Trade News

Linda Gao, head of Inalfa Roof Systems Group BV’s China operations, has been named president and CEO of the Dutch automotive roof maker, succeeding Jorg Buchheim. 

The appointment was effective on Sept. 1, Inalfa said in a statement.

After joining Inalfa in 2015, Gao has overseen the company’s opening of six plants in China. 

She previously worked for two German suppliers -- Webasto and Hella – as a senior executive.

Inafa, headquartered in Venray, the Netherlands, was acquired in 2011 by Beijing Hainachuan Automotive Parts Co., a Beijing-based auto parts supplier.

With factories and development centers in Europe, Northern America and Asia, it has grabbed a 25 percent share of the global market for automotive roofs, Inalfa said.

Subaru of America is recalling 802 model year 2021 Subaru Imprezas that it says have an improper weld on a lower control arm that could break and cause the tire to contact the wheel well, risking a loss of control.

Subaru on Wednesday said the improper weld is near a connection joint between the lower control arm and the crossmember, and could lead to a partial separation of the two components.

Subaru says it has received no reports of crashes or injuries related to the defect, but is warning owners to have their vehicles checked by Subaru dealers to see if the lot number stamped into the control arm is part of the recall. If it is, consumers are being told not to drive the vehicle until it is repaired.

If the control arm contains a specific lot number, the part will be replaced with a new part at no cost to the customer. Until the inspection is completed by an authorized Subaru dealer, customers are being instructed to not drive the vehicle, the Ja…

Stellantis said it plans to purchase First Investors Financial Services Group's parent company for about $285 million with the intention of creating an American captive finance company.

"This transaction marks a significant milestone in Stellantis' sales finance strategy in the critical U.S. market," Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said in a statement late Wednesday. "Direct ownership of a finance company in the U.S. is a white-space opportunity which will allow Stellantis to provide our customers and dealers a complete range of financing options, including retail loans, leases, and floorplan financing in the near-to-medium term."

Stellantis expects the cash deal for F1 Holdings Corp. to close by the end of the year.

The company said it is the only "major" automaker without a U.S. captive finance company. Its Chrysler Capital finance-and-insurance program involves a private-label partnership with Santander Consumer USA Holdings.

Stellantis spokesman…

WASHINGTON — The Alliance for Automotive Innovation on Wednesday unveiled principles on EV charging infrastructure that the trade association says are necessary to advance consumer acceptance and adoption of electric vehicles in the U.S.

"Charging infrastructure is a key element to any comprehensive national vision and strategy for EVs. Consumers will not buy vehicles they cannot conveniently charge or refuel," said John Bozzella, CEO of the alliance, which represents most major automakers in the U.S. Many of its members have set goals for electrifying their lineups.

"For the auto industry's transition to electrification to be successful, customers will need access to affordable and convenient charging and hydrogen fueling, easy-to-understand utility rate structures that reward off-peak charging, and improved charging times," Bozzella said in a statement Wednesday. "And we must also work together to grow EV sales without leaving low-income, rura…

WASHINGTON -- Volkswagen's U.S. unit has agreed to a $42 million settlement covering 1.35 million vehicles that were equipped with potentially dangerous Takata airbag inflators, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Miami.

The settlement is the latest by major automakers and much of the funding goes to boosting recall completion rates. To date, seven other major automakers have agreed to settlements worth about $1.5 billion covering tens of millions of vehicles.

VW did not immediately comment.

The defect, which leads in rare instances to airbag inflators rupturing and sending dangerous metal fragments flying, prompted the largest automotive recall in history.

To date, at least 19 U.S. deaths have been attributed to faulty Takata airbag inflators. Honda Motor Co. said in April it had confirmed the 19th U.S. death tied to a ruptured Takata airbag inflator since 2009 -- and the 16th in one of its vehicles. 

Honda reache…

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee is working on the details of a tax credit in the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill that would make electric vehicles more affordable for consumers while supporting union jobs.

"We're doing that by making the tax credit fully refundable, which means it's available at the point of sale to ensure that more Americans have access to this," Kildee, D-Mich., said during a virtual press conference Wednesday with state leaders and local advocates. "We're ensuring that we support American jobs — especially union jobs — so we don't support foreign vehicles over American-made ones."

Kildee said he is working directly with President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow on the effort.

House and Senate committees are expected to mark up various pieces of the budget package by a nonbinding deadline of Sept. 15. The budget bill can pass in the Senate with a simple majority vote, or 50 …

Early last month at a sprawling factory on the highway connecting Hanoi to the port city of Haiphong, a single worker tested positive for COVID-19. The delta variant was spreading swiftly through the Southeast Asian nation at the time, and on Aug. 4, provincial officials suspended work at the auto-parts manufacturer.

