Trade News

What is likely to be the last generation of Audi's Q5 midsize crossover has been spotted lightly camouflaged during cold-weather testing in Europe.

Audi's top-selling nameplate in the U.S. — not due to arrive here until 2025, with European sales coming a year earlier — will be redesigned for a third and final generation. It will be one of the last Audis powered by an internal combustion engine before the brand goes fully electric after the turn of the decade.

The Q5 was introduced in 2008 and last redesigned for the 2017 model year.

From spy shots, the next-generation Q5 appears slightly larger than the current model, and sensor placement indicates it will receive a greater degree of assisted driving capabilities. The front fascia is changed dramatically, though it will retain Audi's single-frame trapezoidal grille, with lighting upgrades likely.

The all-wheel-drive crossover's rear hatch styling also appears to have und…

Supplier Marelli's new design for a vehicle air quality system combines two ultraviolet lights to kill airborne bacteria and viruses as well as eliminate volatile organic compounds and odors in the air.

Like other purification systems, Marelli's IAQ uses UVC light to take care of viruses. But its key differentiator is the simultaneous use of UVA, which the supplier says can get rid of volatile organic compounds and odors. The technology takes a step beyond other ionizer-based systems, which require frequent cleaning, and traditional filters, which are unable to capture gases, fumes and viruses small enough to pass through them.

The dual-UV system is designed to work around those limitations, said G.D. Mathur, a senior technical specialist at Marelli who spearheaded the technology's development.

"Ultimately, everything is reduced to a water molecule or CO2," he told Automotive News. "That's the basic principle."

Work o…

Over the past week, 96,300 vehicles were cut from production plans worldwide because of the microchip shortage, according to AutoForecast Solutions.

So far this year, about 1.25 million vehicles have been removed from factory schedules worldwide, according to AFS, which has monitored the chip shortage’s impact on vehicle assembly since last year.

Most of the recent factory cuts occurred at European auto plants, where 79,100 cars and trucks were trimmed from plans. Another 14,200 vehicles were cut in North America, with smaller reductions reported elsewhere.

Manufacturers have been prioritizing hot-selling and high-margin models to receive semiconductors, but the chip shortage continues to impact even those vehicles. GM said last week that it will halt production of light-duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups for two weeks because of the shortage.

This month, Toyota Motor Corp. said it will cut its global production plan for April to 750…

While the numbers of both U.S. dealerships and franchises dropped marginally in 2021, sales throughput for all outlets rose slightly last year, a recovery from the sizable drop in the industry's average new-vehicle sales per franchise in 2020, when the coronavirus outbreak stalled sales.

Automotive News' annual dealership census found that new vehicles sold per franchise increased 3.6 percent to 466 on average in 2021. The census ranks 41 brands for throughput, a measurement of a dealership network's health. Last year's throughput gain came as U.S. light-vehicle sales, excluding Tesla, rose 2.5 percent to nearly 14.75 million vehicles, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center.

The throughput gain reflected the modest dips in U.S. franchise and dealership numbers. The overall dealership count dropped for the second-straight year by a margin of 0.3 percent, this time falling to 18,211 stores as of Jan. 1. New-vehicle franchises dipped by 1.3 p…

Last week's announcement by Stellantis that it will open a $4.1 billion battery plant in Ontario is one more reminder of the new wave of investment coming to the industry. Automakers and battery companies are spending unprecedented sums of money as they begin creating North America's EV supply chain.

In just the past year, automakers and their battery suppliers have committed $13.5 billion to create EV battery plants in North America.

That's a colossal supply chain figure — but it doesn't fully capture the scale of recent investment.

Not included are other projects for which manufacturers have not clarified how much of their investments are earmarked for new battery plants and how much will go toward the vehicle production lines that will need the batteries.

For Ford Motor Co.'s Blue Oval City project in Tennessee, Ford and SK Innovation plan to spend a combined $5.6 billion on an EV battery plant and a new vehicle assembly plant, but they have …

BMW is re-imagining the brick-and-mortar showroom experience for the digital age.

The brand's global Retail Next design concept, which debuts in the U.S. in July, attempts to make the dealership visit feel more experiential and less transactional, BMW of North America sales boss Shaun Bugbee told Automotive News last week.

"It's about recognizing that the buying process has changed and how we make it more inviting to the consumer, instead of ... filled with anxiety," Bugbee said.

"There's a fundamental customer perspective that once you go in the showroom, it is an uncomfortable experience."

BMW's future showrooms will feature fewer cars, and each model will have a display with loungelike seating, unique lighting elements and premium furnishings.

"It's more like a five-star hospitality [suite] than a typical showroom," Bugbee said. "We want to emulate the ease, transparency and convenience of the online e…

NEW YORK -- A federal judge on Friday authorized the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to distribute $40 million from its 2018 settlements with Tesla Inc. and CEO Elon Musk, after Musk accused the regulator of dragging its heels.

U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan approved the distribution plan that the SEC proposed on March 9.

Her approval came after Musk said the SEC had ignored its "court-ordered duty" by waiting nearly 3-1/2 years to make the payout to investors in his electric car company.

Musk and Tesla had each paid $20 million civil fines, and Musk stepped down as Tesla's chairman, to resolve SEC claims that Musk defrauded investors by tweeting on Aug. 7, 2018, that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private.

The available funds have since grown to about $41.2 million including interest, according to the SEC.

Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Musk, declined to comment.

Musk is seeking to throw out his 2018 agre…

From her early work fighting against freeway expansions around Los Angeles to her tenure as chair of the California Air Resources Board, Mary Nichols has spent more than five decades grappling with transportation's role in contributing to pollution and climate change.

Now as co-chair of the Coalition for Reimagined Mobility along with Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley, Nichols is examining many of the same subjects at a global scale. She joined Automotive News reporter Pete Bigelow on the Shift mobility podcast this month to discuss her latest work, the restoration of California's ability to set its own emissions standards, energy independence and more. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: The federal government has restored California's authority to set its own emissions standards. What were the ramifications?

A: The ability to set our own emissions standards for motor vehicles and fuels related to that is fundamental to California's whole a…

A lot of dealers have discovered that installing powerful fast chargers for electric vehicles — as some brands are requiring dealerships to do — is a complicated, expensive and time-consuming exercise.

"It's quite an undertaking," said Florida dealer Alan Starling.

The Orlando-based Starling Automotive Group has six dealerships, including GMC and Cadillac franchises, that need fast chargers, Starling said during the NADA Show and in a follow-up phone interview this month.

He realized that installing the chargers would be harder than it sounded when the local utility company told him there was "a little bit of a problem."

Starling said the utility company told him: " 'We're going to have to upgrade your service before we install these chargers. Your current arrangement is good for what you've been doing, but not for this.' "

Starling said upgrading the power roughly doubled the original estimate to install …

As the severity of the global semiconductor shortage set in early last year, management at Koons of Silver Spring Inc., a Maryland dealership group, realized they would need as much used-vehicle inventory as possible to offset the looming deficit of new cars and trucks.

The problem was, other retailers were coming to the same conclusion, and auction prices were soaring. Owner Alex Perdikis, who operates a Ford-Lincoln and a Mazda store in the Washington suburbs, challenged his staff to find a creative alternative.

They didn't have to look very far.

Before the pandemic, the group, which sells about 4,000 new and used vehicles combined per year, had launched a subscription service called Inride. The business had been growing steadily but was scrapped when demand cratered after COVID-19 hit.

Management decided to revive the Inride brand, this time as a vehicle acquisition platform in the mold of Carvana and Vroom. It's owned by Koons of Silver Sprin…