Trade News

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…

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 fast-charging capability to a tota…

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…

DETROIT — Tim Edmunds, a former UAW official at Local 412 in Warren, Mich., pleaded guilty Friday to embezzling $2.2 million in union funds and to money laundering.

He could face up to nearly five years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan

The guilty pleas come roughly four months after Edmunds, 54, was charged with the crimes after an internal UAW audit discovered the wrongdoing. He is the 16th individual charged — and 16th to plead guilty — in the government's ongoing corruption probe that has resulted in a six-year period of oversight for the union.

Under the terms of a plea agreement, Edmunds faces 46 to 57 months in prison and will owe $1.9 million in restitution to the UAW. Prosecutors say he returned $300,000 in stolen funds to the union before his crimes were discovered.

Prosecutors have alleged that Edmunds, who served as financial secretary, "systemically drained" Local 412's accounts of…

As normalcy returned to the few blocks of Windsor, Ont., that were occupied in early February by Ambassador Bridge blockaders, construction crews continued work on a new nearby span to give auto companies and other border traffic another option for crossing the Detroit River.

The six-day blockade refocused attention on the $4.5 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge, said Heather Grondin, a spokeswoman at the Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority (WDBA), the federal Crown corporation overseeing construction of the new crossing.

With towering piers rising on both sides of the river, the six-lane bridge will soon reshape how people and goods traverse the busiest trade route between Canada and the U.S., she said.

“It’s going to allow for redundancy or crossing choice, which is critical. It will allow for future capacity, thinking about how travel demand will continue to grow over time.”

In addition to being an alternative to the privately owned Ambass…

BEIJING — A year ago Tesla Inc. dismissed the alternative path of electric vehicle battery swapping as "riddled with problems and not suitable for widescale use." It seems Beijing disagrees.

In fact, China is pushing hard for swappable batteries for electric vehicles as a supplement to regular vehicle charging, with the government throwing its weight behind several companies advancing the technology.

Four companies — automakers Nio and Geely, battery swap developer Aulton and state-owned oil producer Sinopec — say they plan to establish a total of 24,000 swap stations across the country by 2025, up from about 1,400 today.

Battery swapping allows drivers to replace depleted packs quickly with fully charged ones, rather than plugging the vehicle into a charging point. Swapping could help mitigate the growing strains placed on power grids as millions of drivers juice up, yet specialists caution it can only take off in a big way if batteries become st…

Plastic Omnium SA reached a deal to buy AMS-Osram AG's automotive-lighting business for 65 million euros ($72 million), a move aimed at supporting the French firm's push into new market segments.

The companies said the transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2022 and didn't comment further on integration plans, according to a statement Friday. Bloomberg News reported earlier that the companies were in late stage talks over a deal.

"The acquisition of AMLS is a unique opportunity to take an important step into the growing innovative lighting systems segment," Laurent Favre, Plastic Omnium's chief executive officer said.

The automotive lighting business was once part of Osram Licht AG, acquired by AMS in 2020. Bloomberg News reported at the time that AMS, a key supplier of face-recognition technology to Apple Inc., was preparing a sale of the automotive unit that makes headlamps and systems forcarmakers.

Plastic Omnium manufactures …

General Motors said it will halt production at its full-size pickup plant in Indiana over the next two weeks because of the global microchip shortage.

Fort Wayne Assembly, which builds the light-duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, will take downtime from April 4 to April 15, GM spokesman Dan Flores said Friday.

"Overall, we have seen better consistency in semiconductor supply through the first quarter compared to last year as a whole. This has translated into improvement in our production and deliveries during the first three months of the year," Flores said. "However, there is still uncertainty and unpredictability in the semiconductor supply base, and we are actively working with our suppliers to mitigate potential issues moving forward."

GM's other light-duty pickup plant in Silao, Mexico, will continue to build the Silverados and Sierras while Fort Wayne is idled.

The production halt at Fort Wayne is GM's first chip-related downti…

Rivian Automotive Inc.’s Claire McDonough savored the stock market’s enthusiasm when she helped raise $13.7 billion in 2021’s biggest initial public offering. Suddenly, the EV maker was more valuable than Ford Motor Co. or General Motors.

Now the first-time CFO has to bend her own Wall Street experience to a new challenge: a 73 percent implosion in Rivian’s share price from its peak amid analysts’ downgrades, production snags, missed delivery targets and an embarrassing U-turn over pricing.

The pressure is on McDonough, 40, a former banker at Credit Suisse Group and JPMorgan Chase & Co. She has to prove her operational acumen and win back the confidence of investors who rushed to endorse Rivian as a worthy challenger to Tesla Inc., then snubbed it just as vigorously.

“If we can really prove out this ramp, if we can prove out our opportunity to bring new vehicles to market, to build additional capacity in a cost-effective way, the stock price will ju…

The inline-six, a classic engine design noted for durability, fuel efficiency and smoothness, will return to the Dodge and Jeep lineups this year.

Stellantis said Friday its new Hurricane 3.0-liter twin-turbo six-cylinder engine — designed and engineered from a clean slate — fits front-engine, rear-wheel-drive vehicles such as the Jeep Wrangler and Grand Cherokee, Ram pickups and the Dodge Durango SUV.

The company did not identify specific vehicles the new engine will appear in. Availability will be announced when 2023 models debut.

The new engine could be headed first to the Jeep brand. On Thursday, a photo of the engine appeared on the online configurator for the Grand Wagoneer, showing the twin turbo six listed as a $2,000 option. The photo was removed later Thursday.

The Hurricane will be offered in two versions, a standard output and a high output.

The inline-six was dropped from Stellantis' U.S. lineup at the end of the 2006 model y…

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ Electrify America touts ‘customer-centric’ charging concepts

With motorists accustomed to filling gas tanks in a matter of minutes in their conventional cars, Electrify America is hoping to make longer waits for electric vehicle battery charging more palatable.

On Thursday, the company rolled out concepts of charging stations that feature customer lounges and event space in some cases. In others, the "customer-centric charging experience" includes valet charging, curbside delivery options and solar canopies to shield customers during crummy weather.

Providing cover during a rainstorm perhaps seems like a low bar for "customer-centric." But the overall effort raises important questions about where drivers want to charge at a time when the Biden administration has greenlighted $5 billion to help build a nationwide charging network.

Allowing charging stations to proliferate in the same way gas stations popped up along every…

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Postal Service said on Thursday it placed an initial $2.98 billion order for 50,000 next-generation delivery vehicles from Oshkosh Corp. and will double its initial planned EV purchases.

U.S. Postmaster Louis DeJoy said that based on USPS's reform efforts and "our improving outlook, we have determined that increasing our initial electric vehicle purchase from 5,000 to 10,019 makes good sense from an operational and financial perspective."

House Oversight Committee chair Carolyn Maloney praised the increase in EV purchases but said "it is still not enough."

USPS still plans to buy about 80 percent gasoline-powered models. Maloney said USPS "must prioritize the acquisition of electric vehicles or it will be stuck with outdated technology that further pollutes our environment for decades."

Previously, DeJoy committed to buying at least 10 percent EVs as part of a multibillion-dollar plan to retire 30-year-old delivery vehicles…