Trade News

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — On a recent Friday afternoon, a delivery robot made its way along a crowded sidewalk on State Street. It made an abrupt stop in front of Amer's Deli, spun itself 90 degrees and backed into a parking space with the precise movements of a Revolutionary War soldier.

Some passersby were taken aback by the sight. Others walked right past. One oblivious deli customer used the parked robot as her personal table, then left her empty water bottle on its lid.

"Somebody sat on one the other day," said Pavel Vorobev, head of products for the self-driving division of Russian tech company Yandex, which deployed four of its Rover delivery bots in Ann Arbor last month.

How pedestrians and diners treat the robots is one thing he cannot control. How the robots treat them? That's very much in his purview, and part of what Yandex is hoping to learn from its operations in the heart of this college town.

Yandex has partnered wi…

The industrywide shortage of microchips is adding an extra layer of tension to an automotive ritual that is tense in normal times: factory launches of critical new products.

The chip shortage and its resulting drag on production flow is striking as Nissan Motor Co. orchestrates a product overhaul that is central to reviving consumer interest and profitability in the U.S.

The Japanese automaker's U.S. plants are preparing to introduce three key redesigns: the midsize Pathfinder, Infiniti QX60 crossover and Frontier midsize pickup.

New products are "the focal point" of Nissan's efforts to revitalize its business in its second-largest market, Michael Colleran, the brand's U.S. sales and marketing boss, told Automotive News last week.

"We prioritized our new models — that's the bedrock of Nissan Next," Colleran said, referring to a strategic turnaround plan introduced last year.

The situation is precarious for several brands —…

Amid a fresh push to commercialize its self-driving technology, Waymo has found its senior executive team in flux.

CFO Ger Dwyer and Chief Automotive Officer Adam Frost said last week they intended to leave the company by the end of May. They're the latest of a half-dozen longtime executives who have left or announced their departures over the past three months.

Frost joined Waymo's predecessor, Google's self-driving car project, in 2006 after 13 years at Ford Motor Co. and held a variety of roles, the latest of which included overseeing Waymo's projects with automakers, among them Stellantis, Volvo Car Group and Jaguar Land Rover.

Dwyer was a key figure in helping the company close a $3.25 billion funding round last year, the first external investments in Waymo's history. Both cited personal reasons for departing, according to a company spokesperson. The website TechCrunch first reported their departures.

"We're grateful to Ger and Adam for all…

For brothers Kurt and Craig Campbell, third-generation dealers in the Seattle area, nostalgia and identifying a gap in the market created a profitable component of their group's business.

The pair co-owns Campbell Auto Group, made up of Campbell Volkswagen of Edmonds, Campbell Nissan of Edmonds and Campbell Nissan of Everett.

In 2015, the group launched Caravan Outfitter. As the name implies, the retailer takes passenger and cargo vans and outfits them with creature comforts for customers looking to experience the outdoors via an all-in-one camper van.

In the 1950s, Volkswagen popularized such a setup with its Westfalia models, which were notable for their pop-up roofs.

"My brother and I grew up as Volkswagen dealers," Kurt Campbell said. "At one time, we were one of the larger Westfalia dealers in the country for Volkswagen. That product went away and we saw that that niche needed to be filled."

The brothers hired engineers and spent tw…

Fiat Chrysler is no more, but Fiat and Chrysler have been given at least another decade to show they're worth keeping around.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares says he's affording each of the 14 brands melded together from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group a 10-year window to execute a business plan.

For Chrysler, a brand in need of direction and more products, looking to 2031 is a tall task. With a lineup of only two minivan nameplates and the aging 300 sedan, making it that far without a major infusion of metal will be difficult.

Interim Chrysler chief Tim Kuniskis, if he remains in the role, will have his work cut out for him in forging a game plan for the brand that will hit the century mark in 2025. But whoever has the reins in the coming years, it appears they'll be given the opportunity to put Chrysler on a different path.

Some say the brand is vulnerable and needs to find a purpose. Others, including dealer co…

Stellantis said it’s cutting more than 1,600 jobs at its Illinois Jeep plant, a sign the deepening chip shortage that has idled auto plants is now doing more lasting damage.

The automaker formed from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and French rival PSA Group said it will cut the second shift at its Belvidere plant by July 26, affecting as many as 1,671 people. The move is intended to “balance sales with production” of the Jeep Cherokee, which is made there, the company said Friday in an emailed statement.

