Trade News

Napleton Automotive Group filed a lawsuit last week alleging a former general manager stole trade secrets and purloined employees on behalf of the dealership group for which he now works.

The lawsuit claims Garrett McDonald stole confidential information from Napleton Kia of Carmel in Indianapolis, where he was general manager until Feb. 14, and used it advantageously when he accepted the same position at Bob Rohrman Kia in Lafayette, Ind.

The suit, filed May 10 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, also claims a Rohrman executive accepted information from McDonald. Bob Rohrman Automotive Group, which Napleton lists as one of its direct competitors in Indiana, is also named as a defendant.

"McDonald was encouraged and incentivized by the Rohrman Dealerships to raid the Napleton Carmel Dealerships of their experienced workers who held key dealership positions, such as managers ... and the Rohrman Dealerships f…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. gave a preview of its battery-powered F-150 on Tuesday during a visit by President Joe Biden to promote his administration's $2 trillion infrastructure plan that would encourage development of electric vehicles.

Ford parked the F-150 Lightning, which it plans to fully reveal Wednesday evening, behind Biden during his remarks at the automaker's new $700 million Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Mich., that will assemble the truck. Following his speech, the president made an unscheduled pit stop to drive a prototype on a Dearborn test track.

“This sucker’s quick,” Biden said as he pulled up to reporters while driving the Lightning with a member of the Secret Service in the passenger seat. He had joked earlier in the day he wanted to sneak off to a track.

Executive Chairman Bill Ford had earlier promised Biden, a noted car fan who has a classic Chevrolet Corvette, that the Lightning would "give your Corvette a run for …

Executives from groups that represent consumers and unionized workers on Tuesday pressed members of Congress to prioritize vehicle safety and workers' needs in any effort to develop a federal framework for autonomous vehicles and other forward-looking technologies.

A U.S. House subcommittee heard testimony from the Center for Auto Safety and the AFL-CIO, which urged taking a cautious approach to issues such as AV testing and deployment and other transportation technologies such as advanced driver-assistance systems.

Jason Levine, the center's executive director, said that "a clear vision for how to safely introduce automated driving in a way that will provide benefits to all involved, not just shareholders" is necessary, according to his prepared testimony to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce.

"As Congress undertakes the vital task of writing our nation's first autonomous vehicle la…

Zeigler Automotive Group is set to acquire its first Subaru dealership with the purchase of International Subaru of Merrillville in Indiana.

Zeigler, a large, privately owned Midwest dealership group, said the deal is scheduled to close on Wednesday. Zeigler is buying the dealership from International Autos Group of West Allis, Wis. Neither party used a broker.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but the store will be renamed Zeigler Subaru of Merrillville.

Zeigler, with the Subaru store, will have 26 new-vehicle dealerships in Michigan, Illinois and Indiana. Zeigler also owns three Byrider used-vehicle stores, a pre-owned store in Berwyn, Ill., and a motorsports store in Kalamazoo, Mich.

While the Subaru dealership will be the group's second new-vehicle dealership in Indiana, its location in the northwest part of the state is near the Illinois border, where Zeigler has 15 rooftops throughout the Chicago suburbs.

"With Zeigler on track t…

Rick Tewell, COO of the lidar startup, discusses the industry's road toward mass-producing the 3D-sensing technology used in advanced driver-assist systems.

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Mercedes is dialing up the performance in the ultraluxe-sedan market with a next-generation V-12 Maybach.

The 2022 Maybach S 680 4MATIC, which roars into U.S. stores in the first half of 2022, will be the most powerful model in the Mercedes-Maybach lineup. Pricing was not disclosed.

The latest Maybach sedan is powered by a 6.0-liter V-12 biturbo that delivers 621 hp and is capable of a 0 to 60 mph sprint in 4.4 seconds.

The Maybach sedan, which competes with the Bentley Flying Spur and Rolls-Royce Ghost, features a Maybach-exclusive front bumper, grille and two-tone paint.

Mercedes is positioning the Maybach S-Class as a sedan to be driven in — with an emphasis on rear-seat comfort in a nod to the brand's well-heeled buyers in China who look to longer-wheelbase models for their chauffeured needs.

