Trade News

PLANO, Texas — As automakers large and small rush into the battery-electric business, they face what may be an even trickier issue than where they're going to get all their batteries: setting residual values on vehicles without a lot of history.

For companies with captive finance arms such as Toyota — which will reenter the BEV market in the U.S. next year with a production vehicle based on its RAV4-sized bZ4X compact-crossover concept — the residual value equation can present challenges.

The biggest one: estimating future demand for vehicles that now represent less than 2 percent of the overall market.

"We've been financing [electrified vehicles] for over 20 years, so we're not scared about financing them," said Mark Templin, CEO of Toyota Financial Services. "The only tricky part is setting residuals, because you don't know what the future value of those BEVs is going to be in the marketplace."

It's not a small problem. There are more than 100…

A new book on Carlos Ghosn, Collision Course: Carlos Ghosn and the Culture Wars That Upended an Auto Empire, will be published on June 22. It is co-written by Asia Editor Hans Greimel, who has covered Ghosn since joining Automotive News in 2007.

This first of two excerpts focuses on the immediate aftermath of Ghosn's arrest on Nov. 19, 2018. Chaos and confusion reigned at Nissan and Renault, both led by the jailed celebrity executive. The man tasked with relaying just exactly what had happened to the French side was Philippe Klein, a high-ranking French executive at Nissan. This portion of Chapter 10, "Makings of a Conspiracy," describes the fog of competing narratives in those early days and details how Klein broke the news amid spiraling suspicions in France about a Japanese corporate coup to take out the alliance's boss.

In Japan, the undoing of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn seemed like a straightforward case of greed and hubris. But half a world awa…

BERLIN -- Volkswagen Group Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch will seek reelection at the automaker's annual general meeting.

Poetsch, VW's former finance chief,  became chairman of the supervisory board in 2015, weeks after the start of the diesel emissions scandal in which VW in 2015 acknowledged using illegal software to rig diesel engine tests in the United States.

Poetsch, 70, was instrumental in averting a leadership crisis at VW last year. He brokered a truce after VW Group CEO Herbert Diess clashed with the company's labor leaders over Diess's plans to boost profits and cut costs.

A VW spokesperson said on Saturday that the company's supervisory board recommends to the upcoming annual shareholder meeting "that it elect supervisory board chair Hans Dieter Poetsch for a full five-year term."

The date of the meeting has not been announced.

Tesla has lost another top manager from the automaker's new European plant under construction near Berlin, according to a report in Automobilwoche, the German affiliate publication of Automotive News.

Marcel Jost, head of general assembly, left the automaker last month while Tesla CEO Elon Musk was visiting Germany, Automobilwoche said. The reason for his departure is not known and Jost was not available for comment, the magazine said.

Jost had previously worked at Daimler, serving most recently as the automaker's head of safety and environmental management in Stuttgart. He had also worked for Daimler in China for several years. He became Tesla's senior quality manager in Germany in March 2020.

Jost's departure follows that of Evan Horetsky, project manager of the plant in Gruenheide near Berlin. Horetsky left Tesla in October 2020. Horetsky has since joined Swedish hypercar manufacturer Koenigsegg. Another top Daimler executive, Rene Reif, was due to re…

Aiming to capitalize on the growing trend of offering remote services, Alderman's Chevrolet-Buick-GMC in Rutland, Vt., in 2011 began delivering newly sold vehicles across New England free of charge. Similar practices were enabled in the service department, where some employees were engaged full time in picking up and returning customer vehicles in need of repair and maintenance.

The goal was convenience and customer satisfaction. Up to 30 percent of the 1,100 new and used vehicles the dealership sells annually were delivered across state lines.

But Mark Alderman, the store's general manager, noticed a trend. Most of the dealership's hottest vehicles were shipped out of market, and those customers wouldn't return for their next purchase or even for service work.

"What we were doing was really spreading ourselves thin, not executing as well and raising expenses," Alderman said.

Another casualty of free delivery was finance and insurance revenue. O…

Last month, Arizona and Phoenix officials gathered to break ground on an electric vehicle assembly plant planned by the Canadian EV startup ElectraMeccanica.

It was, in fact, the third new EV assembly plant groundbreaking in the Phoenix area in 16 months. Earlier this year, the hydrogen-electric commercial truck startup Nikola began constructing a plant on the south side of the city, in Casa Grande. And in 2019, Lucid Motors began building its $700 million electric vehicle plant, also in Casa Grande.

Has anyone told these people that Phoenix is in the far left-hand bottom corner of the U.S., 1,600 to 2,000 miles from the core of the North American supply base?

That's the wrong way of looking at it, says Sandra Watson, CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority, the public-private development agency that has been quietly stretching the auto industry map toward Arizona in recent years.

