Trade News

BERLIN -- A works council being set up by Tesla Inc. staff at the company's new Gruenheide plant near Berlin risks being unrepresentative as most of the employees hired so far are middle or senior managers, Germany's largest union warned on Tuesday.

IG Metall said seven Tesla employees, none of whom were its members, had called a meeting for Monday to choose a committee to run elections for a works council that would remain in position for at least two years.

"We're happy there's been a starting shot," Birgit Dietze, head of IG Metall's regional office for Berlin-Brandenburg-Saxony where Tesla's factory is located, told Reuters.

"What is important is that the workers' council is really there for all employees ... for us it's a little too soon."

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under German labor law, employees must be at a company for six months before they can run in a works council election -- meaning any body f…

Elon Musk resumed selling shares in Tesla Inc. and passed the halfway point toward making good on a plan to offload 10 percent of his stake in the EV maker.

The billionaire offloaded another 934,091 shares for $1.05 billion, according to regulatory filings posted late Tuesday. The sales were carried out to cover taxes related to Musk exercising an additional 2.15 million stock options, the documents show.

With the most recent disposals, Musk now has sold 9.2 million shares worth about $9.9 billion since he conducted a Twitter poll asking whether he should sell 10 percent of his Tesla holding. A chunk of that money will go to taxes.

To reach the 10 percent threshold, Musk would need to sell some 17 million shares, or about 1.7 percent of the company’s outstanding stock. If his exercisable options are factored into his overall ownership, he’ll need to sell even more.

Since the Twitter poll, Musk has exercised millions of options that were less tha…

AGUASCALIENTES, Mexico -- The global semiconductor shortage is hitting Mexico's auto workers hard as employers slash output, reduce shift work and cut jobs due to supply-chain breakdowns.

The pain is acute in the central Mexican state of Aguascalientes and its namesake capital, one of the country's top automotive centers, where the chip crunch has forced rolling shutdowns at employers large and small.

The temporary closures have translated into lost wages for tens of thousands of workers here and across Mexico due to furloughs and layoffs, according to interviews with laborers, union leaders and industry executives.

Cuitlahuac Perez is general director of Aguascalientes-based auto parts firm Maindsteel, and head of one of the state's automotive clusters, which promotes the industry. He said his firm and other Aguascalientes suppliers have been suspending operations an average of seven to eight days per month as carmakers and other parts companies furthe…

Four dealership groups have expanded in separate transactions this month and in the second and third quarters of the year.

Three of the deals were for stores in California.

Here's a look at the deals involving domestic and import dealerships. One transaction involved a group ranked in Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups.

Victory Automotive growth

Growing Victory Automotive Group expanded its California footprint with the purchase of Albany Subaru in the San Francisco Bay area.

Victory Automotive, of Canton, Mich., bought the dealership on Nov. 15 from John Nakamura and Laurie Bush, according to Performance Brokerage Services, an Irvine, Calif., buy-sell firm that handled the transaction.

It marks the second Subaru franchise for Victory Automotive, with its other Subaru store in Fullerton, Calif., and the group's 45th dealership location.

In August, Victory Automotive bought Murfreesboro Volkswagen in Tennes…

BERLIN -- Volkswagen Group's top committee did not make a decision on the future of CEO Herbert Diess at a meeting on Tuesday, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday, with one describing talks as "on a knife-edge."

Diess and VW's powerful union representatives have clashed in recent weeks over his management style and electrification strategy, after he warned jobs could be lost if the process was not managed well.

"This topic is so hot, it is on a knife-edge. I can't say anything further," said one source, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

"As expected, there is nothing new," a second source said.

Sources told Reuters on Tuesday the supervisory board's eight-person executive committee would likely need more time to find a compromise that would satisfy all parties.

An agreement on the committee -- which includes works council head Daniela Cavallo and representatives for the majority shareholde…

Ford is adding a six-cylinder turbodiesel version of the next Ranger pickup to help attract more high-spending customers in Europe and other global markets.

