Trade News

DETROIT — General Motors has required all salaried employees in the U.S. to disclose their coronavirus vaccination status to help guide its safety protocols, the automaker confirmed Thursday.

"The reporting of our employees' vaccination status is helping GM Medical assess the overall immunity of our employee population and determine when GM should relax or strengthen certain COVID-19 safety protocols as recommended by the CDC and OSHA, such as mask wearing, physical distancing and facility occupancy rates," said spokeswoman Maria Raynal.

Employees who said they were vaccinated through a confidential online tool were required to submit proof of vaccination by Aug. 23. GM has 42,000 salaried employees in the U.S. The requirement was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

GM has not yet required its 46,000 hourly workers to report their vaccination status, though they can disclose their status voluntarily, Raynal told Automotive News.

"In an ef…

DETROIT — Workers at three Ford Motor Co. assembly plants in North America will face some level of downtime next week because of semiconductor-related parts shortages, including both factories that make the bestselling F-150 pickup.

The automaker said its Oakville Assembly Plant in Canada, as well as Kansas City Assembly Plant in Missouri, will be down the week of Aug. 30. Ford's Dearborn Truck Plant in Michigan will operate just one shift that week.

The Oakville plant produces the Ford Edge and Lincoln Nautilus crossovers. The F-150 is produced at the Kansas City and Dearborn factories.

"Our teams continue making the most of our available semiconductor allocation, finding unique solutions to provide as many high-quality vehicles as possible to our dealers and customers," a spokeswoman said in a statement.

The Kansas City plant is currently down because of parts shortages.

Ford has been hit especially hard by the chip crisis, although the…

LOS ANGELES — Honda is warning U.S. dealers that vehicle deliveries to retailers could fall by 40 percent in the coming weeks compared with previous estimates, due to parts supply problems out of Asia, according to a letter sent to retailers.

The letter, which was confirmed by a dealer who expressed disappointment over the cuts, said the resurgence of the coronavirus in Southeast Asia had converged with already-tight microchip supplies to impact Honda production more than had been expected.

The letter was published on the Honda fan website civicxi.com on Wednesday. Honda Civic fans on the forum noted that the letter also confirmed the start of production of the redesigned 2022 Civic hatchback in late September, as expected. That was seen by Civic fans as a silver lining in otherwise bad news for Honda.

"Our purchasing and production teams continue to carefully manage the available supply of parts to run production and meet the needs of our customers," Am…

Xiaomi Corp. will buy autonomous driving technology startup Deepmotion for about $77.4 million, sealing a deal to help further ambitions of getting into the fast-expanding field.

The company announced the acquisition after reporting better-than-expected results for the second quarter, when a recovery in key markets such as India helped it overtake Apple Inc. to become the world’s second-largest phone vendor by shipments. Revenue surged 64 percent to 87.79 billion yuan ($13.6 billion) in the quarter ended June, surpassing the 85.01 billion yuan average of estimates.

Co-founder and CEO Lei Jun is now spearheading a drive to take Xiaomi beyond smartphones. The 51-year-old is personally leading a project to make electric vehicles and the company has pledged an initial investment of $10 billion over the next decade in the business. Lei has said the company has deep enough pockets to fund such a project, which requires years of heavy investment in development and man…

Used-vehicle subscription service Fair has stopped signing up new subscription and lease customers as the company considers a possible bankruptcy filing and prepares to convert its business into a third-party marketplace.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company plans to relaunch as a digital vehicle marketplace in early 2022, with the first quarter as a goal, CEO Brad Stewart told Automotive News. The move comes after Stewart, who joined the company as its chief executive in May 2020, said he evaluated the business and determined its capital-intensive nature, which required Fair to hold vehicles on its balance sheet, made it too challenging to scale.

"We're going to exit that business and focus elsewhere," Stewart said.

Fair stopped originating vehicle subscriptions and leases about four months ago, he said. An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 vehicles remain in its inventory.

Shortly after taking the top job, Stewart told Autom…

The notion of customers buying auto insurance at the same place they buy their car has been "sorely kind of neglected," according to Elliot Schor, JM&A Group vice president for sales operations.

Dealers view auto insurance sales as an extra step, extending a lengthy car-buying process and affecting customer satisfaction, Schor said Monday. The mindset was, " 'Let me just sell the car.' "

But based on recent accounts from JM&A and Asbury Automotive Group, dealers might want to rethink that philosophy.

