Trade News

Nippon Steel Corp. is seeking an injunction in Tokyo District Court against Toyota Motor Corp. to prevent the automaker from manufacturing and selling electric and hybrid vehicles that use a type of steel critical for the performance of motors.

The Japanese steelmaker is alleging an infringement of its patent relating to electrical steel sheets, seeking damages of around 20 billion yen ($177 million), according to a statement Thursday.

Electrical steel sheets are a type of high-grade steel with enhanced magnetic properties that help to limit energy loss. They’re widely used as “iron cores” for electric generators in power plants, electrical products, cars and even vibration motors in mobile phones.

Tatsuo Yoshida, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said it’s extremely unusual for a domestic steel supplier to sue an automaker. Electrical steel sheets are a critical part of motors that have a significant impact on performance and efficiency, he said. “I’ve …

NUERTINGEN, Germany -- BMW will be ready for any ban on combustion-engine cars from 2030 onwards with an offering of electric vehicles, CEO Oliver Zipse said.

The EU has proposed an effective ban on fossil-fuel cars from 2035 as part of a broader package of measures to combat global warming.

"We will be ICE-ban ready. If a region, a city, a country gets the idea of banning ICEs, we have an offering," Zipse told a conference in the town of Nuertingen, near Stuttgart.

"The BMW Group is not worried about this. Whether it's a good idea is another question... but we will have an offering."

Unlike rivals such as Volkswagen Group, BMW has not set an end date for production of combustion-engine cars. But it has said it expects 50 percent of global car sales to be EVs by 2030.

BMW is currently introducing its iX flagship electric crossover and the i4 electric sedan. Battery-powered versions of the 7-Series sedan and X1 SUV will arrive next year, whi…

WASHINGTON — A study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that headlights that earn top ratings in an evaluation program are linked to lower nighttime crash rates.

The study released Thursday found nighttime crash rates per mile are about 20 percent lower for vehicles with headlights that earn a "good" rating in the IIHS evaluation vs. those with "poor" ratings. Crash rates for vehicles with "acceptable" headlight ratings are 15 percent lower compared with those earning poor ratings. Those with "marginal" ratings are 10 percent lower.

The study, which evaluated 44,000 single-vehicle crashes that occurred in darkness, also found that compared with poor-rated headlights, good-rated lights reduced rates of incidents in which the driver was injured by 30 percent. Good-rated headlights also reduced tow-away crashes and pedestrian crashes by about 25 percent vs. poor-rated ones, according to the study.

"Driving at night is three times as risk…

Toyota is expected to not only top General Motors in full-year U.S. sales this year, but it may repeat that feat in 2022 as the ongoing microchip shortage continues to impact global and North American automobile production.

Meanwhile, vehicle prices are expected to continue to increase and interest rates are expected to start rising late next year in a pinch that could push even more consumers away from new vehicles and toward used ones, according to analysts from LMC Automotive and Oxford Economics.

Speaking Wednesday on the global outlook for light vehicles, LMC analysts said automakers have lost 6.8 million units of planned vehicle production so far this year around the world, and they could lose another 2.6 million vehicles from planned production before the end of 2021 as the microchip shortage continues to roil the global industry.

"There is a likelihood of this moving from a supply constraint to a demand constraint," said Jeff Schuster, president…

Commercial electric vehicle company Electric Last Mile Solutions Inc. said Wednesday it was opening an urban mobility laboratory in San Francisco.

The lab will act as technology hub for the company. It will specialize in EV fleet solutions such as advanced in-vehicle technology, edge-to-cloud architecture and data-intensive applications, according to a statement.

ELMS hopes specializing in those areas will result in customer programs that ramp up vehicle productivity and slash ownership costs. The company says the lab will analyze commercial EV data and environments to learn how to improve fleet efficiency.

"The Urban Mobility Lab will have an unrelenting focus on transforming the urban last mile for our customers through clean, zero emissions electric vehicles," ELMS Chief Strategy Officer Jonathan Ballon said in the statement. "We see our automotive engineering and manufacturing expertise at our Michigan, Indiana and China facilities coupled with the a…

SAN FRANCISCO -- Hyundai Motor Co.'s chief operating officer said on Wednesday the automaker wants to develop its own chips to reduce reliance on chipmakers.

A global shortage of semiconductors, triggered partly by surging demand for laptops and other electronic products during the pandemic, has shuttered some auto production lines globally this year.

