Trade News

Hyundai Motor America has hired Culture Brands to serve as its African American agency of record, as the automaker seeks to improve its standing with Black buyers.

The Maryland-based shop claimed the account with a multi-year contract after a competitive review that involved five agencies. The hiring represents the first time Hyundai has partnered with a marketing agency dedicated to reaching Black buyers, says Angela Zepeda, chief marketing officer for Hyundai Motor America.

During the review, the automaker only considered Black-owned agencies, she says. Zepeda also confirmed that Hyundai is currently in search of a dedicated Hispanic agency.

The agency moves by the nation’s seventh-largest automotive advertiser lend momentum to the cause of minority-owned, independent agencies as they seek to counteract holding company-owned general market agencies that have sought in recent years to bundle multicultural marketing with larger agreements with major cli…

Dealership technology company Cars.com made money in the first quarter on slightly higher revenue, an improvement from the year-earlier quarter that saw the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.

The Chicago vehicle listings company on Thursday reported net income of $5.3 million, compared with a net loss of $787.4 million in the same period a year earlier. That loss was impacted by a noncash goodwill and intangible asset impairment charge of $905.9 million related to the pandemic.

Revenue rose 3.5 percent to $153.3 million, compared with a decline of 4 percent in the year-earlier quarter. Cars.com said the increase was attributable to growth in average revenue per dealer. That metric rose 8 percent to $2,268 on sales of its technology products, including websites offered by its Dealer Inspire unit and its Fuel video marketing product, and its vehicle marketplace business.

"We maintained strong momentum in our business in the first quarter, delive…

SAIC Motor Corp.’s net profit surged 511 percent to 6.85 billion yuan ($1.06 billion) in the first quarter, reflecting a sharp rebound in sales and revenue from the same period in 2020 when the pandemic largely idled showrooms and factories.

Revenue at the state-owned automaker with major General Motors and Volkswagen Group joint ventures jumped 79 percent to top 189 billion yuan during the period, the Shanghai-listed company said.

The sharp increase in net profit and revenue stem from a robust rebound in sales compared with the first quarter of 2020 when the coronavirus outbreak ravaged China.

Total first-quarter vehicle sales at SAIC’s joint ventures and its car and truck subsidiaries rose 68 percent to exceed 1.14 million units. 

The bulk of the volume was generated by the company’s partnerships with GM and VW.

Among the joint ventures, SAIC-GM, which markets cars and light trucks for Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac, first-quarte…

Volkswagen Group began construction on a factory at its joint venture with Jianghuai Automobile Co. in the eastern city of Hefei to ramp up electric-vehicle production in China.

The plant, due to launch output in the second half of 2023, will become its third facility to build MEB-based EVs in the country, the German auto giant said last week. 

The factory, covering 500,000 square meters, will produce up to 350,000 EVs annually after reaching full capacity.  

Two other VW Group joint ventures – one with China FAW Group Corp. and one with SAIC Motor Corp. -- each have a plant dedicated to assembling MEB-based EVs. 

The two factories, each with annual capacity of 300,000 EVs, build the MEB-based VW ID4 crossover. Output of a second MEB-based product, the ID6 crossover, will start later this year.

VW Group is the largest carmaker in China. It delivered 990,600 vehicles under various brands in the first quarter, a jump of 61 perc…

Fraser Dunn, chief engineer of special projects for Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd., is joining the Project Arrow team, which is developing the first Canadian-made, zero-emission, autonomous vehicle.

Dunn will serve as chief engineer of the project, said Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association (APMA).

While at the U.K.-based luxury sports car manufacturer, Dunn worked on such vehicles as the Vulcan and Valkyrie Hypercar.

He’s leaving his post and joining the APMA project full-time.

“We are pulling in a reverse brain drain for this project,” said Volpe. “I’m quite proud of the people who want to be involved in the Team Canada project from within and outside of [Canada].”

Dunn, who officially joins Project Arrow on Aug. 1, will steer the engineering team, said Colin Dhillon, the APMA’s chief technical officer.

Spearheaded by the APMA and with the backing of the provincial and federal governme…

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ Nuro self-driving vehicle avoids the Noid in Domino's Pizza ad

The Noid is back. And it's gotten a makeover.

Domino's Pizza has brought back its red-suited, long-eared villain from the late '80s in a campaign that hypes its new driverless pizza delivery.

