Trade News

Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly implied AB5 was no longer the law in California for anyone. While the law no longer applies to ride-hail and food delivery workers, it remains in effect for other freelancers.

Uber, Lyft and other gig-economy companies face a new challenge from the Biden administration to their use of contract workers, but as they gear up for a fight in Washington they could turn to a lobbying playbook that helped them score a decisive win against California regulators last year.

President Joe Biden campaigned on the promise of providing legal protections and benefits to gig workers, who as independent contractors generally have no access to unemployment insurance, sick pay and health insurance. U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said last week: "A lot of gig workers should be classified as employees."

In Congress, Democratic lawmakers are pushing a union-supported labor bill, the PRO Act, that in part is modeled…

DETROIT — General Motors has extended downtime at Fairfax Assembly in Kansas through at least July 5 and will curtail production at Lansing Grand River in Michigan beginning next week, the automaker said Monday.

Production at Fairfax, which builds the Cadillac XT4 and Chevrolet Malibu, has been down since Feb. 8 because of the global microchip shortage.

Lansing Grand River Assembly, which builds the Chevy Camaro and Cadillac CT4 and CT5, resumed production Monday after being down since March 15. But GM will shut down production at the plant again the week of May 10 through the week of June 28, except to support limited 2022 Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing and CT5-V Blackwing preproduction volume in June, GM said.

Industrywide, the chip crisis eliminated 121,000 vehicles from the North America production schedule last week, according to AutoForecast Solutions' tally. GM lost 79,600 vehicles.

More than 12,700 vehicles were deleted from production plans las…

Mark LaNeve, who retired as Ford Motor Co.'s sales boss in January, has joined finance and insurance product provider KeyFetch Automotive as its non-executive chairman of the board.

LaNeve, a former sales executive at General Motors, is reuniting with his old boss former GM CEO Rick Wagoner, who is an investor in KeyFetch and strategic adviser to the board.

"From the day Rick introduced me to KeyFetch, I have been incredibly impressed with their leadership, technology and vision for the industry," LaNeve said in a statement. "Once on-boarded to the KFA platform, dealers report exceptional penetration rates, customer satisfaction and profitability which tells me the company has a bright future ahead."

The company offers smart key chains with patented tracking technology, as well as protection plans that reimburse customers for lost or stolen keys and fobs.

"We have gone from being a niche player to partnering with some of the largest dealer groups …

Group 1 Automotive Inc. sold two Texas dealerships during the first quarter: Mini of El Paso and Cadillac of Arlington.

Frank Kent Motor Co., of Fort Worth, Texas, bought the Cadillac store Jan. 11, said Will Churchill, an owner of the Frank Kent group.

The store has been renamed Frank Kent Cadillac of Arlington. Terms of the transaction weren't disclosed.

Churchill said he agreed to build a new $20 million dealership, and the Cadillac store will be relocated in Arlington. He said construction should begin this summer, with an opening targeted for June 2022.

"We understand Cadillac's direction and have a lot of faith in the Cadillac brand," said Churchill, a former Cadillac National Dealer Council chairman.Frank Kent dates to 1935, and the company has been a Cadillac dealer since 1953. It has a Cadillac store in Fort Worth and a Chevrolet-Buick-GMC-Cadillac store in Corsicana, Texas. On Jan. 25, the group sold Frank Kent …

Investment firms Knighthead Capital Management and Certares Management submitted a sweetened offer to buy Hertz Global Holdings Inc. out of bankruptcy in a deal that could see equity investors recover $2.25 a share.

Hertz will evaluate the proposal that assigns the rental-car company a more than $6.2 billion enterprise value to determine if it’s higher than one from its current reorganization sponsor, a group backed by Centerbridge Partners, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named because the bid isn’t yet public.

The bid includes fully committed debt and equity financing, the people said. Hertz bondholders would be paid in full while shareholders get the chance to own a bigger portion of the reorganized company.

Hertz’s existing equity holders would receive 50 cents per share plus the chance to participate in either a boosted $1.3 billion rights offering or warrants for up to 10 percent of the reorganized company, the …

The global semiconductor shortage roiling a wide range of industries likely won’t be resolved for a few more years, according to Intel Corp.’s new CEO Pat Gelsinger.

The company is reworking some of its factories to increase production and address the chip shortage in the auto industry, he said in an interview with CBS News, based on snippets from its “60 Minutes” program that will be aired later Sunday. It may take at least several months for the strain on supply to even begin easing, he added.

“We have a couple of years until we catch up to this surging demand across every aspect of the business,” Gelsinger said.

Demand for semiconductors was boosted in 2020 as consumers scooped up home gadgets during the pandemic. But meeting that increase has been hard, thanks to shuttered plants, among other factors. Companies worldwide say they expect supply-chain constraints due to logistics backlogs and the chip shortage to continue for much of 2021.

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Romain Automotive Group of Indiana has drastically reduced its employee turnover rate while increasing productivity.

But Romain President Mike Mintline acknowledged that the retailer's method for achieving this feat may not be for everyone — at least not at first blush.

"Really, it's hard to implement," he said. "Most guys like to operate by the seat of their pants. And we don't."

Since 2003, the three-store group has used what it calls the quality education systems management philosophy, adopted from the teachings of entrepreneur Philip Crosby, who is noted for improving large corporations' efficiency. It includes a series of team-driven processes that have led to Romain employees being more engaged by giving them a voice in dealership operations. It's created a work force of problem-solving, longer-term employees, Mintline said.

In this system, a quality improvement team is installed at each store. The teams — made up of senior store leaders s…

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ It's a chiptastrophe The shortage keeps messing up a good thing

Usually the problem with chips is that you can never eat just one.

These days, nobody can get enough.

Every day now, the auto industry's chiptastrophe gets bigger, costlier and more difficult to believe. Even at a time when it sure feels like there shouldn't be much that can still surprise us anymore.

A year ago, dealers were just starting to emerge from a lengthy stretch when almost nobody wanted to buy a new car.

And now? Demand is booming. For Ford Motor Co., the latest F-150 is in full swing, the new Mustang Mach-E is stealing market share from Tesla and the Bronco we've been hearing about since the Mesozoic Era is almost here.

But because of the Great Global Microchip Shortage of 2021 that somehow nobody saw coming, Ford is telling dealers not to expect many deliveries of shiny new vehicles until at least August. Many figure they'll run…

Tesla Inc.'s new European factory is not expected to start production until the end of January 2022.

CEO Elon Musk has given the team in charge of the plant six more months to complete the project, company sources told Automobilwoche, the German affiliate of Automotive News.

Tesla had said on April 26 that production is on track to start in late 2021, instead of its earlier target of July. But there will be a further delay due to problems in getting the plant ready for battery pack production and gaining regulatory approval, company sources said.

Battery production will not start by the end of the year, the sources said. But construction of the main factory structure, along with the press shop and paint shop, is well advanced, they said.

Tesla has made changes to a planning application that must be approved before it can start production. The revised application means there will be another round of public consultation, pushing back regulatory appr…