Watson makes the argument that far from being outside th…

HOUSTON — Greg Clark, vice president of the Americas for Ineos Automotive, part of the British chemical company launching a rugged Land Rover Defender-like off-road vehicle in early 2023, has just one job: every job.

Clark, a former Jaguar Land Rover and Daimler marketing executive who was named to his post at Ineos in February, has on his to-do list:

Select a location for the U.S. headquarters for the automotive operation of Ineos, which late next summer will begin building the Grenadier off-road vehicle in a former Daimler plant in Hambach, France, minutes from the German border.Figure out how best to get vehicles to dealers in all 50 states. Clark says he's leaning toward appointing regional distributors that would deliver to multiple dealers instead of offering franchises to individual retailers.Hire the marketers, compliance managers, warranty administrators, zone managers, parts and service personnel and others who will staff the company's U.S. ar…

New Jersey drivers could be allowed to conduct an entire vehicle transaction online and show authorities a digital copy of their registrations following bills approved Thursday by the state's Legislature.

The bills would authorize dealers and buyers to conduct motor vehicle sales entirely online, assuring the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission would not reject digitally signed paperwork. While online sales are currently allowed, buyers still have to physically sign purchase and registration documents, according to a report from NJ.com.

The legislation would allow a buyer and a licensed dealer to use electronic signatures for all motor vehicle transaction documents in place of wet-ink signatures.

The digital alternative could potentially cut down on paper and speed up transaction time.

"I think everybody in the business realizes there's just way too much friction and paperwork involved in purchasing a motor vehicle. Cons…

BorgWarner Inc. has finalized its takeover of Akasol AG, the German maker of lithium ion battery systems that it agreed to acquire in February.

BorgWarner became 89 percent owner of Akasol upon the auto supplier's completion of a tender offer for shares of the battery manufacturer, according to a Friday news release.

BorgWarner paid about $788 million from cash balances to settle the tender offer. Following the deal, Akasol will function as an independently operated subsidiary.

"We are excited to add Akasol's innovative products, capabilities and team to BorgWarner as we advance our plan to grow our electric vehicle businesses to approximately 45 (percent) of total revenues by 2030 under Project Charging Forward," CEO Frédéric Lissalde said in the release.

Akasol makes battery systems for buses and commercial vehicles, as well as train engines and marine vehicles. It has more than 300 employees at two plants in Germany and one in Hazel Park, Mich.…

Four U.S. dealership groups have expanded their regional footprints with acquisitions that were finalized in recent weeks.

Here's a quick look at the transactions involving domestic- and import-brand stores. One deal involved one of Automotive News' top 150 dealership groups.

Phil Long Dealerships, of Colorado Springs, Colo., acquired a Subaru store on Tuesday, marking a return to the brand. It bought Glenwood Springs Subaru, west of Denver, from former National Automobile Dealers Association Chairman Jeff Carlson, Steve Nilsson and Carroll Winkler. Winkler will remain as the store's general manager.

The dealership is now Phil Long group's second store in Glenwood Springs, where it has a Honda dealership. Phil Long also has Ford, Lincoln, Chevrolet, Hyundai, Genesis, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Toyota dealerships. It ranks No. 100 on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S., retailing 9,068 new vehicles in 2020.

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The largest vehicle charging network in the U.S. is counting on electric pickup trucks to finally win American drivers over to EVs.

ChargePoint Holdings Inc. CEO Pasquale Romano expects many businesses that maintain fleets of pickups will switch to electrics in the next few years, because they’re cheaper to maintain. And the workers driving those fleets will get hooked on their performance, Romano says.

“They’ll pull into the parking lot with their personal pickup truck, hang their stuff in the locker, and pick up the keys to the work truck,” he said, in an interview. “You have a built-in test drive: ‘I drive one of these electric ones every day, and it’s awesome.’”

President Joe Biden’s plan to wean U.S. drivers off fossil fuels requires massive investment in public charging stations. It’s still unclear, though, how the companies providing the service will make a profit when most of the time people are likely to charge their EVs at home.

Rom…

Penske Automotive Group Inc. has entered the growing Charlotte, N.C., market with its acquisition Thursday of Felix Sabates' Mercedes-Benz of South Charlotte, in Pineville, near the South Carolina border.

The second-largest new-vehicle retailer based in the U.S. said in a news release Friday that the store is expected to add $150 million in annual revenue. The dealership acquisition is Penske's first since late 2018, when it bought Lexus stores in Texas.

Penske said the more than 70,000-square-foot dealership, which opened in 2006, includes 50 service bays.

Sabates, like Penske CEO Roger Penske, has ties to the racing world. He was a NASCAR team owner with Chip Ganassi Racing and was set to retire as an owner last year. Sabates owned the dealership with Terry Taylor, according to Sabates' Chip Ganassi Racing biography.

The acquisition marks Penske's 26th Mercedes-Benz dealership globally. Terms of the transaction weren't disclosed…