The Noid returns in TV spots trying to disrupt a delivery being handled by the Nuro R2 robot, an autonomous vehicle that operates without a driver. The self-driving robot is being tested by a single Domino's location in Houston for online prepaid orders at certain hours as part of a partnership Domino's began with Nuro in 2019.

The spot was shot more than a year ago, then put on hold when COVID-19 delayed the rollout of the Nuro R2.

The Noid, for the uninitiated, was a character Domino's introduced in 1986 in spots from agency Group 243. With its floppy ears and red suit with an "N" on the belly, the Noid was determined to destroy pizza. Time after time,…

The levels of driving automation, the industry's go-to framework, were updated this week to clarify differences between Level 3 and Level 4, part of an effort to better define and group the capabilities of autonomous technologies that are on the road and under development.

The six levels, established by SAE International in 2014, describe the capabilities of driver-assistance and autonomous driving systems. The levels range from 0 — no driving automation — to 5 — full automation.

SAE and the International Organization for Standardization have clarified Levels 3 and 4 under the J3016 automation standards.

The update also provides an explanation for "how classifications of sustained driving automation fit into the broader context of driver assistance and active safety features," according to SAE.

The update clarifies the role of the fallback-ready user, the possibility of some automated fallback at Level 3, as well as the possibility of some alerts …

Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. both turned in narrower losses than expected in the first quarter.

Uber on Wednesday said its food-delivery business continued to grow, but ride-hailing bookings were flat from the previous quarter. The company said March delivered the first signs of U.S. recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ride-hailing mobility business had to absorb a $600 million hit to account for a settlement with its more than 70,000 U.K. drivers and provide them with more benefits.

Uber posted an adjusted $359 million first-quarter loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, narrowing losses by nearly $100 million from the previous quarter.

Analysts on average had expected the company to report an adjusted EBITDA loss of around $452 million, Refinitiv data showed.

Uber has promised to be profitable on that metric by the end of the year, three months after its smaller ride-hail rival Lyft, which on Tuesday…

Cavender Auto Family has signed a purchase agreement to buy Alderson Auto Group's six luxury stores in Texas that will double Cavender's store count and add nearly 20 percent in annual revenue.

The companies on Monday announced the pending transaction to employees.

Rick Cavender, vice president of the San Antonio dealership group with six stores in Texas, said Alderson's CEO and owner, David Alderson, reached out about six months ago, asking if the group had an interest in buying his stores. Cavender's brother Stephen is president of the auto group and dealer principal.

The Alderson group has been in business more than 70 years, founded in 1949 with a Cadillac store.

Alderson's dealerships are in Lubbock and Midland. They include Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz stores in Lubbock and a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Midland.

David Alderson, the group's third-generation operator and former chairperson of the Texas Automobile Deale…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. is expanding its off-road utility lineup with a new Timberline variant as it seeks to cash in on a growing segment even beyond the new Bronco family of vehicles.

The automaker on Wednesday unveiled the 2021 Explorer Timberline, which will start at $47,010, including shipping, and arrive at dealerships this summer. The vehicle features steel skid plates and unique shocks, springs and stabilizer bars that, along with all-terrain tires, boost the Timberline's ride height by 0.8 inch over the base model.

It comes in a unique green color with red tow hook accents and space on the grille for auxiliary lighting to better illuminate trails or other off-road courses.

Ford says there's a market for such capability; internal data show 56 percent of Explorer owners reported an increase in off-road use over the past three years.

"Consumer data has shown us that now more than ever, customers want to get outside and explore nature with…

A first wave of former Reagor-Dykes employees were sentenced Tuesday for their roles in the spectacular collapse of the Lubbock, Texas, dealership group.

Court records were not yet available online, according to a clerk at the federal court in Amarillo, Texas, where the criminal cases have been held. But local media reports say the six employees received prison sentences ranging from two to four years and were ordered to pay restitution of $100-$200 per month.

They pleaded guilty to a range of charges related to a purported floorplan fraud and check-kiting operation that the FBI began investigating as far back as February 2018.

Nine other employees who pleaded guilty to similar charges await sentencing in the coming days and months, including Shane Smith, a former Reagor Dykes CFO whom dealer principals blamed for the group's financial improprieties. Smith is set to be sentenced July 27.

Meanwhile, former dealer principal Bart Reagor was indicted …