Trade News

Not all the hot new technical innovations these days are about advanced autonomous driving and futuristic artificial intelligence-infused components.

There also are windshield wipers.

"You still have to change your wiper blades, right?" reasons Jean Marie Thrower, an industry business development adviser who works with auto suppliers in different segments. "Maybe it's not as sexy as autonomous driving, but automakers still want to hear about it."

Thrower, a former Army Airborne logistics officer and former Visteon steering operations manager, represents the other side of the industry's innovation wave. It's one thing to dream up and perfect a technological breakthrough — it's another to sell it.

For the past three and a half years, Thrower has been assisting ClearBlade Inc., a Denver startup that is standing by to produce original equipment double-bladed wiper systems for automakers.

ClearBlade claims that its twin-blade design — with outl…

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct Tom Dobry's new title, which Lithia has confirmed is different than what is stated in its 8-K filing.

Lithia Motors Inc. is shuffling its executive marketing positions, bringing back a former executive and media expert as the new leader of the department.

The dealership group hired Marguerite Celeste as senior vice president and chief marketing officer, effective immediately, according to a government filing. Celeste held positions at NBC Universal, DreamWorks Animation and Walt Disney Co., where she worked as director of global creative operations from 2002 to 2011.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Celeste also was Lithia's director of creative services from 2011 to 2013.

Tom Dobry, the Medford, Ore., company's current chief marketing officer, will be Lithia's vice president of marketing.

Lithia ranked No. 3 on Automotive News' most recent list of the top 150 dealership groups ba…

Electric vehicle startup Rivian said on Friday it has closed a $2.5 billion fundraising round led by investors Amazon.com, Ford Motor Co. and T. Rowe Price.

The announcement came the day after the California-based company said it was exploring building a second U.S. assembly plant. Reuters, citing unnamed sources, reported on Thursday that Rivian's planned plant, dubbed "Project Tera," will include battery cell production.

“As we near the start of vehicle production, it’s vital that we keep looking forward and pushing through to Rivian’s next phase of growth,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said in a statement.

“This infusion of funds ... allows Rivian to scale new vehicle programs, expand our domestic facility footprint, and fuel international product rollout,” he added.

Rivian, which has a plant currently in Normal, Ill., said it has raised about $10.5 billion to date. It will seek a valuation of well over $50 billion in a potential public listing late…

Auto retailing veteran and entrepreneur Franklin McLarty's special-purpose acquisition company is branching into automotive finance and insurance. 

Vehicle protection plans provider Olive.com and its affiliate PayLink Direct have agreed to go public in a deal with a MDH Acquisition Corp. that will give the combined business a valuation of about $960 million including debt.

McLarty, who has links to three prominent U.S. dealership groups, is chairman of MDH, which launched in February. The public investment company trades under the MDH.U symbol on the New York Stock Exchange. It closed an initial public offering of $276 million. At the time McLarty told Automotive News that while auto retail was a potential target for the special-purpose acquisition company, there weren't plans to pursue traditional franchised dealerships.

The transaction with MDH values the combined business at 6.4 times estimated 2023 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation a…

WASHINGTON -- Getaround Inc. will pay $950,000 to Washington, D.C., and revise its business practices after allegedly misrepresenting the benefits and nature of its car sharing services and failed to pay city sales taxes, District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine said Friday.

The San Francisco-based company had operated without a license in DC, Racine said in a statement, adding Getaround will pay restitution to car owners who experienced theft or damage to vehicles listed on the platform.

Customers can use Getaround to rent vehicles by the hour or day from individual owners who make vehicles available through the Getaround platform. Getaround did not immediately comment.

Car-sharing services in Washington are subject to a 10.25 percent sales tax.

"Gig economy companies must abide by the same rules as their brick-and-mortar counterparts. They must provide clear and accurate information to consumers, especially about the safety of their ser…

Lithia Motors Inc., the second-largest U.S. dealership group, is expected to purchase Ontario-based Pfaff Automotive Partners, according to a dealership buy-sell adviser who is familiar with the deal.

The transaction would mark Lithia's first foray out of the U.S. and into Canada. Lithia CEO Bryan DeBoer confirmed to Automotive News on Wednesday that the publicly traded retailer has acquisitions of Canadian dealerships, among others, under contract and slated to close within the next 90 days. Those deals under contract are expected to add $2 billion in annual revenue to Lithia.

"Canada is our No. 1 target," DeBoer told analysts Wednesday after the Medford, Ore., retailer reported second-quarter earnings. "We've spent the last five years getting to know the dealer body there and have pretty good relationships with most of the large groups and believe that something is imminent in that country."

