Trade News

At its annual ceremony in Detroit, the Hall of Fame enshrined GM CEO Mary Barra, Gentex co-founder Fred Bauer, racer Juan Manuel Fangio, Honda co-founder Takeo Fujisawa, Ford designer McKinley Thompson Jr. and Hot Wheels designer Larry Wood.

Industry members and observers filled the Fillmore Detroit theater last week during the Automotive Hall of Fame ceremony.

During the event's afterglow, tables were stacked with hundreds of Hot Wheels vehicles that attendees could take home as a keepsake. The variety spanned from vintage cars to modern EVs to airplanes.

GM CEO Mary Barra, center, said her award "reflects the outstanding work and determination" of every member of the company.

Hot Wheels designer Larry Wood dedicated his award to an English teacher who told him, "You'll never get anywhere drawing cars."

The family of McKinley Thompson Jr., the first Black designer at Ford Motor Co., accepts his award. Said his siste…

A federal appeals court on Friday said it will reconsider its recent decision that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk violated federal labor law by tweeting that employees would lose stock options if they joined a union.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said it will review the case en banc, meaning all active judges will take part.

A three-judge panel of the same court had in March upheld a National Labor Relations Board decision that Musk's tweet was an unlawful threat that could discourage unionization, and must be deleted.

Musk issued the tweet as the United Auto Workers was seeking to organize employees at Tesla's plant in Fremont, California.

"Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted," he wrote. "But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?"

The appeals court panel found "substantial evidence" that the tweet was "an implied threat to end stock …

With projections putting the need for new service technicians at more than 10,000 over the next five years, the automaker is availing itself of a skilled labor pool of veterans retiring from the U.S. military.

Greg Silvestri, vice president of service and aftersale operations at Kia Motors America, said a high number of baby boomer technicians are now approaching retirement age.

"For Kia, with our sales successes and our huge growth of units in operation, the situation is even more pronounced as far as needing techs," he said. "Not only do we need to replace those who are leaving, we need to grow our universe of technicians."

To further this effort, the automaker has launched its Veterans Technician Apprenticeship Program to assist dealerships in finding new technicians. Kia partnered with Educational Resource Systems to find interested veterans in all branches of the military.

Veterans undergo a background check and an automotive technical apti…

FRANKFURT — Continental wants to get creative as it sources materials for the tires it sells moving forward.

The German parts supplier and tire maker last month revealed its UltraContact NXT tire, made of up to 65 percent sustainable materials, the most of any of its tire models in production. Those materials include recycled and renewable sources such as plastic bottles and silicate made from the ashes of rice husks, according to the manufacturer.

The tire, which Continental said is the first with a high level of sustainable materials released by any company for series production, comes nearly two years after the company showed off a green concept tire that featured many of the same renewable sources as the UltraContact NXT. It's a signal that the company is serious about bringing sustainable products to the market, Continental CEO Nikolai Setzer said.

"This tire shows we have concepts, and we bring them into production with the best ratings on …

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ Heat wave lowers driving range in some EVs by 31%

Recent extreme heat across much of the Southern and Western U.S. is highlighting a problem with electric vehicles — their range wilts as the temperature climbs into the stratosphere.

Recurrent, a Seattle EV battery and range analytics company, tested thousands of vehicles in a variety of weather conditions.

Many vehicles experienced significant declines in range as temperatures rose, and some suffered a 31 percent plunge when temperatures reached 100-plus degrees Fahrenheit. At lower temperatures, the tested vehicles' range loss was not as high, with an average of 5 percent reduction at 90 degrees and 2.8 percent at 80 degrees.

In calculating these average temperatures, Recurrent used a blend of data from the 17,000 vehicles the firm tracks. The data includes 65 models of EVs and plug-in hybrids. They included Tesla Models 3, Y, S and X; the Chevrolet Bolt EV; Hyundai Kon…

As the electric vehicle era dawns, automakers are looking left and right for ways to make their vehicles more efficient and to streamline their manufacturing.

Because of that, much attention is given to battery performance, the lightweighting of huge components such as body frames or door panels, the development of new supply chains, and other high-profile ways companies are looking to become leaner and more efficient.

But achieving those savings comes not only through major projects but also by making ongoing changes to smaller components throughout the vehicle.

Case in point: the new power connectors that Eaton Corp. is rolling out. The power management supplier said its new high-power lockbox power connectors are easier to build, safer to use and smaller than traditional connectors, leading to better performance in both EVs and internal combustion engine vehicles.

"This is something to get twice the current for basically half …

Google “FMEA” and you’re likely to find a variety of definitions. Risk assessment tool. Process methodology. Predictive failure analysis. It’s used as a noun, a verb and an adjective. So, what is it and why does it matter?

