Trade News

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has stepped up its probe into engine fires that have plagued some Hyundai Motor Co and Kia Motors Corp vehicles for more than six years.

The U.S. auto safety agency said it had opened an "engineering analysis" covering about 3 million vehicles to evaluate, among other things, the efficacy of recalls initiated by the two automakers. The agency added that it was aware of 161 fires occurring potentially due to engine failures.

An engineering analysis is the next step in a process that could lead to a recall, although sometimes NHTSA closes such probes without requiring any action.

The agency had opened an investigation in 2019 covering the 2011-2014 Kia Optima and Sorento and the 2010-2015 Kia Soul, along with the 2011-2014 Hyundai Sonata and Santa Fe to investigate instances of non-crash fires.

Hyundai said on Monday it continues to fully cooperate with NHTSA in reg…

BEIJING -- BYD and autonomous driving startup Momenta established a 100 million yuan ($15.7 million) joint venture to deploy autonomous driving capabilities across certain BYD vehicles, according to a Momenta statement and a person familiar with the matter.

The new venture, called DiPi Intelligent Mobility Co. and located in Shenzhen, combines BYD's capabilities as an automaker with Momenta's experience in intelligent driving, said the statement on Monday.

BYD has invested 60 million yuan in the venture while Beijing-based Momenta is investing 40 million yuan, the person said.

The person said the initial scope of work will include deploying “Level 2 plus” autonomous driving capability across some vehicle model lines.

Level 2 semi-autonomous cars have technology that can take care of nearly all aspects of driving, from steering to acceleration and braking, but the driver needs to be ready to intervene if needed.

Asked about the tie-up, a BYD…

When General Motors Corp. filed for bankruptcy and reorganized in 2009, the makings of a Wall Street darling emerged from the wreckage.

Aptiv Plc, which grew out of the parts unit spun off from the iconic automaker, soared to $48 billion in market value earlier this year after transforming into a savvy technology company built for the shift toward electric, autonomous vehicles.

Now, though, the industry is being upended anew in ways that could challenge Aptiv. Carmakers, taking lessons from the chip shortage and the playbook of insurgent rival Tesla Inc., are moving software and engineering tasks in-house. Silicon Valley giants are elbowing into the sector, with the likes of Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc. and Nvidia Corp. seeing opportunity in cutting-edge vehicles that are essentially giant computers on wheels.

Those forces are reordering the $1.3 trillion auto supply chain, creating openings for newcomers and threatening an entrenched industry pecking ord…

German executive Michael Lohscheller is stepping down as CEO of VinFast Global, the automotive arm of Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup.

Lohscheller will leave the position and return to Europe due to personal reasons, Vingroup said in a statement on Monday.

Lohscheller quit his job as CEO of the Stellantis brand Opel in July to lead VinFast's push to become a "global smart electric car company," with an emphasis on growing the brand's business in Europe and North America, according to a release. He moved to Vietnam for the post.

Vingroup said Le Thi Thu Thuy will take over Lohscheller's position of VinFast Global CEO. Thuy will remain Vingroup vice chairwoman.

Thuy will directly be in charge of overseeing VinFast's business activities in its current markets, including Vietnam, the U.S., Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands, Vingroup said.

In the coming time, she will also lead market survey activities and expansions into other pote…

Ferrari has signed a multi-year accord with Swiss technology firm Velas Network to create digital content for its fans.

Starting next season, Velas, a provider of digital products and services, will become a partner of Ferrari's Formula 1 racing team.

"In addition, Velas will be Title Sponsor of the Ferrari Esports Series, the online mono-brand series of the Prancing Horse, and of the Esports team that will compete in the F1 Esports Series, the official digital championship competed in by all teams participating in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship," Ferrari said in a statement.

Velas is a leading provider of blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cryptographic assets stored on a blockchain which have an identification code that makes them unique and have gained popularity as a way to sell digital art.

The top 10 retailers collectively sold 1,231,944 new vehicles, including fleet vehicles. That accounted for 36.4 percent of the top 150's total new-vehicle sales.

For the entire top 150, new-vehicle sales fell 10 percent last year to 3,383,809 vehicles as the pandemic disrupted the industry. U.S. new light-vehicle sales declined 14 percent to 14.6 million. New-vehicle sales fell for all six publicly held groups. AutoNation's new-vehicle sales dropped 12 percent to 250,824 in 2020, and Penske dropped 21 percent to 182,398.

Would 2022 really be another pandemic sequel?

A friend pointed out on Twitter that "2022" said out loud is like "2020, too" or "2020 2." (Of course, 2021 was the sequel to 2020. Maybe '22 can be the end of the trilogy?)

Seriously, we don't need another year of trying to figure out how to get back to work safely and weighing workers' individual liberties against the health of all stakeholders.

This year, 2021, started with great hope as vaccines that had been quickly and expertly developed were poised to come to market and set the global economy right again. Instead, the world stumbles to the finish with a second super-contagious variant leading to the preemptive cancellation of events in the year to come.

As frustrating as COVID-19's persistence has been, the auto industry has learned to manage quite well, for the most part. Automakers are raking in profits by prioritizing high-margin vehicles and slashing incentives. …

Amid the stress of life and business in 2021, the automotive world lost a number of influential people who had spent their careers taking the industry to new levels. Here are some of them.

Leon Edwards, who died Jan. 16 at age 89, led the National Automobile Dealers Association at a time of legal strife as it agreed to a decade of antitrust oversight by the government rather than launch a "crippling" court fight.

Edwards, a Chevrolet dealer from Birmingham, Ala., was NADA president in 1995 when the association agreed to an antitrust settlement that called for 10 years of monitoring after the organization was accused of making illegal efforts to limit price competition in vehicle sales to consumers.

At the time, NADA leaders, including Edwards, said they opted to settle with the Justice Department rather than face litigation that they said would have cost at least $1 million to defend, according to an October 1995 story in Automotive News.

As par…

Not surprisingly, the 2021 Automotive News Top Suppliers ranking of the industry's biggest producers of original equipment content for automakers shows that the vast majority of major world parts companies posted sales declines in 2020.

Experian Automotive provides a glimpse of the number of vehicles in operation in the United States. The data offers a look at the total number of vehicles on U.S. roads, listed by manufacturer.

AutoForecast Solutions has kept track of the microchip shortage’s impact on assembly plants across the globe since the beginning of the year. Here are the projected production cutbacks on lines in North America, as of Dec. 17.

Shunji Tanaka, a key designer of the iconic Mazda Miata, has died. He was 75.

Tanaka led the exterior and interior design of the Mazda MX-5 Miata, a lightweight Japanese roadster inspired by postwar-era British sports cars. The car went on sale in the U.S. in May 1989 with a starting price of $13,800 and a 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine with 116 hp.

The roadster, which featured a lightweight aluminum hood, weighed a feathery 2,116 pounds and could hit 60 mph in less than nine seconds.

U.S. sales peaked in 1990, the car's second year on the market, at 35,944. The 1 millionth Miata rolled off the line in 2016.

Though annual U.S. sales have declined as convertibles have fallen out of favor with consumers, the car remains a key part of Mazda's identity. In 2019, Mazda celebrated the MX-5's heritage with a 30th anniversary special edition.

Following his stint at Mazda, Tanaka joined Kawasaki, where he designed motorcycles.