Hyundai temporarily suspended some factories, but the company’s global COO Jose Munoz told reporters the worst has passed for the industry chip shortage, adding it had the "toughest months" in August and September.

"The (chip) industry is reacting very, very fast," he said, saying Intel is investing a lot of money to expand capacity.

"But also in our case, we want to be able to develop our own chips within the group, so we are a little bit less dependent in a potential situation like this," he said.

"This takes a lot of investment and time, but this is something we're working on."

He …

DETROIT — General Motors next year plans to launch a Cadillac-badged financing brand for luxury customers and dealers, according to an internal memo obtained by Automotive News.

Cadillac Financial, which will operate as part of the GM Financial business, will include a concierge service, a new website and Cadillac-certified customer experience teams, according to a September memo to employees. GM Financial plans to launch the Cadillac-badged service in mid-2022.

Most automakers with a captive finance arm have established separate brands for luxury units. For example, Ford Motor Credit backs Lincoln Financial Services, and Toyota Financial Services supports Lexus Financial Services. Breaking Cadillac out of the GM Financial fold is part of a broader vision to create a more personalized and streamlined experience for the luxury brand as it leads GM's transition to electric vehicles.

Under the broad GM Financial umbrella, there is no difference between the …

SAN FRANCISCO -- Tesla Inc. has agreed to lease office space from HP Inc near the electric carmaker's current headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Tesla's expansion in Palo Alto came even after CEO Elon Musk announced last week that the company was moving its headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin, Texas.

The person said Tesla does not have enough space for its current offices, which led the company to secure an additional site.

Earlier, real estate news provider the Registry reported Tesla has leased 325,000 square feet at 1501 Page Mill Road from HP, citing sources with knowledge of the leasing market.

Musk has said Tesla will keep expanding activities in California, including boosting output for its car factory in Fremont and its battery plant in Nevada by 50 percent.

Musk, who had said the Texas move was due to lack of space at the Fremont factory and expensive housing prices in California,…

WASHINGTON -- More than 100 U.S. House lawmakers on Tuesday urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to keep a $4,500 tax credit incentive for union-built electric vehicles in a massive spending bill.

In a letter seen by Reuters, Democrats urged Pelosi to retain the credit supported by the UAW and AFL-CIO. The $4,500 credit would provide a significant boost to Detroit's three automakers -- General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler-parent Stellantis.

"We strongly support leveling the playing field between non-union and unionized workforces by including the added $4,500 incentive to support union-made EVs," said the letter led by Rep. Thomas Suozzi, a New York Democrat.

Suozzi said the incentives "help guarantee that working men and women are an integral part of that success story."

Pelosi's office declined to comment.

Tesla Inc. and foreign automakers do not have unions representing assembly workers in the United States and many have fought efforts to …

Lucid Group Inc. said its debut battery-electric vehicle will be the first production car in the U.S. to include a purpose-built laser sensor, or lidar, enabling a broad range of advanced driver-assistance features.

The system of cameras, radar and lidar -- called DreamDrive Pro -- will make Lucid’s Air sedan capable of self-parking, give it an assistant for freeway driving and another for moving at low speed in traffic. The vehicle’s cabin includes an infrared camera that tracks head position, gaze and blinking and pressure sensors on the wheel to detect whether a driver is incapacitated and, in an emergency, bring the vehicle to a complete stop.

Newark, Calif.-based Lucid will provide the system as standard in the debut versions of the sedan. The Air Dream Edition has a sticker price of $169,000 and the Grand Touring model costs $139,000. Customer deliveries of both are due to start this year. The company’s announcement Tuesday didn’t include pricing or deta…

CarMax, the nation's largest used-vehicle retailer, plans to fill 3,700 positions by the end of the year, the company said Tuesday.

CarMax said it is looking to hire about 1,400 auto technicians and service operations associates, including detailers and painters. Auto technicians are paid $19 to $53 an hour, according to the company.

The company also wants to hire about 700 customer service consultants, assistants and managers who will work directly online and over the phone with customers. Pay for consultants is $18 to $20 an hour. Some of those positions are work-from-home eligible, CarMax said.

CarMax is seeking another 900 store sales and business office associates who would work directly with vehicle buyers.

The company said it further plans to hire about 150 people to bolster its technology operations. That includes software engineers, architects, managers, analysts and others. Those positions are based out of the company's Dallas Technology…