Trade News

WASHINGTON -- A group of 21 state attorneys general, the District of Columbia, and several major U.S. cities has urged the Biden administration to finalize stricter vehicle emissions rules than it has proposed.

The Environmental Protection Agency in August called for reversing the Trump-era loosening of vehicle emissions rules with a new plan to boost efficiency 10 percent in the 2023 model year and aiming for a fleet average of 52 miles per gallon by 2026. But the states and cities want more stringent rules.

"There is no need to wait to require further deployment of these technologies or to delay the massive economic and public health benefits of reducing these emissions," wrote the state attorneys general, led by California. 

Canadian supplier Magna International Inc. and the University of Waterloo in Ontario announced Monday a $1.3 million ($1.6 million CAD) joint project designed to enhance the safety and cybersecurity of self-driving vehicles.

Jim Quesenberry, director of research and development at Magna, said the five-year collaboration will aim to tackle some of the big issues in the “increasingly complex” modern transportation industry.

“As we look at what Uber or Amazon Delivery has done for us in terms of convenience and efficiency — and hopefully affordability — there are things behind that that we have to ensure are done with the utmost safety and security,” he said.

Sebastian Fischmeister, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university, said the research will focus on keeping vehicles — along with the people in and around them — safe, even as automated systems take on more tasks typically relegated to drivers. The teams will also look at sa…

LOS ANGELES — Genesis Motor North America CEO Mark Del Rosso is leaving the automaker after a three-month absence for a personal matter.

Genesis informed Automotive News about Del Rosso's departure Monday in an emailed statement.

At the same time, Genesis is reviving the position of chief operating officer and has named Hyundai Motor Mexico CEO Claudia Marquez to the new post. Marquez will lead the strategy and execution of sales, after sales, marketing and growth strategies for Genesis, the company said in a separate statement.

Marquez will report to Hyundai Motor North America CEO Jose Muñoz, who has been interim Genesis CEO and will continue to hold that title.

The changes are effective Oct. 1, Genesis said.

"Claudia is a strong leader that has implemented effective strategies for growing automotive brands throughout her career," Muñoz said in the release. "As an ambitious brand with a bold vision, we are pleased to have Claudia on…

MILAN -- Ferrari and its parent company Exor, the holding vehicle of the Agnelli family, have entered a partnership with Jony Ive, the creative mind behind many of Apple's iconic products, and fellow designer Marc Newson.

The duo belong to the LoveFrom creative collective of designers, architects writers, engineers and artists based in London and California.

The partnership will explore projects in the luxury business, the companies said in a joint statement on Monday.

Ive had been mentioned in the Italian press among possible candidates to replace Louis Camilleri when he suddenly stepped down as Ferrari CEO last year. In the end Ferrari turned to technology industry veteran Benedetto Vigna to drive the luxury sports car maker known for its roaring, high-octane engines into a new era of silent, electric powertrains.

In a sign of its ambition to widen the appeal of its brand, Ferrari in June unveiled its first in-house fashion collection and inaugu…

General Motors' GMC brand announced a three-year partnership with the Marcus Graham Project to foster diverse leadership in advertising, media and marketing, and marks the organization's first contractual, multi-year commitment with a brand.

The financial commitment from GMC is earmarked to support the nonprofit’s annual iCR8 Boot Camp program, which trains aspiring marketers from non-traditional backgrounds.

The commitment will begin on Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend in January of 2022, as the Marcus Graham Project reaches its 15th anniversary. Its previous brand sponsorships have included Apple, Fossil and Patron.

“As part of a larger GMC community partnership outreach, we are looking to build deeper relationships within diverse communities from high school students to young professionals, from a local and national level,” says Jamie Barbour, senior manager, GMC advertising and media. 

“Working on this initiative with our adverti…

U.S. light-vehicle sales volume this month will fall to its lowest September level since the Great Recession as the ongoing global microchip shortage continues to deplete inventory, according to a forecast by Cox Automotive.

Cox predicts that sales volume will drop to 1 million units in September, down 26 percent from a year earlier. The last time September volume fell below 1 million was in 2009. There have only been three months of below 1 million volume in the past decade, according to Cox.

Many U.S. automakers plan to report September and third-quarter light-vehicle sales on Friday, as they continue to idle plants intermittently to redirect chips. Ford Motor Co. reports on Monday, Oct. 4, and Daimler reports later next week.

