Trade News

The service business development center Sarah Vantine built from scratch at Scott Clark Auto Group became quite a draw for fixed ops directors and other dealership personnel from around the country — and even from Canada and Australia.

They were curious to learn from Vantine's successful BDC at the three-rooftop group in the Charlotte, N.C., area that handled thousands of customer calls, made service appointments and solicited maintenance and repair business.

After a while, Vantine realized dealership service departments were desperate for her expertise and experience. She also was becoming more interested in life "outside my fishbowl."

"There just wasn't that much information out there in this space," Vantine says. "So I thought I could impact, instead of three stores, hundreds of stores."

Last June, she joined Quantum5, an emerging dealership training company in Scottsdale, Ariz., as its vice president of business dev…

Chrysler parent company Stellantis is recalling almost 20,000 plug-in hybrid Pacifica minivans because of fire risk, the latest incident highlighting the potential hazards involved with the industry’s move toward EVs.

An internal investigation found 12 incidents of fires in vehicles from the 2017 and 2018 model years, the automaker said Friday in a statement. All of the minivans were parked and turned off, and eight were charging when the fires occurred. Stellantis said it’s not aware of any related injuries or accidents.

“Stellantis is working to confirm the cause of the fires,” the company said in the statement. “The remedy, when developed, will be provided free of charge, and affected customers will be advised when they may schedule service.”

The voluntary recall includes 19,808 vehicles, mostly in the U.S. and Canada, with batteries made by an affiliate of LG Chem Ltd.

LG Energy Solution Ltd., which was spun out of parent LG Chem in an initial…

Four dealership groups in fourth-quarter 2021 transactions bought either one or two stores as they expanded portfolios in Colorado, New York and Texas.

Here's a look at the deals involving import, domestic and luxury brands. One of the transactions involved a group on Automotive News' top 150 dealership groups list.

Fred Emich IV and three partners in November bought a Volkswagen dealership in Boulder, Colo., marking the group's second store with the German brand.

Emich IV said that he and his father Fred Emich III, cousin Colton Emich and Robert Colbert bought Gebhardt Volkswagen on Nov. 12 from Jim Gebhardt.

The dealership was renamed Emich Volkswagen of Boulder.

"We are hopeful the VW franchise will improve with electrification," Emich IV, dealer principal of the Boulder store, said in an email to Automotive News. "We have a successful VW store in Denver and felt the addition gave us a strategic advantage while not competing against ea…

Is Kia's Robo Dog here to stay?

The cute electronic canine has a star turn in Kia's 13th Super Bowl spot, which features the EV6. The dog, longing for an owner, chases down the battery-electric crossover with hopes that the driver will take it home.

Kia created adorable ambassadors before with its dancing hamsters. The hamsters weren't meant to be long-term characters, but they ended up sticking around because they were a hit with viewers, said Russell Wager, vice president of marketing for Kia America.

Wager wouldn't rule out the chance of the same thing happening with Robo Dog if there's a similar public reaction.

Kia released the spot online Feb. 3, well before the Super Bowl this Sunday. The ad is bolstered by a larger social campaign on TikTok where users can dance with Robo Dog. The brand this week also launched an augmented reality experience, or "Robo Dogmented Reality," where the dog appears in the user's environment when they look throu…

CHICAGO — All of us like to think of the auto industry as a mature, serious business; one that puts tens of billions on the line each year and makes sound, logical decisions based on sound, logical business practices that have been honed to a razor-fine point over more than a century of practice.

And then you remember: This is a $6 trillion industry run by hugely competitive people with proportionately sized egos. Petty rivalries from long ago are rarely fully forgotten, and fits of pique can occasionally be measured by actual peaks — as they are at this year's Chicago Auto Show.

Two giant steel structures again loom large over the show floor, but their proportions have ... evolved since last summer.

One is the newer "Bronco Mountain," introduced by Ford when it resurrected its Bronco off-roader in 2020.

The other is over at Camp Jeep, where Wranglers, Grand Cherokees and Gladiators demonstrate their trail-conquering …

Ken Mauldin, fixed ops director at Purdy Auto Group, is a data miner. He's constantly scanning reports from the service and parts departments of his group's three Texas Toyota stores. He looks for the missed opportunities that sometimes show up in rows of numbers.

"I get reports emailed to me every night, pretty much everything that goes on in the stores. I dive into the reports, and I watch for trends," Mauldin told Automotive News. "I manage my trends. If I see something trending off in the wrong direction, at that point I am making a phone call to the right people and saying, 'Hey, let's sit down and talk about this. Let's figure out what happened.' "

Mauldin's analysis led to a small change on the service drive that has seen all three Purdy stores increasing the number of trade-ins coming through the service drive.

