Trade News

What happens to online sales momentum when a global shortage of inventory crashes into a pandemic?

In short: It keeps growing. That's what some of the nation's public auto retailers reported last month as part of their fourth-quarter earnings results, describing increased sales on their own branded digital platforms, expansion into new markets and additional customer capabilities.

Lithia Motors Inc., for instance, shared that sales through its Driveway tool in December topped its monthly goal by 32 percent. Group 1 Automotive Inc. reported that sales on its AcceleRide platform grew 77 percent in 2021 to nearly 20,000 transactions.

Separate from the public retailers, dealership leaders I've talked to in recent weeks have told me they haven't eased up on digital sales and are working to make the process easier.

But many dealership lots are still thinly stocked as automakers haven't yet been able to produce enough vehicles to catch up with demand. Th…

(All figures in U.S. dollars.)

Honda Canada is planning a $1.1-billion retooling of its Alliston, Ontario, operations to produce hybrid vehicles as part of its plan to shift towards of a fully electric product line by 2040.

The automaker is set to announce details at a news conference in Alliston on Wednesday.

The federal and Ontario governments each will kick in $103 million to the project.

In January, Honda Canada CEO Jean Marc Leclerc said the automaker would start building the hybrid version of the CR-V at its Alliston campus this summer.

The company had been retooling a portion of Plant 2 at the four million square-foot assembly site to make way for production midway through the year.

The first vehicles assembled will be for the 2023 model year.

Honda of Canada Mfg. has built the gasoline version of the CR-V crossover in Alliston since 2012. At neighboring Plant 1 it assembles the Honda Civic sedan, and it bui…

Three Bristol, Tenn., dealerships owned by longtime dealer Bill Gatton have sold to different buyers.

On Jan. 31, Umansky Automotive Group, of Memphis, Tenn., bought Bill Gatton Honda and renamed it Bristol Honda, said the group's owner, Dan Umansky. It marks the retailer's first dealership in the city, he said.

"That's a Tennessee market we've been looking to get into," Dan Umansky told Automotive News. "This makes our fifth Honda store."

Umansky said his group has dealerships across California, Wisconsin, Virginia, Mississippi and Tennessee. In June, the group bought five dealerships in California.

Dutch Miller Auto Group, of Huntington, W.Va., on Jan. 31 acquired Bill Gatton Nissan, group CFO Brad Blake confirmed. The dealership is now called Dutch Miller Nissan of Bristol.

It's also the first store in the area for Dutch Miller, which in addition to dealerships in West Virginia has a presence in Charlotte, N.C., according to its website.…

TOKYO – Former Nissan director Greg Kelly, cleared on most counts and handed a suspended sentence in the long-running Tokyo trial over alleged financial misconduct by Carlos Ghosn, teared up with joy as he was welcomed back to Tennessee Monday by U.S. Sen. William Hagerty.

Kelly said coming home after his three-year legal odyssey in Japan was “like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz,” as he choked up with emotion during a livestreamed press conference from Nashville. “There’s no place like home,” said Kelly, flanked by the senator and his wife Dee.

Hagerty, R-Tenn., greeted Kelly and his wife March 14 as they returned to the city where Kelly built a career working for Nissan’s North American operations, eventually climbing the ranks to eventually be a director at the parent company in Japan.

Hagerty, who was U.S. ambassador to Japan at the time of Kelly’s arrest in 2018, praised Kelly for building bridges between the U.S. and Japan while working for Nissan Mot…

Former Unifor National President Jerry Dias was under investigation for an alleged breach of the union’s constitution prior to his retirement March 11.

According to a statement from the union Monday, Unifor Secretary-Treasurer Lana Payne received a written complaint about Dias on Jan. 26 and initiated an independent external investigation. 

Dias, who had served 8 1/2 years as Unifor's national president, went on medical leave Feb. 6, before informing the Unifor National Executive Board of his immediate retirement March 11. The union officially announced his retirement Sunday, with no mention on the ongoing investigation. 

Unifor would not provide details or the nature of the complaint.

Dias, when reached by Automotive News on Monday, declined to comment on the matter.

Canada’s largest private-sector union, which represents 315,000 workers in Canada, including approximately 40,000 at auto parts suppliers and vehicle assembly plan…

With its first major redesign since being launched, Lexus' 2022 NX moves onto Toyota Motor Corp.'s TNGA-C platform, which also underlies the popular RAV4 crossover.

Four powertrains, including Lexus' first plug-in hybrid, are available on the second-generation NX luxury compact crossover.

The base NX 350 is equipped with a 2.4-liter turbo inline-four cylinder engine with 275 hp and paired to a new eight-speed automatic transmission that combine to produce an estimated 317 pound-feet of torque, enough to shave a half-second off the previous model's 0-to-60-mph time of 7.3 seconds.