AutoForecast Solutions estimates the global auto industry has lost 8.9 million vehicles from production plans because of the chip crisis, including 2.9 million in North America.

Cox expects the September sales pace, or t…

ChargePoint's product chief explains why charging an EV is 'liberating' and where most drivers will 'top off' vehicles. 

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Swedish electric-car maker Polestar said on Monday it will go public by merging with a blank-check firm backed by billionaire Alec Gores and investment bank Guggenheim Partners at a valuation of $20 billion including debt.

The deal with Gores Guggenheim Inc. will include cash proceeds of around $800 million and a PIPE, or private investment in public equity, of $250 million from top-tier institutional investors.

The premium EV maker, backed by Volvo Car Group and affiliates of Geely Chairman Eric Li, also counts Hollywood actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio among its investors.

Polestar's current product line includes two models -- a hybrid performance car known as Polestar 1 and a fully electric Polestar 2 -- which are currently on roads across Europe, North America and Asia.

That $20 billion figure matches the reported valuation of Volvo, which plans to list on the Stockholm stock exchange this year. It is also double the value of Renault Grou…

Demand for used vehicles has been high this year, and flooding this month from Hurricane Ida just sent more customers clamoring for cars at Planet Honda in Union, N.J.

Planet Honda isn't alone facing that growing demand. In times like these, General Manager Bill Feinstein said he and other dealership leaders he knows are choosing to sometimes not certify used vehicles that would otherwise qualify for automakers' certified pre-owned programs. Dealerships, particularly in parts of the Northeast hit hard by Ida's flooding, simply need to get cars and trucks ready for sale to meet demand.

"There [are] some [dealers] saying, 'Hey, you know what, it's going to take an extra three hours in my shop to make it a CPO, and I don't have enough cars on the lot,' " he said. "I think you can make those decisions."

While the need has intensified in recent weeks for Feinstein and others because of the storm, it's been a persistent theme for retailers across the country…

Many new cars and trucks are hard to find in the U.S. these days, but they're even more scarce in Chile, where a red-hot economy has created waits of more than a year for some popular models. One of the toughest nameplates to get is the Chevrolet Silverado. The current estimated delivery date for a diesel Silverado is October 2022, according to Bloomberg.

Chileans began snapping up vehicles, appliances and electronics after the government injected $49 billion into the economy by allowing early withdrawals from private pension funds established under former dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Cash payouts during the coronavirus pandemic have fueled demand even more.

"The money came in and then people started to buy cars like crazy," said Carol Castillo, a saleswoman at a Chevrolet dealership in downtown Santiago.

Chile's coronavirus vaccination rate, near 75 percent, is the highest in all the Americas, providing yet another lift to the economy as infectio…

With the ever-increasing use of smart devices, consumers expect their cars to offer new experiences and features that are connected to their digital lifestyles. Vehicle manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers recognize the need to deliver these features quickly and are utilizing the power of cloud-based modern data strategies, scalable Internet of Things and machine learning platforms to accelerate innovation and time to market.

To deliver developer-friendly platforms focused on continuously updatable and flexible software architectures, automakers are radically changing how they look at vehicle systems. They no longer view the vehicle as a heterogeneous collection of hardware-based electronic control units that deliver specific features and functions. Rather, they see it as a holistic, consolidated and flexible system of software-based microservices and data-driven functions that provide seamless interaction with the cloud to bring new experiences to drivers a…

Lamborghini is moving to embrace the synergies available to it as a part of the Volkswagen Group and is now organized in the automaker's sport grouping, where it will be able to take advantage of some of the electrification groundwork done by sibling brands Audi and Porsche.

The supercar brand won't have a full electric vehicle until sometime in the second half of this decade, Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann told journalists this year when the brand laid out its Direzione Cor Tauri plan.

Until then, Lamborghini will continue to hybridize its lineup — the last combustion-only Lamborghini is scheduled to be built in 2024 — and build a series of one-off derivatives to keep customers happy.

Huracan: The reengineered Huracan is expected to arrive in 2024, according to sources. Like the rest of the lineup, its V-10 engine will undergo hybridization as part of that reengineering process.

Aventador: Its eventual successor will be a plug-in hybrid mod…