Early in 2020, Mauldin was looking at how service customers were using the GoMoto kiosk in the service drive at the company's South Toyo…

Police in Windsor, Ontario, began to clear protesters who continue to occupy a vital Canada-U.S. trade corridor on Saturday, less than a day after a judge granted an injunction to end the blockade that has crippled North America's well-knitted auto industry.

Tractor-trailer traffic has been blocked since late Monday from crossing the Ambassador Bridge from Windsor to Detroit. All Canada-bound bridge traffic from the U.S. has also been blocked since late Monday.

About 15 trucks, cars and vans blocked traffic in both directions Saturday afternoon, choking a key supply route for automakers.

The standoff continued into Saturday evening.

"We urge all demonstrators to act lawfully & peacefully," Windsor Police said in a Twitter post, asking commuters to avoid the areas affected by the demonstrations. The police action came more than 12 hours after a court order to ended the blockade came into effect.

While police have successfully pushed bac…

The Ontario Superior Court granted an injunction on Friday that could end the five-day blockade of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario, as assembly plants in Ontario and Michigan continue to curtail production due to parts shortages.

The motion for injunction, filed by the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, with the City of Windsor and the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General participating as intervenors, was heard Friday afternoon.

Lawyers for the APMA, city and province argued the blockade is causing ongoing and irreparable harm to Ontarians and businesses in the province, pointing to lost automotive production translating into tens of millions of dollars.

Chief Justice Morawetz said he was satisfied the case for the injunction was made and granted the injunction after about 4 ½ hours of submissions. The order will take effect at 7 p.m. ET Friday, he said, giving individuals the opportunity and time to clear the area.

The i…

The Automotive Hall of Fame has named its six inductees for 2022, who come from around the globe.

"From manufacturing to racing, road travel to the rarest of luxury performance vehicles, this group tells some of the most interesting and important stories of the industry," Automotive Hall of Fame President Sarah Cook said Thursday in a statement announcing the inductees.

This class includes:

Alma and Victor Green, authors and publishers of The Green Book, a guide for Black people traveling through America published in 1936-66. Lu Guanqiu, an entrepreneur who grew Wanxiang Group into the first Chinese auto parts supplier for America. Ferruccio Lamborghini, the Italian entrepreneur who created the luxury performance sport cars named after himself. Taiichi Ohno, a former Toyota executive who helped invent the Toyota Production System, which greatly increased efficiency in global vehicle manufacturing. Lyn St. James, a former race car driver described by the Aut…

American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. took a $46.3 million blow in the fourth quarter, but executives say consolidation in the internal combustion engine market and new business in EVs will benefit its balance sheet.

The driveline supplier's net loss reported Friday compares to a net income of $36 million a year prior. Fourth quarter sales fell 14 percent year-over-year to $1.24 billion, while 2021 full-year sales gained 10 percent to $5.16 billion.

The company achieved a record adjusted free cash flow of $422.9 million last year despite being hit by steel and commodity price increases, labor challenges, turbulent production and other industry headwinds.

Investors appeared unimpressed during a down day on Wall Street. American Axle shares fell 5.1 percent to close at $7.93 on Friday.

"Clearly the investors aren't recognizing the full potential of American Axle when it comes to our EBITDA and cash flow performance," CEO David Dauch said o…

Toyota Motor North America plans to invest $90 million into two components plants, one each in West Virginia and Tennessee, to expand and prepare for regional production of hybridized and battery-electric vehicles.

The bulk of the funds will go to its plant in Buffalo, W.Va., where $73 million will be used to expand production of hybrid transaxles to 600,000 per year, Toyota said in a statement. The other $17 million will be used at its casting plant in Tennessee to expand castings of hybrid transaxle cases and housings to 1.3 million per year, the company said.

Toyota invested $210 million into the West Virginia plant to expand capacity last year, later expanding the figure to $240 million. It was at an event celebrating that investment in November that U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced that he steadfastly opposed a $4,500 federal tax credit for union-made vehicles. That had been proposed by members of Michigan's congressional delegation under the Buil…

Ford Motor Co. next week will cut Transit van output in Missouri and truck output in Ohio and reduce shifts at a number of other plants because of the ongoing semiconductor shortage.

The automaker said production will be halted next week at its Ohio Assembly Plant, where it builds medium trucks, Super Duty chassis cabs, E-Series cutaways, and stripped chassis. The Transit side of the Kansas City Assembly Plant will also be down next week, although the side that builds the F-150 pickup will run.

Ford on Friday shuttered the Ohio plant because of ongoing protests at the Canadian border.

Additionally, output at Ford's Kentucky Truck and Chicago Assembly will be reduced to two shifts, while production at Dearborn Truck will be cut to one shift.

"The global semiconductor shortage continues to affect Ford's North American plants – along with automakers and other industries around the world," a Ford spokeswoman said in a statement. "Behind the sc…