Trade News

SAN FRANCISCO -- The U.S. securities regulator has opened an investigation into Tesla Inc. over a whistleblower complaint that the company failed to properly notify its shareholders and the public of fire risks associated with solar panel system defects over several years, according to a letter from the agency.

The probe raises regulatory pressure on the world's most valuable automaker headed by Elon Musk, which already faces a federal safety probe into accidents involving its driver assistant systems. Concerns about fires from Tesla solar systems have been published previously, but this is the first report of investigation by the securities regulator.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed the Tesla probe in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Steven Henkes, a former Tesla field quality manager, who filed a whistleblower complaint on the solar systems in 2019 and asked the agency for information about the report.

"We have …

This past year has been a record setter for dealers, who have achieved average profit levels 82 percent higher than the previous six-year average, regardless of franchise or location. As a byproduct of this profitability, many dealers are expanding their operations, or have plans to.

If you’re embarking on expansion, it’s critical to implement efficient, scalable systems and processes that can handle increased inputs to hit your goals. Sticking to the same old paper processes and inefficient workflow limits productivity, wastes time and stifles growth.

Let’s review a few areas where inefficient processes may be lurking.

These past two years have shown us that providing consumers with digital tools online not only creates a better consumer experience, but just as important, helps to streamline workflows in the variable ops department. Instead of standing around waiting for ups, your salespeople operate more efficiently on an appointment-based system and…

McLaren Automotive's former Americas sales chief Nicolas Brown has officially taken over as head of the region, the sports car maker said.

Brown, 40, took the leadership position on an interim basis in July following Tony Joseph's decision to step down from the role.

Brown is receiving the job of McLaren's president of the Americas at a good time, said dealer Robert DiStanislao, president of RDS Automotive, which operates two McLaren stores in Philadelphia and Newport Beach, Calif.

"The supply-demand dynamic is excellent right now," he said. "There's far more demand than there is product. The new Artura order bank is filling, and we expect that to be a very successful launch."

Brown must now maintain the momentum.

"There will be a new demand for more McLaren dealers," DiStanislao said. But "it will be important to keep the dealer count low" to ensure product exclusivity and maintain margins.

In his former role as vice presi…

Lucid Group Inc. has received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission seeking documents related to an investigation on its blank-check deal, the luxury EV maker said on Monday.

"The investigation appears to concern the business combination between the Company (Churchill Capital Corp. IV) and Atieva Inc and certain projections and statements," the company said in a regulatory filing.

Shares in Lucid fell 12 percent in premarket trading Monday.

The deal, which was completed earlier this year, was with veteran dealmaker Michael Klein's blank-check acquisition firm.

It was one of the biggest in a string of deals with Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) that included EV makers such as Nikola Corp and Fisker Inc.

Founded in 2007 as Atieva Inc by former Tesla executive Bernard Tse and entrepreneur Sam Weng, Lucid plans to achieve production target of 20,000 vehicles in 2022 and 50,000 in 2023.

It was funded ini…

Tesla Inc. has asked a U.S. court to affirm an arbitrator's recent decision dismissing a former engineer's claims that the automaker fired and defamed her for raising concerns about defective floormats and contracting practices.

In a petition filed in San Francisco federal court last week, Tesla said an arbitrator in a Nov. 3 decision found Cristina Balan's claims that the company falsely accused her of criminal conduct in response to a 2017 Huffington Post article about her firing were untimely.

In March, a California-based appeals court ruled that Balan was required to arbitrate the defamation claims because they were directly related to her employment with Tesla.

The company on Thursday asked the court to confirm the arbitrator's decision, which opens the door for Balan to challenge it.

Balan said in an email on Friday that she would seek to vacate the arbitration award "due to fraud, corruption, bias ... and manifest disregard for the law." Read more

From easing the driver shortage to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Finch Fulton, VP of policy and strategy at Locomation, and Andrew Smith, CEO at Outrider, foresee automation offering substantial benefits in the trucking realm. They outline two distinct approaches to the market in the near term.

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National Auto Care has been buying finance-and-insurance agencies in a prominent example of a broader consolidation trend within that industry.

"It's going at a fast pace," Colonnade Advisors CEO Gina Cocking, an industry analyst, said of F&I agency consolidation.

Cocking estimated there are about 1,200 F&I agencies nationwide.

