Trade News

Volkswagen of America has appointed a new head of sales and marketing to replace Duncan Movassaghi, who left the company and returned to his native U.K.

Andrew Savvas, 44, a native of Australia who previously was director of Volkswagen UK, takes over this month as chief sales and marketing officer and executive vice president of sales and marketing for VW of America, the German automaker said Friday in a call with journalists about its 2021 sales results.

Savvas, who joined VW in Australia in 2012, had previously worked for Toyota Motor Corp. in his home country. While with VW Group, he was managing director for Audi in VW's Middle East region before spending the last two years in the U.K.

Movassaghi, 47, came to the U.S. in 2018 as VW's head of sales, and inherited the marketing role in 2020.

In other announcements on the call:

• The company had granted its more than 4,000 employees in Chattanooga a 10 percent wage increase this year. "In …

In a year throttled by supply-chain shortages, BMW outmaneuvered rivals Lexus and Mercedes to claim the U.S. luxury sales crown for the third straight year.

BMW appears to have fended off — if only barely — a surging Tesla. The Texas-based EV producer barreled toward 1 million in global sales last year, up 87 percent from 2020.

Overall, the U.S. luxury market outpaced the broader industry last year.

U.S. luxury sales climbed 13 percent in 2021, compared with a 3.3 percent gain for the overall industry. Luxury brands delivered 2.2 million vehicles, accounting for a record 14.7 percent of total U.S. light-vehicle sales.

The BMW brand delivered 336,644 sedans and crossovers in the U.S. last year, on par with pre-pandemic 2019 sales. Robust demand for crossovers fueled the brand's 21 percent surge last year.

"We had strong end-to-end operational performance — from procurement to sales," BMW's global sales chief Pieter Nota told Automotive News…

Three domestic brand dealerships sold late last year in transactions in Michigan, Florida and California.

Here's a look at the deals, one of which involved a group on Automotive News' top 150 dealership groups list.

Longtime Buick-GMC dealership changes hands in northern Michigan

A longtime family-owned dealership in northern Michigan changed hands in November when Tom Wagar sold his Buick-GMC store in Gaylord.

Gene Skiba and investors Linda Wernig, Andrew Krajniak and Lucas Shepherd bought Wagar Motors on Nov. 5 and renamed it Jim Wernig Buick-GMC, Skiba said.

The dealership, which dates back more than 50 years, sits across the street from Jim Wernig Chevrolet, said Skiba, dealer principal of the two Gaylord stores, plus a Buick-GMC dealership in Alpena, Mich.

"Tom and I have been competitors for the last 44 years," Skiba said. "He and I have remained friends, and he decided it was time for him to move on."

Skiba said partne…

Volkswagen's sales fell 11 percent to 84,336 in the fourth quarter as it prioritized the launch of the new Taos crossover instead of slower-selling, less-profitable sedans such as the Jetta.

Audi's sales fell 47 percent to 33,184 in the quarter. For the year, VW finished up 15 percent to 375,030, the brand's best year in the U.S. since 2013, while Audi volume rose 5 percent to 196,038.

Brands: VW off 11%; Audi down 47%.

U.S. market share (with Porsche): 4.3% in 2021, up from 3.9% in 2020.

Notable nameplates (Q4): Volkswagen Atlas, down 27%; Tiguan, off 1.5%; Jetta, down 63%; ID4 sales (new): 4,463; Taos sales (new): 13,639; Audi Q5, down 51%; Q7, off 65%; A4, down 57%; A6, off 62%.

Incentives (Q4): $1,962 per vehicle, down 51% from a year earlier, TrueCar says.

Average transaction price: $40,325, up 2.4% from a year earlier, according to TrueCar.

Quote: "The additions of the ID4, our first long-range EV, and our Taos were huge…

Carl Icahn has reached an agreement with auto supplier Dana Inc. that gives the activist investor two seats on the board. Its shares jumped 2.2 percent in early trading.

The axle and powertrain parts supplier will temporarily expand its board to 12 members to make room for Icahn’s directors -- his son Brett Icahn and Gary Hu -- and the previously announced appointment of Ernesto Hernandez. After the company’s annual meeting, Raymond Mabus will be retiring and the size of the board will be reduced to 11, Dana said Friday in a statement.

