Trade News

WASHINGTON -- A group of U.S. senators are close to unveiling a $52-billion proposal Friday that would significantly boost U.S. semiconductor chip production and research over five years, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters.

Sens. Mark Kelly, John Cornyn, Mark Warner and Tom Cotton have been negotiating a compromise measure to address the issue in the face of rising Chinese semiconductor production and shortages impacting automakers and other U.S. industries.

A spokesman for Cornyn said the senator has "not signed on to a semiconductor amendment."

Sources said there remains at least one sticking point over whether to include a provision on labor rates.

The chips funding is expected to be included in a bill the Senate will take up next week to spend more than $110 billion on basic U.S. and advanced technology research to better compete with China.

The proposal includes $49.5 billion in emergency supplemental appropriations to fu…

Taiwan's Hon Hai Technology Group — better known as Foxconn, manufacturer of the Apple iPhone — appears to be edging closer to entering the auto industry after signing a deal with Fisker Inc. to build a high-volume electric car with a price tag starting under $30,000.

The deal calls for Fisker Inc., of California, to design the vehicle and then hand it off to Foxconn to assemble at a plant in the U.S. No manufacturing locations were announced Thursday. Production is projected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Foxconn has a U.S. presence in Mount Pleasant, Wis. In 2017, it announced plans with great fanfare to invest $10 billion to build LCD displays there and create 13,000 jobs, but in April it scaled back its plans to $672 million and about 1,454. It is still unclear what will be built there, according to PBS Wisconsin.

Fisker refers to the vehicle as Project PEAR — Personal Electric Automotive Revolution. It will be conventional in the sense…

Stakeholders in autonomous vehicle technology are calling for industry and government to come together to create a common framework for safely testing and deploying AVs in the U.S.

During an industry roundtable event held virtually Thursday, safety experts and executives from AV technology companies discussed the importance of lawmakers and federal agencies such as NHTSA working with stakeholders to develop common standards that can speed the deployment of these technologies without stifling innovation.

"We need, first of all, for the public to understand why this is just bigger than saving lives on the road. It will impact everything in our lives, and we need to make sure that the United States is ahead," said Robbie Diamond, CEO of Securing America's Future Energy, the Washington-based group that hosted the event.

"We need a road map, of course, so that companies can do this safely and that people have trust. We need our agencies to step up if Capitol…

Penske Automotive Group Inc. has named a new CFO.

The retailer has promoted Shelley Hulgrave, a more than 14-year Penske employee, to replace J.D. Carlson, who is retiring after holding the position since June 2015. The moves are effective June 1.

Hulgrave, 42, has been the retailer's senior vice president and corporate controller since February 2020. She was promoted to that position after serving as Penske's vice president and corporate controller since June 2015. Penske, in a regulatory filing on Thursday, said Hulgrave’s salary is being increased to $500,000.

She joined the company in October 2006 as a corporate accounting manager, working with accounting teams in the U.S., Europe and Australia. Before working for Penske, Hulgrave held positions with DaimlerChrysler Financial and Ernst & Young.

"Ms. Hulgrave has a strong operational and technical background in finance and accounting and her experience and tenure with the Penske Automotiv…

For many car enthusiasts, attending the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is a bucket-list occasion. Since 1950, the annual event in Carmel, Calif., has hosted the world’s most beautiful and expensive collectible cars for a week of lavish parties, blue-chip auctions, glamorous rallies, and exclusive high-roller meetings.

It was canceled last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, losing half of its routine $2 million-plus in sponsorships and ticket sales—not to mention the millions generated by the influx of tens of thousands of the world’s most avid car lovers to the Monterey Peninsula. But Sandra Button, the chairman of the Pebble, as long-timers call it, confirmed on May 12 that the show will indeed go on this year on its usual date, the fourth Sunday in August.

How many automakers come on board, however, remains to be seen. Mercedes-Benz, for years one of the brands with the biggest presence, will reportedly not inhabit the circus-size white tent it has …

A former Gentex Corp. project engineer who says she was advised to ask male co-workers to explain things to her to "make them feel better about working with her" has filed a lawsuit against the company.

Elizabeth Helminski is suing Gentex — a Zeeland, Mich., supplier of dimmable rearview mirrors and other electronic components — alleging gender discrimination and retaliation.

Helminski says she was regularly treated differently from her male co-workers. Brian Brackenbury, her supervisor at the time, is also named as a defendant.

Helminski was hired by Gentex in September 2018 and worked in a male-dominated environment, the lawsuit says.

"It was clear in the first couple months of employment that in addition to the males on the leadership team, there was generally a pro-male 'bro culture' in the working environment in many departments," the complaint said.

