Trade News

AutoNation Inc. has named two company veterans as chief operating officers to oversee both the franchised dealership and non-franchised dealership sides of the auto retail giant's business. The moves come as its current president and COO is set to retire on Friday.

AutoNation said Thursday that Dave Koehler, its eastern region president since May 2019, will become COO of the company's non-franchised dealership business and will manage its standalone used-vehicle AutoNation USA stores, AutoNation auctions and its collision business.

Steve Kwak, western region president since May 2017 and AutoNation USA president since August 2020, will be COO of AutoNation's franchised dealership business, responsible for operations at its new-vehicle dealerships, manufacturer relations, finance and insurance and its aftersales businesses.

Both Koehler and Kwak will report to AutoNation CEO Mike Manley.

"Steve and Dave have nearly sixty years of combined automotive…

Ford Motor Co. unveiled a two-pronged future this week, with its gasoline-powered and electric businesses divided into two new business units.

Do two-wheeled vehicles fit into that vision? Not so much. Amid the new structural developments announced this week, Ford quietly sold its electric bike and scooter division, Spin, to European micromobility operator Tier Mobility AG.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Ford had acquired Spin for $100 million in November 2018, a time when the automaker wanted to explore new branches of mobility and scooter startups proliferated.

Along with the shuttering of ride-sharing service Chariot in 2019, the Spin sale and its EV-minded overhaul all affirm Ford's vision of mobility remains one centered on personally owned automobiles.

Spin's operations across the U.S. give Tier its first foothold in North America. The company says it operates in approximately 410 cities with a fleet of 250,000 vehicles.…

As dealerships across the country grapple with decimated inventory levels as part of the lingering microchip shortage, an ever-present challenge in showrooms and service bays is worsening: finding and hiring candidates for open positions and retaining those already employed.

It's a stark change from the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when dealerships laid off employees en masse as stay-at-home mandates were issued by governors and local leaders to curb the spread of illness. And it has cemented a shift in power from employer to employee, dealership hiring experts say.

"The biggest problem dealers have is they can't find people," said Ted Kraybill, president of ESI Trends, a Clearwater, Fla., consulting firm that conducts the annual National Automobile Dealers Association Dealership Workforce Study. "That's been an increasing problem for a number of years even before COVID. And then you have the problem that the culture in car dealershi…

TuSimple Holdings Inc. on Thursday said it was replacing its CEO in a decision it called part of a "planned executive succession," but which took Wall Street by surprise and caused its shares to plummet more than 20 percent.

The self-driving trucking company said Xiaodi Hou, up until now TuSimple's chief technology officer, will replace Cheng Lu as chief executive and president effective immediately.

Shares slid 22 percent following the announcement to close at $13.25 -- significantly below their $40 initial public offering price in April 2021.

Lu had been at the helm of the self-driving company since 2018 and led TuSimple during its IPO. He will serve as an adviser to the new CEO until March 2023 to ensure an effective transition, a time during which he will receive an annual salary of $450,000, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Lu appeared on an Automotive News podcast on Feb. 13. TuSimple's executive team had not mentioned plans for an …

WASHINGTON — NHTSA on Thursday released a long-awaited proposal to update its new-vehicle evaluation program.

The agency's proposed updates to its New Car Assessment Program, or NCAP, include adding four more advanced driver-assistance technologies to its recommendations and improving test procedures and performance criteria for driver-assist technologies already included in the program.

In addition, NHTSA's proposal calls for establishing a 10-year road map for future program updates and seeks comment on ways to develop a "meaningful" ratings system for driver-assist technologies.

The proposal also considers the potential addition of emerging vehicle technologies related to driver distraction, alcohol detection and driver monitoring, the agency said.

"The proposed improvements will not only make the program more useful and informative but also keep up with the pace of innovation in vehicle safety," Steven Cliff, NHTSA's deputy administrator, said…

TOKYO — A Tokyo court has found the former Nissan executive Greg Kelly guilty of playing a role in helping former boss Carlos Ghosn allegedly hide more than $80 million in deferred compensation.

But after more than three years of prosecution, Kelly, 65, was given a six-month suspended sentence by chief judge Kenji Shimotsu. The Tennessee human resources executive and attorney, arrested while on a Nov. 2018 business trip to Japan, will be free to go home with his wife, according to a statement released in Tokyo by the U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel.