Failure mode and effects analysis is a process methodology created to help manufacturers and suppliers perform risk analysis and meet product, process and safety performance requirements. It ensures that potential problems are considered and addressed throughout design and product development to identify where they may happen, prevent them from happening and mitigate their impact.

Created in the 1940s by the U.S. military, FMEA provides manufacturers with a predictive step-by-step approach to identify all possible failures in a design, manufacturing or assembly process or product. Fast forward to the 1970s, when Ford Motor Co. introduced FMEA to the automotive industry for safety and regulatory consideration in the wake of its Ford Pinto sca…

Rachel Blair's background made her a perfect candidate for Kia's Veterans Technician Apprenticeship Program.

Her family farmed tobacco and cotton. As a young girl, she repaired lawn mowers and small tractors and attended car shows with her father. She did her first engine rebuild at age 17 on a $400 car her mom bought her. A local parts store was so impressed by Blair's frequent visits that it hired her; she eventually became store manager.

Blair joined the U.S. Army National Guard and trained as a combat medic. She also learned to drive big trucks and trained as a diesel technician.

After leaving the armed services in 2010, Blair became a truck driver. But long stints on the road — and away from her young son — persuaded her to find another career. She heard about Kia's Veterans Technician Apprenticeship Program and applied.

"Getting the experience necessary to become a master automotive technician with Kia, getting paid to learn on the job and…

Mitsubishi Electric's new in-cabin system can detect potholes, black ice and other hazardous road conditions and relay that information to the driver through the vehicle's display.

It's intended to show a driver, on the infotainment screen, where hazardous conditions are on the road ahead.

The system uses basic automotive cameras, as well as lidar sensors that were custom-made for the supplier's larger in-cabin system called Project Jabiru, said Michael Horani, director of advanced development at Mitsubishi Electric. Jabiru debuted in April to showcase the technologies the supplier intends to roll out on future vehicles.

Horani spoke with Staff Reporter John Irwin about the system's road monitoring capabilities. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: How does this system work?

A: It uses lidar to emit light and measure the reflectivity of the road surface. If there's a sheet of ice, you're going to have a higher level of reflectivity compared to a …

General Motors is working to open a warehouse for electric vehicle parts at the former American Motors Corp. site in Detroit to serve its nearby Factory Zero assembly plant.

The automaker confirmed it will control a new 793,520-square-foot warehouse on the city's west side, but it will be staffed and operated by Logistics Insight Corp., an affiliate of the Moroun family trucking giant Universal Logistics Holdings Inc.

"The site, scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2024, will support the production of electric vehicles including the GMC Hummer EV, Chevrolet Silverado EV and Cruise Origin by optimizing the delivery, storage and processing of parts and products," a GM spokesperson said in an email to Crain's Detroit Business.

Home to American Motors until it was abandoned in 2010, the site is being redeveloped by NorthPoint Development LLC. The construction project is being aided by about $32 million in tax increment financing from the city and $5.…

Carvana, the used-car retailer famous for its vehicle vending machines, said Thursday it is launching a national advertising campaign in August starring celebrity couple Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard. But don’t take this as a sign that the brand has fully healed from a brutal 2022. 

After achieving significant success during the height of the pandemic, Carvana began losing its momentum in the latter half of 2021. Throughout the following year, it succumbed to increasing inflation and a cooled used-vehicle market, resulting in a 98 percent drop in its stock price and the erasure of $37 billion of market capitalization.

As a way to cut costs, Carvana slashed its advertising by 64 percent last quarter as compared to the year-earlier period. This conservative approach is still at play, despite several marketing efforts in May as well as its upcoming campaign in August. 

The focus for Carvana remains returning to growth, not revitalizing advertisin…

Volvo Cars' biggest product launch since the XC40 in 2017 is hamstrung by an issue many automakers are grappling with in this age of advanced technology vehicles.

Volvo has delayed production of the new electric EX90 crossover to mid-2024 as engineers work to incorporate a key safety technology into the flagship model's new platform. On the company's earnings call Thursday, Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan pinned the "five- or six-month" delay on the "complexity of the software code" around the EX90's lidar system.

The remote-sensing lidar technology uses laser light pulses to render precise images of the environment around the vehicle. Volvo said lidar and other sensors on the EX90 create an "invisible shield of safety" that can help reduce accidents that cause serious injuries or death by up to one-fifth.

The EX90 is the first Volvo to incorporate lidar and will offer the technology as standard equipment.

"We're writing a lot of [the] software ourselv…