Trade News

General Motors this year is expected to discontinue two subcompact crossovers that were once among its top sellers: the Buick Encore and Chevrolet Trax.

GM will end production of both South Korea-built crossovers in August, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions.

GM Authority reported the end of production earlier.

Both crossovers overlap with slightly larger siblings within the subcompact segment: the Buick Encore GX and the Chevy Trailblazer, which went on sale in 2020.

"Instead of updating the subcompact crossovers, GM went a step further and addressed the shortcomings of these popular models," Fiorani said. "With their longer wheelbases, the Encore GX and Trailblazer sport more rear-seat room and more cargo space in a package that's only a few inches longer."

GM spokeswoman Kellie Van Maele did not directly confirm the end of Trax and Encore output.

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<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ Electric trucks getting up to speed for commercial use

Using batteries to power light-duty electric vehicles makes sense in most cases – vehicle owners can recharge overnight and obtain enough juice to cover their everyday commutes and errands.

Using batteries in heavy-duty commercial trucking is a more complicated endeavor: Truck operators frown on downtime, and heavy batteries might reduce payload capacity.

Electric trucks nonetheless remain an intriguing proposition, and this week brought a new entrant into the field.

Solo AVT, a startup created by Waymo, Tesla and BMW alums, made its first public pronouncements regarding its efforts to build an electric truck platform. The company says the SD1 Heavy platform is designed so AV companies can integrate their self-driving software and sensor suites.

Pairing self-driving systems with antiquated vehicles not built with redundant systems has been a particular challen…

WASHINGTON — The Alliance for Automotive Innovation is seeking to further clarify the definitions and overall understanding of the levels of vehicle automation in an effort to clear up confusion over the driver's role and the system's capabilities.

In a letter sent Thursday to SAE International, the alliance said it has become "increasingly concerned about persistent confusion among consumers and policymakers" over the difference between partial automation, or Level 2, and automated driving systems, Level 3-5.

"It has become apparent to us that industry, government and other stakeholders need to focus even more attention on clarifying the essential difference between these systems," the alliance wrote in its letter to George Nicols, chair of SAE's On-Road Automated Driving Task Force.

The effort comes as more automakers, including Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Stellantis and Tesla, plan to roll out more advanced levels of automated driving…

When I was in fourth grade, I had one of those school projects where you had to write a profile of a family member by interviewing another family member. I chose to ask my dad about his dad, who had died seven years before I was born.

My dad, who was an appellate attorney and talented orator, spun a tale for me about a man who was on the design team for the first Corvette, loved a stiff martini, smuggled rifles in violin cases through Canada and had 10 heart attacks, the last one getting him.

The aspiring journalist in me, even at age 10, had a healthy dose of skepticism about his story, but I ran with it for the purpose of completing my project. Four years later, my dad died, and his mom not too long after him. The window into that side of my family closed, save for a few items my brother and I moved to my mom's basement for storage. I lost access to the memory banks that would have taught me about my paternal lineage and its role in the auto industry.

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Small public auto retailer LMP Automotive Holdings Inc. plans to sell the corporate jet it bought in the fall.

The Fort Lauderdale, Fla., retailer with eight franchised dealerships and four used-vehicle stores, and which said in February that it was exploring strategic options including a possible sale of the company, in a Wednesday regulatory filing said that it plans to sell its 2008 Gulfstream G200 aircraft for $6.7 million.

LMP said it entered into an agreement Tuesday to sell the plane to RRGS Holdings. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter.

LMP executives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In October, LMP bought the plane for about $5.6 million. To pay for the jet, it signed a $3.2 million five-year note, and monthly payments of $32,435 were set to begin in December, guaranteed by LMP CEO Samer Tawfik, the company said then in a regulatory filing. LMP also received $2 million through a credit line from…

Tesla Inc. will not be allowed to set up a service center in East Hartford, Conn., after the town's Planning and Zoning Commission revoked the electric vehicle maker's building permit last week.

The action comes after local retailer Hoffman Auto Group filed a lawsuit against Tesla, a firm working with Tesla and the Planning and Zoning Commission in May.

The lawsuit said Tesla was breaking state franchise law by selling cars directly to consumers and that the automaker was hiding its true intent by filing its application with misleading information.

The lawsuit initially delayed a decision to approve Tesla's showroom and service center until August, but in that month, the commission approved the permit for just the service center.

The commission was unanimous in its March 8 decision to revoke the permit, and the continuing lawsuit was the main reason, Connor Martin, chief of staff to East Hartford Mayor Michael Walsh, to…

For the past couple decades, scientists at an R&D lab in Bay County have been vaporizing silicon carbide inside of furnaces at twice the temperature of lava to make chunks of crystal as durable as diamonds.