The first-ever NX 250 features a naturally aspirated, 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine with start-stop mated to the eight-speed transmission. Available in front-wheel and all-wheel drive, the powerplant produces 203 hp and 184 pound-feet of torque, resulting in 0 to 60 times of 8.2 seconds (fwd) and 8.6 seconds (awd), Lexus says.

The all-new Lexu…

In a deal that underscores the ever-growing ties between Silicon Valley and Detroit, software tools provider Applied Intuition has acquired vehicle dynamics specialist Mechanical Simulation Corp.

The transaction marries one of the best-known startups working on software tools for driver-assist and autonomous-driving systems with one known by automakers and suppliers for making highly accurate projections of real-world vehicle behavior.

The companies announced the transaction Monday. Terms were not disclosed.

Mechanical Simulation's flagship CarSim software is used by 7 of 10 of the largest automakers, according to the company. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company also makes products that support simulation for trucks, motorcycles and powertrains.

Executives from Mountain View, Calif.-based Applied Intuition say it's a perfect complement for their own software and simulation tools, which accelerate development of driver-assist and autonomous-driving …

Panasonic Corp. is engaged in talks over the site for a new U.S. factory that would supply Tesla Inc. and potentially other EV manufacturers with next-generation lithium-ion batteries, people familiar with the matter said.

The longtime Tesla supplier is looking at several locations for the multibillion-dollar factory, including one in Oklahoma and another in Kansas, the people said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are confidential. The plant could begin operating as soon as 2024, they said.

Though still at an early stage, the plans represent a bold step for Panasonic. Even as it has faced high demand for batteries from Tesla, Panasonic has been slower to build scale compared with rival suppliers LG Energy Solution of South Korea and China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.

In the new U.S. plant, Panasonic plans to make a newly developed, bigger and more powerful “4680” battery, one of the people said. Panasonic may install lines fo…

April Ancira says she didn’t expect to end up in the car business. Like many children of auto dealers, she had other ideas about her future. But when she was 16, she wanted spending money and asked her dad, Ernesto, for a summer job at his San Antonio dealership. After spending the next few summers moving from answering phones to working on the floorplan, Ancira went to college, got a business and finance degree, and planned to head to Wall Street. Then the world was shattered on Sept. 11, 2001. Ancira shifted to Plan B. Instead of heading to then-devastated Wall Street, she started studying for an MBA. She continued working at the dealership and told her dad that she also wanted to try her hand at selling cars, “to see what it’s all about.” “I sold my first car and I was in love,” she says. She never looked back. Today Ancira is vice president of Ancira Auto Group, which soon will open its 12th Texas store, a Nissan dealership in south San Antonio. After…

If the last two years have taught us anything, it's that preparing for the unexpected should be part of your strategy from now on. That can mean having the tools in place to shift priorities at a moment's notice. But it should also mean taking the time to analyze your reinsurance program's strengths and weaknesses and evaluating where you are when it comes to running the most profitable business possible and meeting your goals.

Over the past couple of years, many dealers have seen a net positive impact on their reinsurance positions, thanks in large part to increased performance in F&I. There have been significant conversations about the rising tide in F&I associated with the pandemic and many discussions that dissect the reasons for these increases and how to maintain the same growth in the future through improved processes, better customer experiences, and enhanced product offerings. While F&I growth has been in the spotlight, let's not forget that incr…

BEIJING -- China locked down the city of Shenzhen and Jilin province, threatening technology and auto manufacturing output in the nation’s latest effort to contain a resurgent Covid pandemic led by the omicron variant.

Volkswagen Group and Toyota said they suspended output through Wednesday at plants in Changchun, where authorities issued lockdown orders. Toyota's Changchun plant, a joint venture with FAW Group, produces vehicles including the popular RAV4 crossover.

China has reported more local symptomatic COVID-19 cases so far this year than it recorded in all of 2021, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant triggers outbreaks from Shanghai to Shenzhen.

Mainland China reported 1,337 new domestically transmitted COVID cases with confirmed symptoms on March 13, the National Health Commission said on Monday. That brought the total this year to more than 9,000, compared with 8,378 in 2021, according to Reuters calculations.

In the past week, ne…

Ford Motor Co. said it will launch seven full-electric vehicles in Europe including a battery-electric version of the Puma small crossover, its best-selling passenger car in the region.

The three new full-electric passenger cars and four new electric vans will be launched by 2024 and will all be built in Europe, Ford said in a statement on Monday.

The first EV will be a midsize crossover that will go into production at Ford's factory in Cologne, Germany, this year. The crossover will use Volkswagen Group's MEB electric platform that underpins the VW ID4, among other VW Group models.

Ford had already said it would build a new EV in Cologne, but this is the first mention of the model's body style.

The electric crossover will have a 500 km (311 mile) driving range on a single charge. Its name will be revealed later in 2022, with production commencing in 2023, Ford said.

A second vehicle, which Ford said was a "sports crossover," will also be…