Trade News

Dealers attended the NADA Show in Las Vegas with a slew of worries on their minds. Three of the biggest: inventory shortages, the push into digital retailing and the industrywide transition to electric vehicles.

But what many of them heard in their annual franchise make meetings was some reassurance.

In meeting after meeting, factory executives offered calming words that, despite the drumbeat of radical change and upheaval pounding across the business, automakers still intend to keep a steady hand on what's working well.

Brands are trumpeting their plans to transform into all-electric auto lines, which dealers have been hearing with a growing cadence. And retailers told Automotive News privately that they're fully on board with the changing technology. But, some of them wondered, are we truly ready? And why the rush to toss away some of the best internal combustion engine vehicles ever made?

Automakers appear to get that, according to reports of …

Last year, an estimated 1 in every 6 new-vehicle dealerships changed ownership in Colorado amid a flurry of acquisitions led by accelerated spending by public auto retailers.

Automotive News estimated that at least 44 franchised stores, or about 17 percent of the state's 260 new-vehicle dealerships, changed hands in 2021 in Colorado as buy-sells surged in the state.

The Colorado Automobile Dealers Association pegged the percentage of dealerships bought and sold last year slightly higher than the Automotive News estimate in part because it counts standalone stores differently. But by either accounting, Colorado experienced a huge surge in buy-sells in 2021, said Tim Jackson, CEO of the state's dealer association.

"We had never had a year that even 5 percent of our stores changed hands in the same year," Jackson told Automotive News.

Buy-sell experts and dealers said Colorado, with its growing economy and population, has become increasingly popula…

Last week’s destructive earthquake in Japan could exacerbate the global microchip shortage, just as the tally of vehicles removed from factory schedules so far this year passes the 1 million mark.

Renesas Electronics Corp., a major producer of automotive chips, last week halted production at three Japanese plants following a 7.4-magnitude earthquake on Wednesday, March 16. 

Two of the plants remained shut down at week’s end, while the third resumed partial production on test lines. It was not clear when full production could restart.

The disaster left 2 million households without power in Japan, but also threatens to have ripple effects in the auto supply chain. About 1.2 million vehicles have been cut from global production plans this year because of chip shortages, AutoForecast Solutions estimates. That is up from about 929,500 vehicles one week earlier, driven in large part by additional production cuts in Europe and Asia.

Source: AutoFo…

A number of used-car auction houses are dismissing the reliability and dependability concerns of some about artificial intelligence — not to mention the Elon Musk/iRobot-inspired worries about it replacing humans and taking over the world — to embrace the technology that helps hone the vehicle imaging and inspection process.

Michael Pokora, senior director of research and development at used-vehicle online auction company ACV Auctions, which last month acquired Paris-based AI solutions company Monk for $19 million, said the anxiety is unwarranted. Machine learning is not meant to replace humans in the vehicle inspection equation, he said

"It's just a tool," Pokora said. "It's not this buzzword. It's not something that's going to just replace humans every day. It's something that's going to help us chew through all this variation, all this data, get it right the first time."

Monk executives told Automotive News that users can use…

The supply chain fallout from the war in Ukraine could make electric vehicles more expensive to build as raw material prices jump higher.

That could hamper consumer EV adoption just as automakers plan to roll out many new battery-powered models, warns a report out this month by S&P Global Mobility.

The new logistics problem could affect the batteries used in several popular EV models, potentially eating into their manufacturers' profits.

As a result of the Ukrainian situation, the Tesla Model Y crossover, the most popular EV on the U.S. market, could see input costs for battery raw materials surge by almost $8,000 per vehicle this year, S&P Global Mobility estimated.

Battery raw materials costs for the Mercedes-Benz EQS could skyrocket by about $11,000 compared with 2021 prices. Mercedes CEO Ola Källenius said last week that the company will hold firm on its EV investment plans despite higher costs.

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The Texas billionaire facing the largest U.S. tax-evasion case against an individual is urging a judge to accept his family trust’s offer to put up $1.45 billion in exchange for the IRS relaxing liens on his property and assets.

Robert Brockman’s offshore charitable trust is willing to move money from Switzerland into U.S. accounts, according to a Friday filing by his lawyers in federal court in Houston. In return, Brockman wants the Internal Revenue Service to lift its so-called jeopardy assessment, imposed on taxpayers the agency fears may leave the country or fail to pay their bill.

That assessment has led the IRS to seize funds from accounts owned by Brockman and his wife, place liens on their former home and other properties, and attach his retirement pay from Reynolds & Reynolds, the auto dealership software company Brockman acquired in 2006.

“It is unreasonable to deprive Mr. Brockman of his retirement pay, or to prevent Mrs. Brockman from sel…

China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., the world’s biggest maker of batteries for electric vehicles, is considering sites across North America for a massive $5 billion plant to supply customers including Tesla Inc.

The company aims to build a factory capable of producing as much as 80 gigawatt-hours of batteries a year, according to people familiar with the matter. The facility would eventually employ as many as 10,000 workers, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private information.

Executives from CATL flew to Mexico earlier this month for meetings, the people said. The company is also considering sites in the U.S. and Canada, but has concerns over the availability of labor and other trade issues.

A spokesman for CATL in China declined to comment on the expansion into North America, the planned investment and evaluation of sites.

Backed by China’s strategic push in EVs, CATL is riding a boom in demand for EVs as countrie…

VANCE, Ala. — Mercedes-Benz's U.S. assembly plant transformed the Deep South's industrial base when it opened here 25 years ago. Now, the 6-million-square-foot manufacturing juggernaut is being reinvented for another new automotive era.

Mercedes last week set the stage for the U.S. mass production of luxury electric vehicles. The Alabama plant will be key to Mercedes' intention to take the fight to EV kingpin Tesla. The German powerhouse plans to plow more than $46 billion this decade into developing an armada of electric sedans, crossovers and vans.

Vance, already a global export hub, could pump out more than 100,000 EVs next year: Production of the EQS full-size SUV should begin in June, while EQE midsize crossover assembly will start in October.

Last week, at an event attended by Mercedes' top brass, the company opened its new battery pack plant and said it will begin sourcing battery cells in the U.S. by mid-decade to power …

Dealers who own multiple dealerships, storage lots and facilities know despite internal protocols, locating vehicles still can be a hassle and lead to embarrassing situations when salespeople can't find cars for test drives.

But tracking down vehicles no longer is a struggle for salespeople — and customers — at Folsom Lake Ford and Folsom Lake Kia in Folsom, Calif. The two independent, family-owned dealerships have been using a car-location and theft-prevention system called RecovR since May 2021, said Jon Peterson, general manager and co-owner.

Furthermore, the stores sell the wireless tracking device and app-based location service, developed by the Sweden-based Kudelski Group, as a finance and insurance product, which has boosted gross income per vehicle, Peterson told Automotive News.

"It's both a revenue-generating and an inventory-management tool," he said.

Keeping track of vehicles at the two adjacent dealerships — which sell an average of …