Trade News

TOKYO — Honda Motor Co., which will phase out internal combustion products by 2040, has now unveiled plans to reinvent the company in business areas that are truly out of this world.

Under a road map unveiled last week, the automaker said it will branch into electric air mobility vehicles, avatar robots and even reusable rockets to launch satellites into space.

Topping the list of new directions, which will be handled by Honda R&D, is electric vertical take-off and landing, or eVTOL, aircraft. It is a sector increasingly being explored by rival automakers, including South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group.

But with Honda, it parlays nicely with the company's long-standing jet business.

To overcome the limitations of short-range battery-powered flight, Honda will equip its eVTOL aircraft with a gas turbine hybrid power unit. Honda wants to conduct a test flight in 2024 and decide on the viability of the business by 2025. If it gets the green light, …

John Komar and Greg Long, Faulkner Automotive Group's fixed operations directors, are on the front lines of recruiting technicians in Philadelphia's brutally competitive market. Each of Faulkner's 28 dealerships need at least one tech.

It's not easy, quick or inexpensive for them to find and hire techs. According to consulting firm DealerStrong of Evansville, Ind., franchised new-car dealers spend as much as $10,000 to recruit new technicians — a figure that covers the hiring process from writing the job description through onboarding.

So, the last thing Komar and Long want to see is a new tech fail. To help ensure that doesn't happen, Komar and Long, working with the group's service managers and master technicians, relaunched Faulkner's technician mentor program in 2019. Newly hired technicians — most of whom are just out of school — are paired with master technicians for their first nine months. The new techs are eased into their jobs in a cadence designed t…

Editor's note: This story is part of a special "Help Wanted" section running in the Oct. 4 edition that details the lengths auto companies are going to find new workers.

The auto industry has been talking about "reshoring" in recent years as if it were a kind of patriotic movement — pulling manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. from China, Indonesia and Mexico as way to bolster the American economy.

Garry Craft wishes it were that simple.

"We just transferred a lot of business from Mexico to our plant in Gadsden, Ala., because the company there couldn't get enough people to do the work," said Craft, director of sales at Koller-Craft South. "They were having problems getting employees. And once their product got to the border, the trucks were sitting there for five to seven days because of staffing issues at the border."

Koller-Craft, a Tier 2 molder and assembler of components that include interior trim pieces, decorative parts, cupholder assemblie…

VW's U.S. sales dipped 8.2 percent in the third quarter to 79,321, as car sales plunged by nearly half while crossover deliveries jumped 18 percent on new sales contributions from the Taos and ID4. Meanwhile, Audi sales fell 14 percent in the third quarter to 41,019.

Brands: Volkswagen, down 8.2%; Audi, down 14%.

Notable nameplates: VW Atlas (combined), down 5.3%; Tiguan, down 29%; ID4, 6,049 sales (new); Taos, 13,104 sales (new); Audi Q3, up 14%; Q5, up 44%; A6, down 65%

Incentives (including Porsche): $2,939 per vehicle, down 34% from a year earlier, TrueCar says.

Average transaction price (including Porsche): $40,892, up 1.2% from a year earlier, according to TrueCar.

Fleet mix: 2.2%, according to TrueCar.

Did you know? The five crossovers in VW's lineup account for 71.6 percent of VW sales so far this year, including 78.1 percent in the third quarter. That's about four times the crossover sales mix the automaker had in the U.S. f…

Tesla Inc. is expected to report record deliveries of roughly 224,000 vehicles in the most recent quarter, another milestone for CEO Elon Musk and his trailblazing electric-car brand.

Deliveries are one of the most closely watched metrics at Tesla: They underpin the company’s financial results and are widely seen as a barometer of consumer demand for electric vehicles amid a global shift away from the internal combustion engine.

Twelve analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect Tesla to report 223,677 deliveries in the third quarter. The company sent its own consensus figure, 221,952, to investors.

Tesla delivered a record 201,250 vehicles in the second quarter. The carmaker typically counts sales until midnight on the last day of the three-month period, the latest of which ended Thursday. It could announce production and delivery figures as soon as Friday.

A strong figure would show that Tesla is holding up well as it and other automakers face globa…

Subaru sales dipped 30 percent in September to 42,054 because of the global microchip shortage, the Japanese automaker said, with only one of its models showing a year-over-year gain. For the year, Subaru's sales are still up 6 percent.

Notable nameplates: Forester down 27%, Outback down 58%, Crosstrek down 0.7%; WRX/STI up 20%

Q3 incentives: $1,382 per vehicle, down 25% from a year earlier, TrueCar says

Q3 average transaction price: $30,795, up 2.5% from a year earlier, according to TrueCar

Quote: "Our retailers continued to show record sales efficiency in September, despite the continued challenges from the global supply chain disruptions," Subaru of America CEO Tom Doll said in a written statement.

