Trade News

Whether you're a rapidly growing retailer, well-established automaker or scrappy mobility startup, future-proofing your business is tough work. Competition is fierce, technological and regulatory hurdles are high and the market is the final arbiter of success.

This week's issue of Automotive News examines a variety of opportunities and challenges facing noteworthy players in this evolving industry.

Lithia Motors is not content with its recent ascension to the No. 1 dealership group in the U.S. We visited CEO Bryan DeBoer at the company's headquarters in Medford, Ore., to discuss how his company plans to achieve its ambitious goal of $50 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2025. DeBoer's strategy goes beyond acquiring more stores. Lithia is already dabbling in new business lines, and is looking at more verticals. And the company's decentralized business model gives local leaders the autonomy to make decisions that contribute to company growth.

Executi…

Almost four years after Elon Musk first unveiled Tesla Inc.’s debut pickup, the automaker has built its first Cybertruck at its plant in Austin, Texas.

Tesla shared the development Saturday on Musk-owned Twitter, posting a photo of workers in safety vests and helmets obscuring much of the vehicle. When Musk first showed a prototype of the wedge-shaped truck in November 2019, the plan was for production to start two years later.

Musk has tempered expectations for how quickly Tesla will ramp up production, telling shareholders at the company’s annual meeting in May that the Cybertruck’s radical design poses challenges. He’s said the body will be stainless steel, which can be expensive and difficult to shape and weld.

“It’s going to be hard to make the cost affordable because it is a new car, new manufacturing method,” Musk said. “In the grand scheme of things, relative to the production rate of all the other cars we make, it will be small. But it’s still…

The CEO of Qmerit highlights the challenges to recruiting and quickly training EV charger technicians, identifies charging differences in urban, suburban, and rural areas, and explains why some automakers likely felt like they had to add Tesla’s charging connectors.

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WASHINGTON — Ford Motor Co. had the most recalls of any automaker in the first half of 2023, NHTSA data shows.

Through June, Ford had issued 31 recalls affecting more than 4.1 million vehicles in the U.S. In the same six-month period in 2022, Ford also topped the list, with 44 recalls covering more than 6.7 million vehicles.

Overall, the number of recalls of equipment and a broad spectrum of vehicle types — light vehicles, heavy trucks and recreational vehicles among them — in the first half of this year, 515, was relatively flat compared with the 519 in the same period in 2022. However, the 16.7 million recalled vehicles and equipment in the first six months of 2023 were 11 percent fewer than those recalled in the same period last year.

Of the recalls Ford issued through June, the largest involved a callback of nearly 1.3 million older model Fusion and Lincoln MKZ vehicles for rupturing front brake hoses. The smallest recall — is…

The U.S. new-vehicle inventory continued its steady climb in June as production recovers, according to data from Cox Automotive and the Automotive News Research & Data Center. The growing stockpile of unsold electric vehicles contributed to the overall rise.

Cox estimated unsold inventory at 1,953,512 vehicles, or a 53-day supply, up 75 percent from the same point a year ago, and up slightly from 1,928,619, where it stood a month earlier. Cox uses the sales rate from the preceding 30-day period to calculate days' supply.

There was a 103-day supply of EVs — making it the only segment other than ultraluxury and high-end luxury to top the century mark, according to Cox, though full-size cars were close, at 99 days. Stock levels of compact and midsize cars and crossovers had the tightest inventories. Cox also pointed out that inventory levels were densest among lower-priced vehicles, with stocks growing roughly as price increased. Toyota and Hon…

DETROIT — One of the few certainties about this year's contract talks between the UAW and the Detroit 3 is that they will be far from routine.

With two months to go before the pacts expire, union leaders are bucking tradition and employing new tactics to win meaningful gains for members in what President Shawn Fain has called this generation's "defining moment."

The union's newly elected leader last week ditched a decades-old handshake tradition with company CEOs in favor of rank-and-file meet-and-greets. And he suggested that he won't follow the usual formula of picking a lead company but will instead target — and potentially strike — all three at once.

Across the bargaining table will be auto executives determined to avoid major labor cost increases so they can remain flexible and competitive amid a costly pivot to electric vehicles. But top union officials believe they're in the strongest position in decades to win back the conc…

Walser Automotive Group instituted an antifraud training regimen for sales and finance personnel in 2021 after recognizing the opportunity remote deals offered scammers and finding itself fooled by fraudsters as well.

The training has led to the group spotting multiple scammers, according to Walser Senior Director of Finance Jennifer Parsons, who spearheaded the antifraud effort. She said it's benefited the group's lender relationships by giving institutions confidence in the deals Walser submits.

Parsons said Walser recognized fraud as an issue in mid-2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic prompted interest in car deals involving remote deliveries and fully digital interactions with customers. Walser, of Edina, Minn., ranks No. 28 on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S., with retail sales of 23,346 new vehicles (and 29,237 used vehicles) in 2022.

"We saw the writing on the wall that, 'Hey, this is g…

Vietnamese automaker VinFast is facing consumer skepticism after launching its first electric vehicle in the U.S. earlier this year. Experian data shows the EV maker with just 128 new-vehicle registrations for its VF 8 crossover from January to May.

VinFast is selling the two-row VF 8 in California, the biggest EV market in the country, before expanding to other states. It has cut prices and offered lease deals to move two shiploads of VF 8s that have arrived from Vietnam.

But the newcomer faces big challenges.

The brand is largely unknown in the U.S., the VF 8 is priced above similar vehicles from Ford, Volkswagen and Hyundai, and Model Y price cuts make the Tesla crossover a more competitive deal, analysts say.

The base VF 8 starts at $47,200 with shipping and doesn't qualify for the federal tax incentive of up to $7,500. The Tesla Model Y starts at $51,380 and does qualify because it's built in North America.

The VF 8 has received mixe…

Several workers at Tesla's Shanghai plant, its biggest manufacturing hub globally by output, said they had been awarded a large increase in their latest quarterly performance bonuses.

The workers said they welcomed the award after the EV maker had cut bonuses for many staff in the previous quarter.

Discontent at the plant emerged in April after several workers took to social media to complain about bonus cuts and appealed directly to founder Elon Musk, who said he would look into it.

Three workers told Reuters that they had received bonuses of 1.5 times of monthly base salary for the second quarter. This was higher than the quarterly bonuses - 1.2 times the monthly salary - that the majority of workers used to receive for average performance, the workers said.

The workers said several of their colleagues had received similar sized bonus increases but Reuters was unable to establish how many had been awarded a bonus hike. The plant, which makes M…

Online used-vehicle retailer Shift Technologies cuts staffing by a third. Sources say a former Porsche leader left to join EV specialist Rivian. Mazda contemplates making EVs in Mexico. Plus, why are so many young adults falling behind on their car payments?

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