The redesigned midsize Ranger will reach showrooms in early 2023, Ford of Europe said in a statement Wednesday. 

An electrified option, expected to be a plug-in hybrid, will be available by 2024, the automaker has said. A redesigned front-end structure will "future-proof the Ranger for other propulsion technologies," Ford added.

The current Ranger is available with a 2.0-liter four-cylinder diesel in Europe, in several power levels. It is offered in two-door regular cab, two-door four-seat Super Cab and five-seat, four-door double cab versions, for passenger and commercial registrations.

The cabin of the new Ranger will be "car-like, using premium soft-touch materials" Ford said.

A new focus on technology includes either a 10.1-inch or 12-inch central touch screen, a new…

In the second installment of our March interview with Harry Cohen, the psychologist discusses the importance of gratitude and how to avoid "toxic positivity."

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Chinese electric-vehicle maker Xpeng Inc. reported a bigger loss than the market was expecting for the third quarter as costs related to R&D and selling expenses jumped.  

The Guangzhou-based company, which is listed in the U.S. and Hong Kong, unveiled a net loss of 1.59 billion yuan ($249 million) for the three months through September, versus a 1.15 billion yuan loss a year earlier and a 1.19 billion yuan deficit the previous quarter. Analysts on average had forecast a loss of 1.09 billion yuan.

Revenue increased to 5.7 billion yuan, beating the company’s guidance of 5 billion yuan and bettering average analyst expectations for 5.2 billion yuan. Gross margin for the three-month period was 14.4 percent, better than the second quarter’s 11.9 percent and the 13.4 percent the market expected.

“We continued record-setting growth with the highest vehicle deliveries among China’s startup new energy vehicle automakers,” Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng in a stat…

There is a popular and apocryphal quote, attributed to Harry S. Truman, which advises that, "If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog."

International dealers have never felt the truth in that statement as powerfully as we do now. Our friends in Washington are few and far between these days as we seek protection against an un-American provision being shoehorned into the Build Back Better Act to benefit the UAW. The provision would offer consumers a $4,500 tax credit for buying an electric vehicle, but only if that vehicle was assembled in a union-represented plant.

The language is transparently a political payment from politicians to the unions that fund their campaigns. After all, a union-only tax credit doesn't promote EV sales. It drastically limits EV choices for consumers and will slow the conversion to electric vehicles. It also doesn't protect American workers. Today, 673,000 Americans are employed by nonunionized international nameplate manufacturer…

HOUSTON — A medical expert witness for Bob Brockman's defense testified Monday that he believes the former Reynolds and Reynolds Co. CEO has dementia that "negatively affects his ability to assist his lawyers in his own defense."

Dr. Thomas Guilmette, a psychologist and professor at Providence College in Rhode Island, testified on the sixth day of testimony in a competency hearing to determine whether Brockman, 80, can stand trial on charges of tax evasion and wire fraud.

"Due to the nature of his cognitive impairments, I believe he would have significant difficulty being able to recall past events accurately, review documents and provide context to his attorneys," Guilmette testified in a Houston courtroom during questioning from Brockman lawyer James Loonam. "I think he would have difficulty understanding the complexities of the case, the strategies of the case."

Guilmette's findings contrast with those last week from medical experts retained by the g…

ATLANTA — Porsche once again is set to push the boundaries of what defines a Porsche.

The company — famed for its sports cars and, more recently, sporty crossovers — is developing a vehicle that is larger, longer and wider than the Cayenne midsize crossover, the brand's biggest nameplate now, according to U.S. dealers who were shown a rendering of the vehicle at a meeting here last week.

"It's a new style of vehicle that is part sedan, part crossover," said one dealer, describing it as having a "rakish" design.

A spokesman for Porsche Cars North America said the company won't comment or speculate on specific future models, but he said the automaker has become "very open in sharing ideas under an initiative — Porsche Unseen — the majority of which don't make it beyond the ideas stage" but serve as an inspiration.

"We're grateful for such creativity within our business, as we're continually exploring new opportunities and where we might compete in …