Courtney Hoffman, NAC senior vice president of mergers and acquisitions, said she thought her company would be one of the leaders left standing as the "highly fragmented" industry coalesces to produce a handful of large players.

"I don't think it [consolidation] stops," Hoffman said.

In October, NAC tallied its 10th agency acquisition in 18 months — Oklahoma City-based Mojo Consulting. The news followed its August announcement of five purchases: Ace Financial Development Group in Portage, Mich.; Pinnacle Dealer Services in Arizona; Pritchard Insurance in Stanwood, Wash.; Profit Concepts in Ogden, Utah; and …

Lucid Motors is enjoying a wild ride to the top tier of the EV pack. The quick pace of events is like a quarter-mile blast in the automaker's 1,111-hp Lucid Air Dream Edition.

Since late October, Lucid delivered its first Air sedans to paying customers, matched Ford Motor Co. in market value and received a slew of industry accolades for its debut model.

But the California startup now faces growing pains as it takes on market leader Tesla, along with Rivian and the entire legacy auto industry. For now, Lucid has just a single product: an executive sedan with a six-figure price tag and limited production capacity.

"We have had a great deal of activity recently, and we've been very excited by some of the awards coming our way," Zak Edson, Lucid's senior director of sales and service, told Automotive News. Among them: MotorTrend's 2022 Car of the Year award.

"We've been particularly excited being able to deliver cars to cu…

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Not so many years ago, the Southeastern U.S. was largely off the map of the North American auto industry. But over the past three decades, states in that region have attracted — and continue to attract — billions in auto manufacturing and supply chain project investments. At a gathering of the multistate Southern Automotive Conference here, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, 77, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, 47, and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, 74, sat together to talk about the growth of the industry in the South, with News Editor Lindsay Chappell moderating their discussion. These are edited excerpts.

Q: Each of your states has been enormously successful in attracting auto industry investment where none used to be. What made that happen?

A: Ivey: We in Alabama are proud of our work. We're a right-to-work state, and our people want to work and provide for their families. In Alabama, we customize incentive packages resources. We have a work force…

Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup JSC is restructuring its automobile unit VinFast ahead of a planned U.S. initial public offering in the second half of 2022.

Vingroup’s 51.52 percent stake in VinFast will be transferred to a Singapore subsidiary, the company said in an emailed statement on Saturday.

The EV maker, which aims to roll out electric crossovers in the U.S., Canada and Europe late next year, is working with investment banks to prepare for an IPO that would make VinFast one of the first Vietnamese companies to be traded in the U.S.

VinFast could raise as much as $3 billion from an IPO, people familiar with the matter have said. The company expects to have a post-IPO value of $25 billion to $60 billion, Vice Chairwoman Le Thi Thu Thuy told Bloomberg News in November. The company is also in talks with potential investors to raise billions of dollars in both debt and equity to finance its electric vehicle expansion in the U.S., Thuy said in a sep…

Beset by margin compression on vehicle sales last fall, Roy Lacey, dealer manager of Rapids Honda, started looking for ways to cut expenses. One possibility was as clear as an untinted window: The dealership in Coon Rapids, Minn., was paying vendors more than $500,000 a year to install aftermarket products.

"To take back some profits, we had to take a look at things we were outsourcing," Lacey said. "We were paying other companies $50,000 to $60,000 a month to install accessories. I thought to myself, 'This is crazy.' "

After conferring with Lance Spah, the store's service manager, Lacey decided the dealership — about 15 miles northwest of downtown Minneapolis — would bring in-house all window-tinting and protective-film installations as well as rustproofing and undercoating applications.

After in-house installations went fully operational in March, significant financial gains followed.

In March 2020, gross profit for internal service department…

Is Bob Brockman truly cognitively impaired to the extent that he won't be able to help his lawyers defend him against federal tax evasion charges? Or is he, as prosecutors contend, exaggerating his symptoms to avoid a trial?

A federal judge will make that determination now that a competency hearing for the former Reynolds and Reynolds Co. CEO has concluded.

Among the evidence U.S. District Judge George Hanks Jr. will weigh: Testimony from medical experts, close contacts of Brockman and current and former executives of privately held Reynolds during the hearing that spanned eight days in November in a Houston courtroom. Hanks also will consider experts' reports, medical records, brain images and filings from prosecutors and defense lawyers outlining their arguments.

Hanks has not specified a decision date, though it's expected in the new year. Hanks last week granted a request by Brockman's lawyers and prosecutors seeking more time to file briefs …