Trade News

Applied Materials on Wednesday released two new tools aimed at improving the efficiency of making a new class of chips for electric vehicles.

Applied is the world's largest maker of tools for making semiconductors. The machines announced on Wednesday are designed for chips made from a material called silicon carbide.

Such chips are gaining traction in electric vehicles like those made by Tesla Inc. because they are more efficient and lighter in weight than standard silicon chips for transmitting power from a car's battery to its motors, helping improve range. Companies like Cree Inc. and ON Semiconductor Corp. are investing in making the chips.

Silicon carbide chips are difficult to manufacture because the material is very hard. They are bulk-manufactured on discs called "wafers" that are later sliced into individual chips. But wafers first must be polished perfectly smooth, or the resulting chips will have defects.

Because silicon carbide is so…

Ford Motor Co. is hiring the head of Apple Inc.’s car project away from the iPhone maker.

The automaker said Tuesday that it’s bringing on Doug Field, who’s been a vice president in Apple’s special projects group. Field was a top engineer at Tesla Inc. between two stints at Apple and played a major role launching the Model 3 sedan.

Field joins the automaker as chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer, reporting to President and CEO Jim Farley.

Ford shares reversed a decline on the news to close Tuesday's trading up less than 1 percent to $12.95, while Apple closed up about 1.6 percent to $156.69, off its high for the day.

The hire is a coup for Ford, which has made major strides under Farley in convincing investors it can compete with Tesla and others on electric vehicles and technology. Ford shares have almost doubled since Farley took over in October, after his two predecessors presided over a years-long slump. 

Lotus Tech, which develops cars for the Lotus brand, is working on preliminary plans for an initial public offering in the U.S. or Hong Kong to help fund the transition of the iconic maker of sports and racing cars to an all-electric automaker.

The company is studying a potential IPO as soon as 2023 if sales go well, Group Lotus CEO Feng Qingfeng said in an interview Tuesday. There’s also the possibility that Lotus Cars will list in the U.K., but no timetable has been set, he said. 

Lotus Tech, which broke ground on its global headquarters in the Chinese city of Wuhan last week, is tapping the potential for sports cars in the world’s biggest auto market against a small pool of competitors including Porsche Automobil Holding SE and BMW AG. 

Lotus is part of the auto empire of Li Shufu, who founded Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. and has long held ambitions of developing top-end sports cars. The unit plays an important role in the group, which …

BEIJING -- Stellantis' Chinese venture with GAC will close one of its two factories in China by next March, GAC told Reuters, as Stellantis restructures operations in the world's biggest auto market where it has struggled to sell cars.

The joint venture, which has capacity to make 328,000 vehicles a year, sold only 12,288 in the first seven months this year, all Jeep-branded utility vehicles.

It will transfer production from Guangzhou to Changsha to "increase (the) utilization rate of plants and lower cost", GAC said in a statement. The Changsha factory has capacity to make 164,000 vehicles a year, still far more than the venture sells.

The joint venture was launched by GAC and Fiat Chrysler, which merged with PSA to become Stellantis.

A Stellantis spokesperson declined to comment.

Besides the GAC partnership, Stellantis operates a joint venture in China with Dongfeng Motor Group, which sold 47,788 cars between January and July.

It…

Solid Power, a maker of solid-state batteries for electric vehicles, is expanding its factory outside Denver to scale production so it can deliver test cells to Ford Motor Co. and BMW in early 2022.

The startup, which counts both carmakers as investors, is building a new facility at the Colorado site to increase output of sulfide-based solid electrolytes -- a material that helps shuttle ions back and forth in a battery to generate power. It’s also building a new pilot line to produce 100 ampere battery cells, the capacity required by its automotive partners.

Solid Power and rivals such as QuantumScape Corp. and SES Holdings are developing solid-state batteries, an innovation that, if successful, holds the promise of dramatically speeding up EV adoption by providing automakers with a safer, cheaper alternative to lithium ion batteries.

Solid Power has an agreement to test its cells in Ford and BMW vehicles. If manufacturing is successful, it will d…

The first deliveries of the 2022 Rivian R1T electric truck scheduled for later this month will have window stickers with an EPA MPGe rating of 314 miles per charge.

The EPA also certified the R1S electric utility coming this fall at 316 MPGe. That pencils out to 74 MPGe city, 66 highway and 70 combined for the R1T and 73 city, 65 highway and 69 combined for the R1S.

Those ratings are for the Launch Edition of both vehicles riding on 21-inch wheels and equipped with a 135-kilowatt-hour battery pack.

Rivian plans to offer two other battery packs, perhaps next year. One will offer an estimated 230-mile range, while the other is expected to top 400 miles on a single charge. Larger wheels will be available, which likely will lower the range between charges slightly.

The R1T's first main competitor on the market will be the GMC Hummer EV sport utility truck coming this year. General Motors is expecting the truck to be EPA cer…

Greg Wohlford, a General Motors shop chairman who helped run the automaker's ventilator production out of his home plant in Kokomo, Ind., died of COVID-19on Monday, according to a post from his family.

Wohlford, shop chair of UAW Local 292, which represents workers at a GM parts plant in Kokomo, and his team began building ventilators to help treat people with the virus at the onset of the pandemic in 2020. From April through August, about 1,000 workers in Kokomo built 30,000 ventilators after GM agreed to a $490 million government contract to partner with ventilator manufacturer Ventec Life Systems.

The 30,000 ventilators were more than double the number in the Strategic National Stockpile at the time.

Wohlford had been an instrumental manager and an advocate for the Kokomo plant and workers, said Local 292 President Matt Collins.

"He is just a good guy. He always had the best intentions, worked hard for the people. For me personally, it was lik…

Stellantis is bringing in a former Ford marketing executive to lead its Chrysler brand.

Christine Feuell, who held numerous roles at Ford, including director of global marketing strategy, will join Stellantis on Monday and report to CEO Carlos Tavares, the automaker said in a news release.

Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis was leading the Chrysler brand on an interim basis before the hire.

Feuell will helm a brand that is short on product and in need of direction, but she'll be given time to turn it around. Tavares said in May that he's affording each of the 14 brands melded together from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group a 10-year window to execute a business plan.

In the U.S., Chrysler sells two minivans and the long-running Chrysler 300. Dealers and analysts have said Chrysler lacks purpose and could use more product, including a crossover, to flesh out the lineup.

Feuell most recently was chief commercial officer at Honeyw…

Few companies have professed more sweeping ambitions in the automated-driving technology realm than Intel Corp. and its Mobileye subsidiary.

Now Mobileye has added fresh updates to long-standing blueprints that have included everything from engineering advanced driver-assist systems to purchasing a consumer-facing transit app to developing its own lidar sensors, and much more.

At IAA in Munich, the company unveiled the six-passenger, electric autonomous vehicle that it will use for driverless ride-hailing service, slated to start next year in Tel Aviv and Munich.

Service in Munich will be run in conjunction with a new partner, rental-car company Sixt SE, the companies said Tuesday. Mobileye will own the vehicles while Sixt handles ongoing maintenance and operations. The vehicles arise from Mobileye's partnership with Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio.

They will operate under the Sixt and "MoovitAV" banners, the latter being an updated version of…