. Learn More: https://www.cnanational.com/sub/superior_customer_service

DETROIT — General Motors is creating a commercial growth strategies and operations organization to oversee the automaker's cross-brand retail and fleet sales, electric vehicle operations and commercialization of future business opportunities.

Steve Hill, 60, who has been vice president of global Chevrolet since 2019, will lead the new organization, GM said in a statement Monday.

The GM Fleet, U.S. sales operations and EV retail innovation teams will report to Hill.

"The Commercial Growth Strategies and Operations organization is well positioned with this leadership team to drive continued growth and profitability for our dealers and GM, while stewarding our transition to an all-electric future," Steve Carlisle, president of GM North America, said in the statement.

Scott Bell, 55, currently president of GM Canada, will replace Hill as global vice president of Chevy.

Marissa West, 40, executive chief engineer of global midsize truck and mediu…

General Motors and Volkswagen Group China on Monday said that their Shanghai operations have not been affected by the city's lockdown to try to stem the spread of COVID-19.

Both companies operate factories in the city as part of joint ventures with state-owned Chinese automaker SAIC Motor Corp.

A GM spokesperson told Reuters that its manufacturing facilities were operating normally.

The snap lockdown announced on Sunday splits China's most populous city roughly along the Huangpu River for nine days to allow for "staggered" coronavirus testing.

GM's Shanghai factories sit to the east of the river in areas that have been locked down from Monday to Friday for authorities to carry out mass testing.

The company did not immediately comment on what measures it had put in place to keep production lines running, but Shanghai has said that factories that put in "closed-loop" systems can continue production.

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Together, Millennials and Gen Xers now represent a larger population than the generations that preceded them, 1 and these consumers are so accustomed to the convenience and speed of online shopping that they are now looking online to purchase boats, homes, and even cars. 

Today, 76% of car buyers are open to buying completely online 2 and 64% of car buyers want to handle more of their purchase online compared to the last time they purchased a vehicle.3 Consumer satisfaction with car buying has increased with digitization, reaching an all-time high of 72% in 2020, up from 60% in 2019.4 New form retailers are realizing greater than 100% annual revenue growth.5

In 2021, U.S. eCommerce sales totaled $933B 6 and are projected to grow 23.6% by 2025.8

By 2025, global auto eCommerce sales are expected to reach 25% of total eCommerce sales.8

With the addition of digital retailing solutions, automotive online transactions in 2021 were just over 13% o…

Executive Editor Jamie Butters gives you the top headlines and talks about the potential of in-vehicle entertainment in the metaverse, the space where the physical meets the digital, with Marcus Amick, who wrote about the topic for Automotive News.

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Tesla Inc. will seek investor approval to increase its number of shares to enable a stock split in the form of a dividend, the electric-car maker said on Monday, sending its shares up more than 8 percent when the market closed Monday.

The proposal has been approved by its board and the shareholders will vote on it at the annual meeting. The stock split, if approved, would be the latest after a five-for-one split in August 2020 that made Tesla shares cheaper for its employees and investors.

Following a pandemic-induced rally in the technology shares, Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com and Apple Inc. have also in the recent past split their shares to make them more affordable.

Telsa, which debuted at $17 per share in 2010, is trading above $1,000. Since the stock split in 2020, they have surged 128 percent, boosting the market capitalization to more than $1 trillion and making the company the biggest U.S. automaker by that measure.

Tesla's electric cars are …

It's not the kind of payload General Motors engineers could have envisioned, but a missile-toting Chevrolet Aveo is part of the resistance that Russian tanks have encountered in Ukraine.

Lt. Tetiana Chornovol, commander of a Ukrainian anti-tank missile unit in the outskirts of Kyiv, popped the hatch of her red Aveo to show a New York Times reporter the Stugna-P missile inside.

Chornovol called the car an "ecologically clean killing machine" in a story published March 19. The newspaper originally described the car as a Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, but Jalopnik noted that a video and photos of Chornovol from Reuters revealed it to be a first-generation Aveo LS. The Times later updated its story.

"An ordinary car, driven to extraordinary tasks when its life as a commuter or grocery-getter was undone by the invasion," Jalopnik wrote.

Chornovol commands about a dozen people, all of whom have been transporting missiles to ambush …