An ocean away, Toyota Motor Corp. Chief Purchasing Group Officer Kazunari Kumakura was watching intently. The plant is operated by a key Toyota supplier and is one of Vietnam’s biggest assemblers of wire harnesses -- a basic but essential yoke for cables that holds the inner workings of an automobile together. As the infection at the facility disrupted operations, Toyota’s inventories grew thin. Since July, the Japanese automaker had been examining its suppliers in the region, which has become a COVID hotspot, on a daily basis to assess how dire things were getting.

Eventually, unable to secure a number of parts, including the wire harnesses …

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday signaled a one-year delay in the shipment of Roadster sports car to 2023, citing global supply chain bottlenecks.

Musk had in January hinted that the Roadster, which was originally set to be launched last year, would be released in late summer of 2022.

"2021 has been the year of super crazy supply chain shortages," Musk tweeted. "Assuming 2022 is not mega drama, new Roadster should ship in 2023."

Global automakers, including Ford Motor Co., Honda Motor Co., General Motors and Volkswagen Group, have been caught off guard by a prolonged global chip shortage, forcing many to idle or curtail production.

A year ago, the Silicon Valley billionaire had said in comedian Joe Rogan's podcast that Roadster was lower priority and compared it to a "dessert."

"We gotta get the meat and potatoes and greens and stuff," he said.

He had said a ramp-up in production of the Model Y crossover and the construction o…

Electric vehicle charging company Wallbox is set to build a $44 million, 130,0000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Arlington, Texas, a step that will aid the company's expansion in North America.

The plant will be Wallbox's first manufacturing site in the U.S. The company expects it to create 250 jobs in the region by 2030. Wallbox has two factories in Europe and one in China.

With its Wednesday announcement, Wallbox, of Barcelona, Spain, signaled a desire to enter a North American vehicle market that is making major forays into electrification.

"This new factory will be an instrumental step in our expansion in the North American market, enabling us not only to meet the growing demand, but also to accelerate the launch of new products and enter the business and public EV charging segments as we bring our production stateside," Wallbox CEO Enric Asuncion said in a statement.

The Arlington plant will host production lines for the company's Pulsar …

At a time when autonomous vehicles and Tesla's Autopilot driver-assist system are drawing greater scrutiny over their public-road performance, there's greater appetite for closer evaluation of their competence.

Israeli startup Foretellix provides such verification and validation. The company has established recent partnerships with Volvo's autonomous-vehicle division and Denso Group, among others.

Now it's gaining traction with investors. The company said Wednesday it has raised $32 million in its Series B funding round. Foretellix, which was founded in 2017, has received approximately $50 million in investments to date.

"The additional funding round is an important milestone in our journey as a company, and will help us address the growing demand for our platform and products," Ziv Binyamini, Foretellix's CEO and co-founder, said in a written statement.

MoreTech Ventures led the funding round, though the amount was undisclosed. Other investors …

Five years into scandals that have already cost Wells Fargo & Co. more than $5 billion in fines and legal settlements, regulators are privately signaling they’re still not satisfied with the bank’s progress in compensating victims and shoring up controls.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have warned the lender they may bring new sanctions over the company’s pace in fulfilling those obligations, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The bank, which signed so-called consent orders with the agencies three years ago, has sought more time to get the work done, the people said. It isn’t clear when the watchdogs might proceed.

Fresh sanctions would be especially notable if they fault progress under Wells Fargo’s new management team, which took over in late 2019 to clean up scandals that triggered lawmakers’ ire and prompted the Federal Reserve to cap the bank’s growth. Chief Executive Office…

Mercedes' AMG performance subbrand is tiptoeing toward an electric future with its first plug-in hybrid.

The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E Performance combines a 4.0-liter V-8 biturbo engine with an electric motor and high-performance battery. The 843-hp hybrid powertrain delivers a 0-to-60-mph sprint in 2.9 seconds, and it can hit 124 mph in less than 10 seconds.

Mercedes-Benz is taking a dual-pronged strategy to electrify the performance subbrand — with plug-in hybrids and all-electric models — as the luxury automaker targets lower emissions.

Parent company Daimler expects full-electric and hybrid vehicles to make up 50 percent of global sales in 2025 — earlier than its previous forecast of 2030. Daimler said it plans to invest more than €40 billion ($47 billion) between 2022 and 2030 to develop full-electric vehicles and be ready for an all-electric vehicle market by the end of that period.

The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E Performance is capable of 7 mile…