Salty, an insurance technology company, and Asbury announced in July they had established a partnership to add car insurance quotes to Asbury's online retail tool Clicklane. According to Asbury CEO David Hult, the dealership chain's customers spend nearly $350 million on insurance annually. Asbury ranked fourth on Automotive News' list of the top 150 U.S. dealership groups based on 2020 new-vehicle sales.

Hult said o…

Toyota Motor North America says it will begin in 2023 to manufacture large "integrated dual fuel cell modules" that will be used to power Class 8 semitractors from a new manufacturing line at its giant light-vehicle assembly plant in Georgetown, Ky. — the same plant that builds the Toyota Camry and the Lexus ES 350.

The fuel cell modules are "designed to fit in essentially the same space" as a similar heavy-duty diesel engine in Class 8 semis, a company spokesman said. The 1,400-pound modules would have the ability to tow roughly 40 tons of cargo up to 300 miles "all while demonstrating exceptional drivability, quiet operation and zero harmful emissions," David Rosier, Toyota Kentucky powertrain head, said in a statement.

Toyota did not disclose if it yet has a truck manufacturing customer to purchase the fuel cell modules, but said in a statement that the modules "bring Toyota's electrification strategy further into focus as it will allow truck manufacturers t…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. has scrapped plans to build a pickup version of the Bronco off-road SUV, according to two sources knowledgeable about the decision.

The automaker planned to introduce a Bronco-based pickup in 2024 but in recent months has informed suppliers the program was canceled, the sources told Automotive News. It was to be built at the same plant that assembles as the Bronco SUV and Ranger pickup in Wayne, Mich.

Ford spokesman Mike Levine declined to comment on the company's future product portfolio but noted that "we continue to see strong demand for our full portfolio of rugged trucks and SUVs, including Bronco-brand utilities and our bestselling Ford truck lineup."

The company has never confirmed plans for a Bronco pickup.

The new vehicle would have given Ford three pickups smaller than the F-150 — in addition to the Ranger and upcoming Maverick — and a direct competitor to the Jeep Gladiator. However, it would have greatly over…

Customers' increasing preference for crossovers and SUVs means they're making higher monthly payments and borrowing a few thousand dollars more to buy their vehicles, Experian said this month.

Melinda Zabritski, Experian's senior director of automotive financial solutions, compared consumer behavior between the second quarters of 2016 and 2021 in research released this month.

In the second quarter of 2016, 41.44 percent of new vehicles financed were cars, she said.

"They did make up the majority of financing," Zabritski said in a webinar accompanying the analytics firm's second-quarter automotive lending report released Aug. 19.

The crossover, SUV and "wagon" segment of the fleet ranked second in 2016 at 40.83 percent, according to Experian. Experian defines wagons as vehicles such as the Subaru Outback, Volvo V60 Cross Country and Audi A4 Allroad.

Today, 57.54 percent of light vehicles financed fall into th…

Our August 2020 discussion with Alexa Auto's Arianne Walker focused on Amazon's efforts to expand the capabilities of its in-vehicle voice assistant.

How do I subscribe?

Can't wait to hear the next episode of "Daily Drive"? Subscribe through a podcast app to receive episodes days in advance. If you don't have a podcast app already, here are some options. 

iPhone / iPad

“Daily Drive” is available on the iTunes Store and through the ‘Podcast’ app pre-installed on all iOS devices. Click here to subscribe to "Daily Drive"

Android

“Daily Drive” is available on the Google Play store. Click here to subscribe to "Daily Drive"

Spotify

"Daily Drive" is available on Spotify. Click here to subscribe to "Daily Drive"

U.S. officials have approved license applications worth hundreds of millions of dollars for China's blacklisted telecom company Huawei to buy chips for its growing auto component business, two people familiar with the matter said.

Huawei, the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker, has been hobbled by trade restrictions  imposed by the Trump administration on the sale of chips and other components used in its network gear and smartphones businesses. The Biden administration has been reinforcing the hard line on exports to Huawei, denying licenses to sell chips to Huawei for use in or with 5g devices.

But in recent weeks and months, people familiar with the application process told Reuters the U.S. has granted licenses authorizing suppliers to sell chips to Huawei for such vehicle components as video screens and sensors. The approvals come as Huawei pivots its business toward items that are less susceptible to U.S. trade bans.

Not everyo…