Trade News

A new generation of newsroom leaders is being ushered in as Automotive News Publisher KC Crain announced a series of personnel changes last week.

The moves are:

Dave Versical, 66, has decided to retire. Versical joined the paper as a reporter in 1986. Since then, his leadership roles have included national editor, managing editor and online editor.

Most recently, he has been chief of editorial operations for the Automotive News Group, overseeing the flagship weekly paper and affiliates including Automotive News Canada, Automotive News Europe, Fixed Ops Journal, and Automotive News TV. He will leave at the end of the year.

Chrissy Taylor is joining in a new position: vice president of editorial operations. She will oversee all aspects of the newsroom with the specific mandate of making Automotive News a truly digital media organization.

Taylor, 43, has spent the past three and a half years as managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. In that role, she ha…

Ensuring that vendors are protecting data is Chris Cleveland's "No. 1 priority" as compliance director at Galpin Motors in California, particularly when negotiating contracts.

But the subject is not always top of mind for dealerships, he told me. They often do not ask their vendors how they use, process or share dealerships' customer data, or how they implement safeguards. He says they should.

"I don't think dealers have traditionally monitored or forced their vendors to be as compliant in the space of privacy and security as they need to be," said Cleveland, also CEO of ComplyAuto, a company that uses software to help retailers comply with data privacy regulations. Going forward, he said, "I think that is going to be something dealerships should take very seriously."

This year, I wrote about how dealerships should consider vetting vendors' security practices when negotiating or signing new contracts, particularly in the wake of high-profile data breach…

Michigan’s governor and chief mobility officer discuss the state’s current infrastructure – from road conditions to electric-vehicle chargers – and detail new initiatives designed to ready the state for the proliferation of EVs.

Luxury upstart Genesis has spent the first six years of its existence trying to catch up to European and Asian rivals, which have had decades to perfect the combustion engine format. And the Korean newcomer has done a commendable job on the product side, even as its retail strategy has struggled.

But now the Hyundai Motor Group brand sees an opportunity to change the story. Because the playing field in electric vehicle technology is still relatively level, Genesis hopes to position itself as an EV pioneer, with bold new features and performance.

To be sure, that plan won't be easy. Its competitors have name recognition and heritage on their side. But those assets are potentially diminishing in a market that's being turned upside down with fresh players such as Rivian, Polestar and Lucid.

The Genesis brand's first strike in what's likely to be a contentious battle for the hearts of luxury EV buyers is the GV60. The compact crossover, due next year, is b…

BERLIN -- The first cars to emerge from Tesla's new European factory should roll off the production line as early as next month, but volume production will take longer to achieve, CEO Elon Musk said at a festival held at the site on Saturday.

Production at the plant would amount to about 5,000, "but hopefully" 10,000 vehicles per week, Musk said.

The factory is scheduled to begin making Model Y cars in November or December, Musk said. The plant will probably source batteries from Tesla’s facilities in China until a cell factory in Germany is completed, he said.

"Starting production is nice, but volume production is the hard part," Musk told a cheering audience at the factory. "It will take longer to reach volume production than it took to build the factory," Musk said.

He defended the factory against critics of its environmental impact, saying that it used "relatively little" water and that battery cell production was "sustainable."

Some l…

Toyota and Lexus dealers have found a way to resurrect sedan sales after their long decline, at least for now.

While U.S. light-vehicle sales pulled back in the third quarter across almost every segment, sales of cars — everything that's not a ubiquitous crossover, SUV, van or pickup — were still up this year through September for the first time since 2013, rising 8.2 percent.

Among the factors impacting the car landscape this year are limited vehicle options on lots resulting from the microchip shortage and less competition in the car segment as some automakers such as General Motors and Ford Motor Co. significantly pared their car portfolios to concentrate on higher-profit light trucks.

Defending the honor of the car have been the automakers that have stayed committed to the former sales stalwart, including Toyota Motor North America.

Sales of the compact Toyota Corolla sedan were up 9.9 percent in the third quarter to 62,196 and 31 percent thr…

In 2017, Cooper Auto Group began to include the new-car manager, used-car manager, finance director and general manager of each of its eight franchised locations in a weekly meeting. They present their metrics to an audience that includes third-generation owner Joe Cooper and the group's executive team.

"We know these guys know their numbers," said marketing and Internet director Steve Koch.

But something about presenting the data firsthand weekly in front of the owner "really hits home where you're at," he said.

Koch called the practice an example of the "inspect what you expect" concept and said it fostered the corporate culture at Cooper. It kept the company "management-driven" rather than "market-driven," active rather than reactive, he said.

Cooper Auto Group, of Edmond, Okla., ranks No. 133 on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S., with retail sales of 6,810 new vehicles in 2020.

Before the change i…

Data privacy legislation continues to gain momentum across the U.S., with two more states passing laws that give consumers more control over how businesses use their personal information.

Virginia and Colorado both enacted laws this year that take effect in 2023, joining California, whose first-in-the-nation comprehensive statute is poised to become more stringent in 2023, experts say, when provisions from a ballot initiative approved last November go into effect.

The Virginia law may not apply to the state's franchised auto dealerships because of a provision that exempts entities that are subject to the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, said Anne Gambardella, general counsel and executive vice president of the Virginia Automobile Dealers Association. Dealerships are regulated by the act, which requires financial institutions to protect consumers' private information, because they provide customer financing.

The Colorado Automobile Dealers Association is…

Robert Bielby, senior director of Automotive Systems Architecture and Segment Marketing at Micron, discusses the role memory and storage play in the vehicle experience, what the cloud and 5G mean for mobility as a service and how advanced technologies are reshaping mobility.

DETROIT — General Motors on Friday said it expects to reopen the remaining three North American assembly plants that have been idled because of the global microchip shortage by Nov. 1.

GM also said it plans to resume building Chevrolet Malibu sedans for the first time in nearly nine months at a plant that has partially reopened in Kansas.

The automaker said its plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, which has been shut since mid-August, would start building Chevy Blazers on Oct. 18, followed by Chevy Equinoxes as soon as Nov. 1.

Two more Equinox plants — San Luis Potosi Assembly in Mexico and CAMI Assembly in Ontario — that have been down since mid-July will reopen Nov. 1, GM said. San Luis Potosi also builds the GMC Terrain.

"Although the situation remains complex and very fluid," GM said in a statement, "we remain confident in our team's ability to continue finding creative solutions to minimize the impact of the semiconductor shortages that have b…