Only recently have those crystals been understood by many to be the future of EV semiconductors.

That's why SK Siltron CSS, a subsidiary of South Korean conglomerate SK Group, is investing more than $300 million to quadruple its real estate footprint in Michigan with a 250,000-square-foot plant near Bay City, Mich.

The company bet big with its $450 million purchase of DuPont's silicon carbide business in 2020. In the two years after the acquisition, the EV industry has increasingly pivoted away from traditional silicon for high power applications to silicon carbide, which transfers electricity more efficiently and improves range — the top concern of most EV makers.

The industry shift means SK Siltron CSS is sitting on a potential gold mine…

The heads of Volkswagen Group's premium brands spoke at length on Wednesday about the impacts of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as the ongoing microchip shortage, and how it has affected their operations.

Audi CEO Markus Duesmann Duesmann said the group had lost a substantial amount of wire harness production in Ukraine that was needed to keep assembly plants running — but amazingly, not all of it.

"Many of our suppliers, especially for wiring harnesses, were in Ukraine, or are in Ukraine. They are desperately — even with the people staying there, which is incredible — trying to produce, and doing so always close to a bomb shelter," Duesmann said stoically. "They try to produce, which is an enormous achievement [for] a really proud and brave people there." 

He said the group has tried to adjust by boosting production of wire harnesses in Romania, Hungary, Tunisia and Morocco, as well as in Mexico and China "to compensate for the volume loss…

EV maker Lucid is looking into raising prices for future models amid "huge inflationary pressures," but is committed to honoring prices for existing reservation holders, its chief executive Thursday.

"There's an inevitability that we will have to look at the price points of models that are coming out in the future," CEO Peter Rawlinson said in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the South by Southwest music, technology and film festival (SXSW).

"I think it would be absolutely foolish of me to say we're never going to raise our prices," Rawlinson added, citing high nickel prices.

His comments come as several electric vehicle makers, including Tesla, Rivian and BYD have raised prices on higher raw material costs.

Lucid in late February cut its production forecast for this year to 12,000 to 14,000, down from its original target of 20,000 vehicles, citing "extraordinary supply chain and logistics challenges." Its s…

A closely watched auto-industry forecaster lopped more than 5 million cars off its projections for global production this year and next, largely due to fallout expected from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

S&P Global Mobility, formerly known as IHS Markit, lowered its 2022 and 2023 estimates each by 2.6 million vehicles. The forecaster now expects auto companies to make 81.6 million cars worldwide this year and 88.5 million next year.

“The downside risk is enormous,” Mark Fulthorpe, S&P Global Mobility’s executive director for global production forecasting, said in a statement Wednesday. In the firm’s worst-case scenario, production would be as much as 4 million vehicles below its earlier projections for each year.

S&P Global Mobility cites the effect that Russia’s war is having on the prices of energy and raw materials, expectation for the semiconductor shortage to worsen and disruptions to the flow of wire harnesses from Ukraine. Suppliers ma…

Lyft said on Wednesday riders in the United States, except those in New York City and Nevada, would have to pay an extra 55 cents for their commute as the ride-hailing company looks to cushion the impact of high gas prices on drivers.

Companies hiring gig workers have started imposing these surcharges as drivers on social media protest about high gas prices due to Western sanctions on Russia, a major oil producer.

The fuel surcharge policy kicks in starting next week and will stay in place for at least 60 days, Lyft said, adding that the money will go directly to drivers.

The move mirrors that of rival Uber, which said its customers would have to pay a surcharge of either 45 cents or 55 cents on each trip.

On Tuesday, food-delivery company DoorDash said its U.S. delivery partners would be eligible for a 10 percent on gas purchases beginning March 17.

Autonomous trucking startup TuSimple Holdings Inc., backed by Chinese social media firm Sina Corp., is looking to sell its business in China and focus on the U.S. market, sources told Reuters.

The decision comes after the startup reached an agreement with the U.S. government to restrict the China unit's access to data due to U.S. security concerns.

TuSimple, which raised more than $1 billion through an initial public offering on Nasdaq last April, said in its annual report that it operates about 100 Level 4 autonomous semi-trucks -- 75 in the United States and 25 in China -- capable of running without human drivers on certain routes.

Shares in TuSimple surged more than 20 percent to $11.51 on Wednesday afternoon and finished at $11.65 when the market closed.

The company hopes to sell the China unit for up to $1 billion, and has approached several Chinese investors, including private equity firm Boyu Capital, in its search for potential buyers, ac…