Trade News

WASHINGTON — The nation's largest auto market and the world's fifth-largest economy has regained the authority to set its own auto tailpipe rules and zero-emission vehicle mandates that are more stringent than federal standards.

The EPA on Wednesday reissued a waiver under the Clean Air Act allowing California to pursue its own tailpipe greenhouse gas emission standards and ZEV mandates and reversing a Trump-era rule that sought to block states from doing so.

"Today, we proudly reaffirm California's longstanding authority to lead in addressing pollution from cars and trucks," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. "Our partnership with states to confront the climate crisis has never been more important."

"With today's action," he continued, "we reinstate an approach that for years has helped advance clean technologies and cut air pollution for people not just in California, but for the U.S. as a whole."

NHTSA in December withdrew it…

BERLIN — Volkswagen is betting that a modern take on the famed Microbus will boost its aim to pass Tesla as the world's top electric automaker.

The company on Wednesday unveiled the ID Buzz, a battery-electric minivan with retro styling that recalls the Microbus of the 1960s.

The ID Buzz passenger van and the ID Buzz Cargo, a commercial version of the vehicle, were shown during an event livestreamed from Hamburg's historic Speicherstadt warehouse district.

The ID Buzz and ID Buzz Cargo will go on sale first in European markets this autumn, with advance sales to start in May. The U.S. will get only the long-wheelbase version of the passenger van, with orders opening this year for deliveries to begin in early 2024.

The European versions will come to market with a 77-kilowatt-hour battery pack that powers a 150-kilowatt electric motor driving the rear axle.

Technically, the ID Buzz is based on VW's ID4 electric crossover that uses VW Gr…

Former AutoNation Inc. CEO Mike Jackson, who retired on Nov. 1 after more than two decades with company, collected nearly $18.3 million in compensation last year, according to the auto retail giant's proxy statement.

Jackson, 73, earned 29 percent more than the year before. His 2021 compensation included $1.09 million in salary, stock awards of $9.1 million, $5.2 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation and $2.9 million in other compensation, according to the proxy released on Wednesday.

That other compensation included nearly $2.7 million in severance pay, $123,367 for personal use of corporate aircraft, $41,439 for vehicle use and $55,519 for group term life insurance payments.

When Jackson retired, AutoNation agreed to award him restricted stock units totaling $2,543,014, pay of nearly $2.7 million that included salary he would have been paid until April 12, 2022 — the date he was set to retire in his most recent employment contract — plus a …

While Electric Last Mile Solutions Inc. gives the ax to nearly a quarter of its headcount after the EV startup's stock crash last month, it is padding the fall of its former top executives behind the turmoil.

Chairman Jason Luo and CEO James Taylor were forced to resign their positions effective Feb. 1 after an internal investigation found they purchased shares of the company at a discount to market value just before it went public in June.

While stripped of their C-suite statuses, Luo and Taylor entered settlement agreements that come with protection from liability and lawsuits, the guarantee of some bonus money and retention of common stock, and in Taylor's case a $300,000-per-year consulting job.

Their voluntary resignations were reported in a regulatory filing last month that restated the company's financial performance and signaled alarm bells for investors. Terms of their settlement and consulting agreements were laid out in a regulatory filing las…

A former dealership owner was sentenced to six years in federal prison on March 3 after being found guilty of defrauding Toyota out of more than $4.3 million.

James Pinson owned Big Blue Motor Sales, a used-vehicle dealership in Louisa, Ky. Pinson, 46, was convicted in December of three counts of wire fraud, six counts of mail fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and two counts of conspiring to commit money laundering.

Court documents said Pinson took advantage of a Toyota customer support program that bought back trucks with excessive rust from customers for 150 percent of the Kelley Blue Book value. The program was only available to customers and not dealerships.

Court documents state that between 2013 and 2015, Pinson bought 350 trucks at wholesale price at auction. He obtained copies of random residents' driver's licenses and titled the vehicles in their names.

He took the trucks to Love Lexus Toyota in West Virginia and bribed the se…

TOKYO – Mazda pulled the wraps on the upcoming CX-60 crossover, the brand’s first plug-in hybrid that will be part of a new series of crossovers based on a large-size vehicle platform.

The Hiroshima-based automaker plans to introduce the CX-60 in Europe and Japan. It will be the lead-off model for a line of four crossovers built on a newly developed architecture for large vehicles that can accommodate inline 6-cylinder engines and rear-wheel drive setups.

Two of those vehicles, the CX-70 and CX-90, are expected to land in the United States. All the vehicles, to be made at Mazda’s Hofu plant in Japan, will be introduced by the end of 2023.

Mazda, teasing the European-spec CX-60 Tuesday in Europe and in Japan on Wednesday, said it will be equipped with an e-Skyactiv PHEV drivetrain that marries a 2.5-liter in-line four-cylinder gasoline engine to an electric motor.

Mazda describes it as a two-row midsize crossover good for everyday driving and long…

BEIJING — U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc. sold 56,515 China-made vehicles in February, including 33,315 for export, the China Passenger Car Association said on Tuesday.

Tesla, which has made Model 3 sedans and Model Y crossovers in Shanghai since 2019, sold 59,845 China-made vehicles in January.

Chinese NEV maker Nio Inc. delivered 6,131 cars in February, up 9.9 percent year over year. Li Auto delivered 8,414 and Xpeng Inc. delivered 6,225 vehicles, rising year over year by 266 percent and 180 percent, respectively.

CPCA said passenger car sales in February in China totalled 1.27 million, up 4.7 percent from a year earlier.