“Dana has made significant advancements as a forward-thinking mobility company, and we appreciate Icahn Capital’s support and constructive engagement as we continue to execute our strategic plan,” Dana CEO James Kamsickas said in the statement.

Icahn, who owns a 9.9 percent stake in the company, first disclosed his investment in the company in the fourth quarter of 2020. He said in the statement Friday he has had productiv…

Major automakers such as General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Volvo Cars deepened ties with key technology partners this week to gird for the upcoming fights against Tesla and Apple.

Three chip firms -- Intel Corp.'s Mobileye, Qualcomm Inc. and Nvidia Corp. -- emerged from a raft of announcements at the CES in Las Vegas in locking down the brains of self-driving cars for the next decade.

The deals involve consolidating scores of older, slower chips into more powerful centralized computers. But to win them, the chip firms have had to consent to letting automakers control key parts of the technology.

Reuters has previously reported that Apple plans an electric car. Bloomberg reported last year that the iPhone maker is aiming for full self-driving capabilities as early as 2025.

For automakers facing Apple and Tesla, the stakes are high. In addition to electrifying their models, automakers are essentially designing computers with increasing self-drivi…

Cadillac's vision for the future is a reputation based on the experience of the journey rather than the vehicle itself.

"We were designing cars, but now we design experiences," Frank Saucedo, director of General Motors' Advanced Design Studio in California, told Automotive News. "The technology is making this [customer] experience basically effortless."

Cadillac showcased the latest addition to its Cadillac Halo Concept Portfolio during CES this week with the InnerSpace, a two-passenger autonomous, electric luxury concept vehicle that features nearly full views through a panoramic glass roof and part of the body sides and a massive LED display for augmented reality engagement, entertainment or wellness recovery.

Cadillac also teased the OpenSpace, a vehicle that gives passengers a place to stay while traveling. It plans to share more details on the OpenSpace this year.

The InnerSpace and OpenSpace build on two concepts Cadillac introduced at CES…

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ Israeli lidar startup inks production deal

Lidar company Opsys Tech says a million new vehicles a year will be equipped with its lidar sensors starting in 2025.

The Israeli sensor company has reached a deal to supply lidar to global auto supplier SL Corp., which will utilize the lidar sensors in production vehicles as early as 2024, Eitan Gertel, Opsys' chairman, said this week at CES.

Buoyed by similar agreements with two Chinese automakers that Hyundai-backed Opsys Tech has not yet disclosed, Opsys Tech believes it is on the fast track to reaching high volumes of deployed lidar systems in Asia that will equip both passenger cars and commercial trucks. Combined, the three contracts will reach the million-vehicle mark on an annual basis. Production could begin next year.

SL Corp. will work to integrate the company's lidar systems into headlights and taillights, which helps to standardize both their use and care.

"…

Power management company Eaton Corp. said Tuesday that it finalized a deal to acquire Royal Power Solutions for $600 million in a bid to expand its electric vehicle supply chain business.

Royal Power Solutions is an electric connectivity components company whose parts are used primarily in EVs. The acquisition will allow Eaton's eMobility team to expand its reach into that $11 billion market, said Joao Faria, president of Eaton's vehicle group unit.

"This is a big opportunity for us and then bring a bigger portfolio and a bigger market that we can attend to," he said.

The price paid is more than 13 times Royal Power Solutions estimated earnings before interest in 2022, Eaton said in a statement.

Royal Power Solutions works with many of same manufacturing customers as Eaton, Faria said.

Royal Power Solutions employs about 450 people and operates two manufacturing facilities, located in Carol Stream, Ill., and Queretaro, Mexico. The company a…

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico has sought arbitration from an expert panel to resolve differences with the U.S. over the interpretation of rules of origin in the automotive industry, Mexico's economy ministry said on Thursday.

"Mexico believes a panel decision will give certainty to the auto industry, benefiting competition in the region," the ministry said in a statement, adding it filed the request for the arbitration on Thursday after previously raising concerns with the U.S.