Production declines for the Jeep Cherokee SUV have been “further exacerbated by the unprecedented global microchip shortage,” Stellantis said.

While demand for vehicles has been outstripping supply as the U.S. emerges from pandemic lockdowns and people opt for private transportation, the Cherokee hasn’t been a major beneficiary. Sales tumbled 29 percent last year to 191,397 units, while deliveries at the Jeep brand fell 14 percent amid pandemic …

Infiniti is idling production of the QX50 compact crossover because of the semiconductor supply crunch, leaving the brand's U.S. dealers short of two volume models.

QX50 assembly at Infiniti's COMPAS factory in Aguascalientes, Mexico, will be suspended in June, Automotive News has learned.

An Infiniti spokesman confirmed the stoppage and noted Q50 sedan output in Japan will also be idled next month.

"We continue to work closely with our supplier partners to assess the impact of supply chain issues and minimize disruption for our retailers and clients," the spokesman said.

The QX50 is the Japanese luxury automaker's bestselling model, accounting for about a third of Infiniti's first-quarter U.S. sales.

Dallas Fox, executive manager at Tim Dahle Infiniti in suburban Salt Lake City, expects to run out of QX50 inventory by mid-June and won't receive new product until July.

"We are going to have a lean summer," said Fox.

<…

DETROIT -- General Motors has promoted Craig Glidden to executive vice president of global public policy, the automaker said Friday.

The new position, effective June 1, will be combined with Glidden's existing role as general counsel. Glidden, 63, will report to CEO Mary Barra.

"Craig has a proven track record of building relationships and strengthening teams and plays a key role on GM's senior leadership team driving our company's vision for an all-electric future," Barra said in a statement. "Productive dialogue and partnerships with global leaders and policymakers are more important than ever as we build a more inclusive and sustainable future."

The combined role will streamline GM's EV plans, the automaker said in a statement.

Glidden will also oversee the appointment of a new global public policy senior executive to replace Everett Eissenstat, who plans to leave the company on Aug. 1 to pursue other opportunities, GM said. Eissensta…

ACV Auctions Inc.'s revenue grew 54 percent on an annual basis in the first quarter to $69.1 million.

The company's net loss for the period was $17.4 million, compared with a loss in the year-ago quarter of $27.5 million.

The digital automotive auction firm was in 125 U.S. regions at the end of the period and plans to grow to 160 by year end, company executives told analysts and investors in a conference call Thursday.

The company reaped about $385 million in net proceeds from an initial public offering at $25 per share on March 24.

Shares in the company fell 2.1 percent to close at $28.45 on Friday in New York.

Jeff Guyton, who came to Mazda's North American operations as president from its European business two years ago, has been named CEO of the U.S. subsidiary, effective June 24.

Guyton, 54, will succeed Masahiro Moro, who will assume a newly created global position of chief communications officer at Mazda's headquarters in Hiroshima, Japan.

Mazda has been gaining traction in the U.S. as of late, eking out a slight sales increase for 2020 despite the market disruption of the pandemic. Lifted by sales of fresh crossovers and the establishment of an in-house finance arm, the automaker's U.S. market share rose to 1.9 percent last year from 1.6 percent in 2019.

As CEO of Mazda North American Operations in Irvine, Calif., Guyton will assume oversight of an expanding business. In addition to managing U.S. sales and marketing, he will be responsible for Mazda Canada Inc., based in Toronto; Mazda Colombia, based in Bogota; and Mazda Motors de Mexico, based in Mexic…

David Regn, co-founder of advertising agency Stream Cos., explains how dealers can leverage digital channels and first-party data to reach more consumers and enhance the car-buying experience.

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Dealer Bernie Moreno, who last month announced he would run for U.S. Senate in Ohio, wasn't able to buy back his old Cleveland Motorsports dealership after all.

Terry Rafih, CEO of Rafih Auto Group in Windsor, Ontario, who in March 2019 bought the dealership selling Aston Martin, Bentley and Rolls-Royce in North Olmsted, Ohio, along with Mercedes-Benz and Porsche stores from Moreno, said he opted to keep the luxury dealership.

"We were doing a handshake deal, and then Bernie decided that he was going to go into politics," Rafih told Automotive News. "So the deal changed on many, many different occasions. So finally on the first week of April, I called Bernie, and I said, 'Look, I think you need to go do your politics, and I'm just going to keep the whole deal.' And that's what happened."

Moreno told Automotive News last month that he owned a 50 percent interest in the dealership and planned to buy the full interest.

But last week, More…