Did you know? WRX/STI, Outback and Crosstrek sales still remain up for the year through September.

Nissan Motor Co. said it expanded its Michigan engineering operations with a $40 million vehicle safety testing laboratory.

The 116,000-square-foot addition to the Nissan Technical Center North America in suburban Detroit will boost efficiency in the vehicle development process, the automaker said in a statement on Wednesday.

"This expansion underscores Nissan's commitment to the region and enables us to be a global center of excellence for new-vehicle testing," said Chris Reed, regional senior vice president of R&D at Nissan Americas. "The goal of virtually zero fatalities is always guiding our work."

No new jobs were created by the expansion. Nissan said its R&D operations for the Americas employ about 1,200 people.

The laboratory will enable Nissan to conduct full vehicle crash testing, certification, advanced development testing and benchmarking, Nissan said in the statement. Employees there have the capability to conduct 48 safety cra…

The mix of September and third-quarter sales reports from automakers showed the global chip shortage hitting hard, with the seasonally adjusted sales rate on track to extend a streak of monthly declines.

Here's a roundup of our coverage on the overal industry and individual automakers. This will be updated as more numbers roll in.

Toyota, Honda, Hyundai fall again in Sept.; chips take Q3 toll on GM, Stellantis

GM: Worst quarter since 2009

STELLANTIS: U.S. sales falter amid chip shortage

TOYOTA/LEXUS: Top market share for 2nd straight quarter

HONDA/ACURA: Supply challenges continue

HYUNDAI: Deliveries slip in Sept.

NISSAN: Sales skid 10% in Q3

KIA: Record Q3 despite chip shortage

SUBARU: Sept. sales plummet 30%

The global chip shortage continued to hammer automakers last month, with Hyundai and Kia reporting lower U.S. sales in September for the second straight month.

Volume dropped 1.8 percent at Hyundai and 4.7 percent at Kia, though both automakers racked up overall gains for the third quarter behind strong July deliveries.

Hyundai said retail sales slipped 5 percent to 49,439 last month as a result of what Randy Parker, head of sales, called a "challenging inventory environment." Genesis posted a 332 percent increase in Sept. volume, with sales of the GV70 and GV80 crossovers each outpacing combined deliveries of the brand's three sedans.

Most other automakers will report September and third-quarter sales later Friday. Ford Motor Co. will release results on Monday, followed by Daimler later in the week.

U.S. sales are forecasts to fall about 25 percent in September, based on estimates from J.D. Power, LMC Automotive, TrueCar and Cox Automotive, capp…

PALMER, Texas -- Self-driving startup Aurora says it has discovered a path to turn costly self-driving vehicles into a profitable business, showcasing its technology to investors this week ahead of a public listing it hopes will provide some $2 billion in additional funding.

The move comes as several autonomous trucking companies prepare to launch driverless routes in the coming years and begin signing up industry partners and customers in an effort to turn long-elusive self-driving into a profitable reality.

Unlike some of its competitors, Aurora wants to provide both autonomous freight trucking and robotaxi services, saying the combination will lower costs, provide greater revenue streams and allow technology transfer.

"Trucking allows us to build a profitable, scalable business that funds the further development of ride-hailing and brings down the cost of hardware," Sterling Anderson, Aurora's co-founder and chief product officer, said in an intervie…

WASHINGTON -- Rohit Chopra was officially confirmed as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, signaling a return to more aggressive oversight of financial services companies at the agency.  

The U.S. Senate voted Thursday 50-48 to approve Chopra’s nomination on party lines. As CFPB director, he’ll face intense pressure from progressive Democrats, who expect him to revive the agency they say was put to sleep during the Trump administration. If he succeeds in turning the agency around, life may get less pleasant for auto dealerships, banks, credit bureaus, credit-card companies and student and payday lenders.

“The industry didn’t have to dedicate any mindshare whatsoever to the CFPB’s activities for nearly four years,” said Isaac Boltansky, a policy analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading. “But with Chopra taking the chair, the bureau suddenly jumps up to the top of the worry list for most consumer finance companies.”

Chopra ha…

WASHINGTON — Top U.S. executives from 12 international automakers are urging the U.S. House of Representatives to support broader tax credits for electric vehicles in the Democrats' $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

In a letter sent Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, executives from automakers including American Honda Motor Co., Toyota Motor North America and Volkswagen Group of America called for "policies that offer incentives to all electric vehicles made by all American auto workers" and to oppose "policies that slow progress toward meeting our nation's climate goals."

The letter — which includes signatures from Hyundai Motor North America CEO Jose Muñoz and Subaru of America CEO Tom Doll — comes after the House Ways and Means Committee this month advanced a proposal that would give consumers an extra incentive to buy union-made EVs.

The proposal — led by Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., and slated for inclusion in the reconciliation bill — would bo…