Helminski believes she was terminated in late September 2019 for raising concerns abo…

House lawmakers advanced language authorizing $8 billion for the U.S. Postal Service to buy more electric vehicles as the agency modernizes its aging fleet.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee added the measure before approving and sending to the full House legislation aimed at better tracking mailed ballots. Separately the panel approved a bill to shore up Postal Service finances after years of losses at the agency.

The Postal Service in February announced that Oshkosh Corp. had won a contract for tens of thousands of mail-delivery vans, and initially said only 10 percent of the fleet would be electric.

The award set off complaints from lawmakers dismayed at funding a fleet dependent on polluting technology. The amendment adopted Thursday would ensure that 75 percent of purchased vehicles would be electric or zero-emission vehicles.

Oshkosh has said its vehicle can be built to use either electric power or a gasoline engine.

The contra…

China Evergrande Group raised about HK$10.6 billion ($1.4 billion) selling shares in its electric vehicle unit, the latest effort by the nation’s most indebted developer to boost capital.

The sale amounts to about 2.7 percent of outstanding shares in China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group, the real estate firm said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Thursday.

Evergrande NEV shares tumbled as the shares were sold at a 20 percent discount.

Evergrande has been selling assets to repair its balance sheet in line with Chinese regulators’ efforts to deleverage the property sector. The company was in breach of all key metrics for reducing debt levels -- known as the “three red lines” -- at the end of last year, even as many of its peers improved.

After reporting its second straight year of declining profit in March, Evergrande unveiled plans to roughly halve the remainder of its borrowings over the next two years. To meet the goal, it need…

BEIJING -- WeRide, the Guangzhou-based autonomous driving startup backed by Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi Motors, said it raised "hundreds of millions" of dollars in a funding round that it said valued the firm at $3.3 billion.

WeRide, which is testing vehicles in California, as well as in China's southern city of Guangzhou - where it is headquartered - and the central city of Zhengzhou, did not disclose details on the size of the funding.

Investors taking part in the latest funding round include IDG Capital and Homeric Capital, WeRide said in a statement on Thursday. It raised $310 million in January.

WeRide is pursuing a Level 4 autonomous standard, in which the vehicle can handle all aspects of driving in most circumstances with no human intervention.

Last month it received a permit to test two passenger vehicles on California's public roads without a safety driver in the front section.

Automakers and technology firms are investing bill…

Vroom Inc. reported an almost doubling in retail unit sales along with a wider first-quarter net loss.

The online used-vehicle retailer's e-commerce unit sales grew 96 percent to a record 15,504 in the period. Wholesale unit sales rose 84 percent to 8,641, the company said Wednesday.

Vroom was able to capitalize on higher inventory levels in an environment of high demand but tight overall vehicle supplies.

The company highlighted its ability to buy vehicles from customers in the quarter. CEO Paul Hennessy told investors and analysts in a conference call that over the past three quarters the company has increased acquired inventory from customers -- as a percentage of sales -- from 31 percent in the third quarter of 2020 to 41 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020 and now 54 percent in the latest period.

"Supply will continue to be a focus and area of investment for Vroom, particularly given the uncertainty over the duration of the current supply a…

WASHINGTON -- The National Highway Traffic Safety Agency said on Wednesday it is opening a safety probe into a fatal May 5 Tesla crash in California amid growing concerns about the automaker's driver assistance systems.

A Tesla crashed into an overturned truck on a highway near Fontana, Calif., killing the Tesla's driver and injuring the truck driver and a motorist who had stopped to help him, the California Highway Patrol said.

The highway patrol report did not say whether the Tesla was operating on Autopilot, its semi-autonomous driving system, when the crash occurred. The Mack truck had crashed and overturned five minutes earlier, blocking two lanes of the highway, the report said.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NHTSA said it previously had opened 28 special investigations into Tesla crashes, with 24 pending.

Police in Texas last month said they believed an April 17 fatal crash near Houston occurred with no o…

Volvo Cars is considering an initial public stock offering on the Nasdaq Stockholm stock exchange later this year.

The Swedish automaker -- controlled by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding -- abandoned merger plans with its Hong Kong-listed sister brand, Geely Automobile, in February. During that announcement Volvo hinted that it may seek a listing of its own.

Volvo said in a statement Wednesday that the potential listing could be a "logical next step" on the company's "capital market journey."

“[It] could create an opportunity for global investors to participate in our journey to become a leader in the fast-growing premium and intelligent electric vehicle segment while continuing to deliver on what customers expect from the Volvo brand,” Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson said in the statement.

Previous estimates of Volvo's value have ranged from $8.1 billion to $11.6 billion.

When asked by Automotive News Europe in February about those figures, Samue…