Trade News

Stellantis has installed a key piece of equipment it said will eliminate odors at its Jeep plant in Detroit that nearby residents have called a hindrance to their quality of life for more than two years.

The automaker completed the installation of a second regenerative thermal oxidizer that is in operation at the Mack Assembly Plant, the company said last week. The plant was required to begin operating the equipment, which helps destroy odors and volatile organic compounds, by Friday, June 30, as part of a consent order reached with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.

"The exhaust from two existing stacks will be routed to this new system to destroy odor contributing compounds," Linda Trbizan, head of North America assembly operations, said in a news release. "We know this has been a lengthy process and we want to thank you for your patience as we worked to identify and resolve this issue."

Installation of the thermal oxidizer…

Auto loan income and employment fraud fell a combined 26 percent in 2022 but the scams still represent about 43 percent of overall fraud risk to auto lenders, Point Predictive wrote in its 2023 Auto Lending Fraud Trends Report released in June.

In addition, "the types of income and employment fraud that did occur were more professional, including the use of well-hidden fake employers and better paystub forgeries," Point Predictive said.

A separate Point Predictive study conducted in December and January found income representation to be lenders' No. 1 concern for 2023, cited by 20 percent of financial institutions. Employment misrepresentation ranked fourth, a worry of 14 percent of lenders. (Dealer fraud was third, at 15 percent.)

Interestingly, the decline in auto loan income and employment fraud appeared in a year Point Predictive called the worst for affordability of the past five years.

Point Predictive estimates 21 percent of auto loan app…

Visionary, disruptor, revolutionary — no automaker is equated with subversive terms as much as Tesla. The U.S. electric car pioneer has turned the industry upside down.

After more than 100 years of the all-powerful internal combustion engine, Tesla came along and helped the electric drive to achieve a breakthrough. This was indeed a revolution. And it’s still in full swing.

After many ups and downs in the early years, Tesla is now — at the age of 20 — a force. It is the global market leader in electromobility, a pioneer in battery technology, and an important protagonist in autonomous driving. Tesla wants to be first everywhere. The company is driven by CEO and main owner Elon Musk.

Tesla sold 1.31 million vehicles last year. In the first quarter of 2023, the company overtook the German premium brand Audi in unit sales for the first time. If growth continues at this rate, Tesla will also surpass Mercedes-Benz and BMW in 2024. Musk expect…

Texas authorities told Road & Track that a porter at Parkway Chevrolet in Tomball, Texas, took a police Tahoe for a joyride and did doughnuts in a parking lot before being arrested.

The porter was arrested June 16 and charged with unauthorized use of a vehicle, a felony, according to the report.

"We found out about it through another law enforcement agency that had received a call about this parking lot where all these people were out in vehicles doing doughnuts, and that supposedly one of our patrol vehicles was out there," Mark Herman, a Harris County constable, told Road & Track. "They caught a guy in the vehicle, and so we went out to the scene and there was a vehicle that we had dropped off at a dealership. This guy was a porter there and had taken it that evening from there."

The police vehicle was at the dealership for maintenance. General Manager Forbes Durdin told Road & Track the porter "no longer works for us."…

Scammers who previously defrauded COVID-19 stimulus programs switched to target the auto finance industry in 2022, Point Predictive concluded in a fraud report released in June.

These schemes contributed to a 35 percent increase in auto loan identity and synthetic identity fraud last year, according to Point Predictive's 2023 Auto Lending Fraud Trends Report. Meanwhile, the more traditional scams of income and employment fraud and using straw borrowers all saw declines, Point Predictive said.

"2022 marked a dramatic shift in auto lending fraud patterns," Point Predictive wrote in the report.

Overall, auto lenders and dealers faced more than $8.1 billion in fraud exposure in 2022, up more than 5 percent from a year earlier, Point Predictive said. Its fraud team flagged more than 18,000 suspicious auto loan applications last year, up more than 8 percent from 2021.

"Some dealerships that had never experienced a single case of identity theft in thei…

Auto plants in the Asia-Pacific region will cut nearly 36,000 vehicles this week because of microchip shortages, according to estimates from AutoForecast Solutions. The majority of the losses are in China, with 33,631 vehicles being taken out of production. Another 2,362 are expected to be cut in the rest of Asia.

Meanwhile, North American factories are ramping up short-term production in case  of a UAW strike this fall, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions. “This additional production has worked to obscure some of the potential losses from slow supplies of chips. If the strikes do occur, more chip-related losses and general supply chain shortages can be hidden by the reduced output,” he said in an emailed statement.

AFS’ production-loss estimates for full-year 2023 were lowered for North America, South America and Europe. 

Source: AutoForecast Solutions Inc. autoforecastsolutions.com

Automakers plan to launch dozens of electric vehicle models in the second half of this decade and beyond. But the problem is you can't make an EV until somebody manufactures a battery for it.

That's why the industry has come alive with new EV battery projects. To be sure, several EV battery plants already exist in the U.S. — assembly lines have been humming along fine for years with battery packs produced by the likes of Panasonic in Reno, Nev., and AESC in Smyrna, Tenn. But now the scramble for more capacity is bringing billions of dollars in new investments to locations around the U.S. and Canada, with more expected to follow soon.

The following are projects that are underway — or are about to be.

AESC, formerly known as Envision AESC, broke ground last August on a $2 billion battery plant in Bowling Green, Ky., with a capacity of 30 gigawatt-hours to supply 300,000 EVs a year by 2027. The project's first customer will be Merc…

Toyota Motor Corp. will split its manufacturing and components operations in North America by powertrain, and it will install one of its leading female executives to oversee production operations of battery-electric vehicles.

Meanwhile, Mike Sweers, who led Toyota's sweeping global redesign of its body-on-frame vehicles, has been promoted to head of the automaker's North American R&D efforts as well as its chief technology officer. The appointments were among executive changes announced Friday by Toyota Motor North America.

Susan Elkington, who has been president of the automaker's massive Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky plant in Georgetown since 2018, will start Monday in the newly created position of senior vice president for electric vehicle supply. Elkington will have responsibility over Toyota's component manufacturing for EVs, including the battery plant it is building in North Carolina. Remaining component operations will continue to be the resp…

Paul Daly and Kyle Mountsier of Automotive State of the Union talk about their docuseries “More Than Cars.” Momentum keeps growing for Tesla's charging technology. And Audi gets a new CEO.

How do I subscribe?

Can't wait to hear the next episode of "Daily Drive"? Subscribe through a podcast app to receive episodes days in advance. If you don't have a podcast app already, here are some options. 

iPhone / iPad

Android

Spotify

On Oct. 9, a special section of Automotive News will honor individuals from all sectors of the auto industry who are champions of diversity.

The third annual installment of the Notable Champions of Diversity will recognize those who have made significant efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace and their community during the last several years.

Do you know someone who drives substantial change and embodies what inclusivity stands for? Tell us about them. To nominate yourself or someone else, go to autonews.com/notablechampions. Nominations close July 14.