"We are relieved that the legal process has concluded, and Mr. and Mrs. Kelly can return home," said the statement. "While this has been a long three years for the Kelly family, this chapter has come to an end. He and Dee can begin their next chapter in Tennessee."

The closely watched court decision, read out in a packed courtroom in Tokyo District Court on March 3, has been a lightning rod of corporat…

Ford's creation of new business units for its internal combustion and electric vehicles will come with a new organizational structure.

A number of executives will be taking on new responsibilities, effective immediately. Here's a look at the details.

CEO Jim Farley will add the title of Model e division president. Doug Field, whom Ford hired from Apple last year, will report to Farley. He will lead product creation for Model e as chief EV and digital systems officer and will also will lead development of software and embedded systems for all of Ford. "Designing truly incredible electric and software-driven vehicles — with experiences customers can't even imagine yet — requires a clean-sheet approach," Field said in a statement. "We are creating an organization that benefits from all of Ford's know-how and capabilities, but that can move with speed and unconstrained ambition to create revolutionary new products." Lisa Drake, previously Ford's North America COO, w…

Rivian Automotive Inc. has set a new bar for sticker shock in the electric vehicle era. The company, citing increased materials costs, is boosting prices as much as 20 percent on some models.

But there may be more to the huge bump than increasingly expensive materials.

Last fall the company abruptly terminated Laura Schwab, who was lured away from Aston Martin to head Rivian's sales and marketing.

Schwab, in a lawsuit against the company, said one reason she was fired is because she questioned Rivian's pricing. The R1T electric truck's starting sticker price of $67,500 was too low, Schwab said in her suit. Rivian was on the cusp of launching its IPO and had already booked thousands of orders for its pickup.

Her suit says: "First, it was clear that the vehicles were underpriced, and each sale would result in a loss the company. Ms. Schwab ultimately contacted Dennis Lucey, Rivian's Finance Director, and worked with him to develop projections s…

Electric vehicles' share of new-vehicle auto financing doubled to 4.6 percent of the market during the fourth quarter of 2021, up from 2.3 percent a year earlier and 1.3 percent two years earlier, according to Experian, which devoted a section of its quarterly market report to research on EV loans and leases.

"The exponential growth in electric vehicle financing shows us just how prominent this fuel type is becoming, bringing additional context to the industry buzz," Melinda Zabritski, Experian senior director of automotive financial solutions, said in a statement last week. "Understanding the landscape of financing will be helpful for lenders and dealers to understand consumer preferences and make informed decisions as more models continue to be introduced."

Hybrids also grew between the fourth quarters of 2020 and 2021, rising from 3.7 percent of financed new vehicles to 6.3 percent, according to Experian.

All together, vehicles other than gasoline int…

Private equity firm Calera Capital has purchased a majority stake in finance and insurance product compliance provider F&I Sentinel.

F&I Sentinel did not disclose terms of the deal in a Monday news release announcing the acquisition.

"We were not really looking for any investor," F&I Sentinel CEO and co-founder Stephen McDaniel told Automotive News on Tuesday. He said his company happened upon Calera, which focuses on founder-owned businesses that have scaled quickly.

"We have grown very rapidly," said McDaniel, who launched F&I Sentinel in 2019 with fellow co-founders and insurance regulatory attorneys Matthew Nowels and Tim Meenan Jr. All three continue to be investors in the firm, McDaniel said.

McDaniel and Nowels have continued in their roles of CEO and senior vice president of operations following the acquisition. Meenan has not been involved in the day-to-day operations of the company.

"F&I Sentinel adds tremendou…

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will keep an eye on underwater auto loans and study subprime auto lending competition, the agency said last week.

The agency said it was "concerned" about loan-to-value ratios, which compare the amount owed on a vehicle with its actual worth.

"While LTV ratios have dropped in the past year for consumers who already had cars due to high used-vehicle prices, LTVs were climbing prior to the global vehicle shortage," the bureau wrote in a Feb. 24 blog post. "We expect that trend to resume once price pressures abate."

New vehicle loan-to-value ratios stood at 118 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021, up from 110 percent of sticker price a year earlier, Experian said the same day. But used-vehicle loan-to-vehicle ratios had fallen from 123 percent to 113 percent.

The bureau followed its blog post with a Feb. 28 compliance bulletin warning lenders against improper repossession practices. The agency said in an acc…