China is a popular market, accounting for more than 8,400 Maybach S-Class sales in 2019.

To reduce cabin noise, the Maybach S-Class depl…

Dealership technology company DealerSocket will be acquired by Solera Holdings Inc., which specializes in data and software for the insurance and automotive industries, Solera said Monday.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though Solera said in a news release that the acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter pending regulatory approval.

It was not immediately clear Monday what the acquisition will mean for DealerSocket, of Irving, Texas, which provides auto retailers with dealership management systems, customer relationship management platforms and other software.

DealerSocket representatives referred requests for comment to Solera, which declined to comment Monday beyond the news release. The companies declined to make executives available for an interview.

"The combination of DealerSocket with Solera allows us to offer dealerships a fully unified platform to simplify workflows and enables us to become the digital backbone acros…

After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week removed most mask mandates for fully vaccinated Americans, automakers and dealership groups are assessing their own protocols.

Most haven't gone mask-free yet as they await state and local guidance and additional information from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the companies said.

Face masks and social distancing have been required at plants and many dealerships since last spring as part of an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Automakers have said the protocol has been largely effective in reducing community spread at the plants, and as vaccines have become available over the past several months, automakers hosted on-site vaccination clinics to provide easy access to the shots for employees.

The UAW said in a statement last week that it was reviewing the CDC's new protocols but asked workers to follow existing procedures for now.

"We are working to clearl…

Connected Car is a broad category, encompassing a huge range of hardware & software technologies, systems, and components – both inside and outside of the vehicle. Consequently, Connected Car promises to be tremendously disruptive to Automotive – chiefly due to the number of gaps & opportunities created for new business models to transform and disrupt. 

Connected Car is also driving business dynamics – efficiency, opportunity, differentiation, and disruption – to create a rich tapestry of creation, competition, and innovation. OEM's, Tier 1's, Dealer Groups, and Fleets are now in a position to reconsider and re-engineer their businesses from top to bottom. Existing industry leaders are also faced with new competitors, who are disrupting the industry to take business away from them.

Primary examples are Tesla, Rivian, Canoo and others on the OEM side; new Mobility entrants like Wunder, RIdecell, Lyft, and Uber on the Fleet side; new startups provid…

Key Auto Group, of Portsmouth, N.H., which acquired two stores in April, was on the selling end of its latest transaction.

Johanna Cicotte on Wednesday bought Key Nissan of Lebanon in New Hampshire — a dealership she had owned before.

Key Auto in 2019 acquired the store, then known as Team Nissan North, from Victoria Marcinkevich, according to Valley News. Marcinkevich had purchased the store from Cicotte in 2012, the newspaper reported.

Terms of the Key-Cicotte transaction were not disclosed, but the dealership has been renamed Nissan of Lebanon.

The Nissan dealership is across the street from Cicotte's other store, Volvo-Volkswagen of Lebanon. Lebanon is near the New Hampshire-Vermont border.

Last month, Key Auto acquired Newcastle Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram in Maine and Newport Chevrolet-Buick-GMC in New Hampshire. In 2020, Key acquired Port City Chrysler-Dodge-Ram in Portsmouth and a Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram store in Rochester, N.H.

Burt Watson Auto Group has added a third store to its portfolio and its first Ford dealership.

Owner Richard Watson IV purchased Dean Arbour Ford in Pinconning, Mich., from Matt Arbour and sister Colleen Arbour Chapleski on May 3.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. The store has been renamed Burt Watson Ford.

The third-generation group has a Chevrolet store in Freeland, Mich., its flagship dealership dating to the 1960s, and a Chevrolet-Buick dealership in Reese, Mich., that it acquired in 2018.

Watson said he learned in the fall that the Ford dealership was available. He said he thought it would be a great opportunity to buy a Ford store, and he is hoping to grow its sales.

"We're looking at expanding and just kind of growing our power as a group," Watson told Automotive News. "Nowadays, you're either kind of growing, or you're dying. We want to continue to grow."

Dean Arbour Auto Group dates to 1970, when John Dean Arbour ac…