The acquisition of Pfaff would make Lithia the second public…

Canadian auto supplier Magna International Inc. said on Thursday it will buy Swedish rival Veoneer Inc. for about $3.8 billion in cash, in a deal that would help expand its driver assistance technologies business.

Magna will buy out Veoneer's outstanding shares for $31.25 each, and the acquisition represents an enterprise value of $3.3 billion including debt, the companies said in a joint statement.

Veoneer's market value was $2.23 billion based on its latest closing price, according to Refinitiv Eikon data. The shares closed at $19.93 on Thursday.

The acquisition will help Magna achieve about $100 million in annual cost savings by 2024, according to the statement.

Stockholm-based Veoneer -- which spun off from longtime safety equipment supplier Autoliv Inc. in 2018 -- will be combined with Magna's existing advanced driver assistance systems business.

The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies and is expected to close by t…

The Biden administration is laying the groundwork to spend roughly $52 billion on semiconductor research and manufacturing even as it’s awaiting congressional approval of the funding, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.

“We’re putting plans in place right now already on the team to invest the $52 billion,” she said Thursday during a White House press briefing. “We need to incentivize the manufacturing of chips in America and so we are very focused on putting the pieces in place so that can happen.”

She added that she’s engaging with industry daily and doing “a lot” to address the shortage.

Raimondo told Bloomberg News in an interview that she’s hearing signs of improvements from automakers who told her the supply crunch is getting “a little bit better” amid a global semiconductor shortage. Despite the uptick in chips allocation to the autos sector, many continue to see manufacturing delays.

Chips industry representatives expect implementation o…

The blank-check company seeking to buy electric-car startup Lucid Motors Inc. made a last-minute appeal for retail shareholders to vote for the deal amid signs that it’s struggling to win their approval.

Churchill Capital Corp. IV, the special purpose acquisition company started by investment banker Michael Klein, adjourned its Thursday shareholder meeting that was to determine the fate of the merger, pushing the decision back to the following day.

It also appealed again in a new statement for shareholders to sign off on the deal. Churchill’s shares fell as much as 4.8 percent before retracing more than half the loss.

“The company still needs additional votes to obtain approval for that proposal by a majority of its outstanding shares,” according to the statement. “As a result, the meeting has been adjourned to obtain the required votes.”

The two companies are trying to woo the very investors who pushed Churchill’s shares up more than 130 percent…

German auto supplier ZF Friedrichshafen is hiring for 250 jobs at its plant in Marysville after landing a nearly $6 billion contract to make axles for an automaker.

The supplier, which houses its North American headquarters near Detroit in Livonia, Mich., on Thursday said it will produce solid beam axles for pickups, SUVs and performance sedans until 2027.

The contract will secure the jobs of 800 employees until 2027, ZF spokeswoman Ashley Van Horn said in an email. Around 550 of the positions are filled.

ZF declined to name its customer. Van Horn said the contract was signed two weeks ago. It wasn't immediately clear if the contract will replace another supplier.

No additional investments are planned for the plant, where 10 million axle drive units and rear beam axles have been produced since it launched in 2009, according to the company.

"This contract signifies a bright future for our plant, employees and community," Wolfgang Moenig, vic…

Volkswagen of America has commissioned a one-off GT concept of its two-row Atlas Cross Sport that employs the more powerful 2.0-liter engine from the Golf R, two rows of Recaro racing seats and color-matched performance calipers and wheel inserts to match the vehicle's striking "Kingfisher Blue" paint scheme.

The build was done by VW enthusiast Jamie Orr, owner of Orchid Euro, as a way to "inject some of that VW magic into our SUVs," Scott Keogh, CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, said in a statement. "This concept is proof that it's possible to build SUVs that could appeal to our performance enthusiast base."

Hand-painted at VW's Chattanooga assembly plant, the Atlas Cross Sport GT concept is built on the vehicle's top trim line, with 22-inch ABT Sport HR Aerowheels, wrapped in Yokohama Advan Sport V105 UHP 285/35R22 tires. The vehicle features ST Suspension XTA Plus 3 coilovers with color-matched and GT Concept-branded springs and TAROX eigh…

FRANKFURT -- Shareholders in Volkswagen, Europe's largest carmaker, on Thursday approved a deal to settle claims against four former executives, including longtime CEO Martin Winterkorn, related to the company's emissions scandal.

The initial deal, which was announced last month and which will see Volkswagen receive 288 million euros ($339 million) in compensation, required shareholder approval and 99.9 percent of investors agreed to the proposal at the group's annual general meeting.

Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to cheating U.S. diesel engine tests, sparking the biggest business crisis in its history.

The settlement marks a major milestone in the carmaker's efforts to turn a page on the scandal, which has cost it more than 32 billion euros in vehicle refits, fines and legal costs so far.