Trade News

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas CEO Martin Fritsches says the company's expanding product portfolio, close relationship with dealers and one-one-one approach with customers are driving the brand forward. 

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British exotic automaker McLaren Americas has signed on with Chase Auto as its exclusive banking partner, both companies said Monday.

Chase will finance loans and leases for the automaker and is the banking partner through which the manufacturer disseminates customer incentives, according to the agreement.

The relationship will focus on McLaren's leasing business, which is a key component of the automaker's long-term strategy to open the brand to consumers at different price points.

McLaren had a corporate financial arrangement with J.P. Morgan Chase before inking this private-label agreement. Creating a customer-centric experience that would appeal to high-end clients was an important factor in selecting the lender for its financial services business, said Nic Brown, McLaren's vice president of sales.

"We are always looking at unique experiences that we can offer [our customers] above and beyond the vehicle experience," he said. "With Chase, it w…

WASHINGTON -- California's two U.S. senators are urging President Joe Biden to set a firm date to phase out gas-powered passenger vehicles as the White House grapples with how to rewrite vehicle emissions rules slashed under President Donald Trump.

In an unreported letter going to Biden on Monday, U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein -- both of them California Democrats -- called on Biden "to follow California’s lead and set a date by which all new cars and passenger trucks sold be zero-emission vehicles." They also urged Biden to restore California's authority to set clean car standards.

In September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, also a Democrat, signed an executive order directing the state's air resources agency to require all new cars and passenger trucks sold in California to be zero-emission by 2035.

Biden's campaign in 2020 declined to endorse a specific date to end gas-powered vehicle sales, but he has vowed to dramatically boost EVs and…

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ A closely watched metric, often ignored

For a metric that's so important, it sure doesn't get much popular attention.

It's called sales per franchise. The ranking is a key part of our annual dealer census, to be published in Monday's issue.

There's nothing fancy about it. It measures how many new vehicles are sold in the U.S. by the average franchise of a particular auto brand. As this year's tally shows, the numbers are all over the map. Toyota is at the top, with 1,483. Exotic brands such as Aston Martin and Lamborghini typically fill out much of the bottom, this year in the 40- to 50-sales-per-franchise range.

And while the rankings don't get much media focus, you can bet they're closely watched inside corporate offices. For example, five of the six most-liked brands in the National Automobile Dealers Association Dealer Attitude Study for winter 2019 were among the top six in the Automotive News sales-per-franchise…

In its goal to eclipse Tesla as the world's dominant electric vehicle manufacturer, Volkswagen appears to embrace "if you can't beat them, join them."

The German behemoth revealed plans last week to dramatically expand its EV operations both upstream and downstream, deciding to itself manufacture at least a sixth of its European battery cells sourced from six cell plants in the region as well as link with partners to operate a massive network of fast chargers across the continent.

Much like Tesla and its 4680 cylindrical cells, Volkswagen chose to concentrate on one "unified" cell to drive down the price of a kilowatt-hour to well below €100 ($119). By switching from the pouch format and focusing on prismatic, the plan does away with the need for modules, reducing costs.

Automakers had underestimated just how critical a role the battery played in differentiating EVs, say experts. BMW, for example, saw its core competence in buildi…

The CEO of Optimus Ride discusses his company's strategy of placing self-driving shuttles in campus environments, its plans to raise additional capital and the transition to full autonomy.

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TOKYO — After four decades of dedicating himself to Nissan Motor Co., Hitoshi Kawaguchi found himself in 2018 suddenly troubled about the company's direction.

Carlos Ghosn, then chairman of Nissan and its French partner, Renault, was maneuvering to orchestrate a merger between the companies.

But Kawaguchi, senior vice president in charge of government relations at the time, and other senior Nissan executives thought that was a bad idea, he testified this month in the criminal trial of their onetime colleague, former human resources officer and Nissan director Greg Kelly.

As a clique of powerful executives grew concerned about Ghosn's integration plans, Kawaguchi said, they also secretly worked to report allegations of wrongdoing by Ghosn to prosecutors, leading to the longtime leader's November 2018 arrest.

The executives met two or three times a week in a private lunchroom to consult about the matter, Kawaguchi testified.

But Kawaguchi ma…

DETROIT — As the global semiconductor chip shortage lingers on, General Motors has found a way to do what some in the industry have said is impossible: Build — and sell — a vehicle with a missing part.

The automaker last week said it would assemble certain 2021 light-duty full-size pickups without an active fuel management or dynamic fuel management module because of the chip shortage.

Affected models are the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra equipped with the 5.3-liter EcoTec3 V-8 engine with both the six-speed and eight-speed automatic transmission. GM did not disclose the volume of vehicles involved.

"I'm one who's always said, 'You can't build the vehicle if you're missing one part,' " Doug Betts, president of the automotive division at J.D. Power, told Automotive News. "In this case, GM has redesigned the vehicle in effect so that it doesn't need this one part."

Since the chip shortage began hampering production this year, GM has consistent…

BEIJING - Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk said on Saturday the company would be shut down if its EVs were used to spy, his first comments on news that China's military has banned Teslas from its facilities.

"There's a very strong incentive for us to be very confidential with any information," Musk told a prominent Chinese forum during a virtual discussion. "If Tesla used cars to spy in China or anywhere, we will get shut down."

Sources told Reuters on Friday that the Chinese military has banned Tesla vehicles from entering its complexes, citing security concerns over cameras installed on the EVs.

Those restrictions surfaced as the top Chinese and U.S. diplomats were holding a contentious meeting in Alaska, the first such in-person interaction since President Joe Biden took office in January.

Musk urged greater mutual trust between the world's two biggest economies, in his remarks to the China Development Forum, a high-level business gathering hosted by a…

DETROIT -- The impact of the global semiconductor shortage on the auto industry spread on Saturday, as Stellantis warned its highly profitable pickup trucks were hit, while Ford Motor Co. said it would cut more U.S. production.

Stellantis, the world's fourth largest automaker, said it will build and hold for final assembly its Ram 1500 Classic trucks at its Warren, Michigan, and Saltillo, Mexico, assembly plants. When chips become available, the vehicles will be completed and shipped to dealers.

The action will last "a number of weeks," a Stellantis spokeswoman said, declining to reveal how many trucks would be affected. The chip shortage, which has hit automakers globally, stems from a confluence of factors. Carmakers shut North American plants for two months during the COVID-19 pandemic last year and canceled chip orders. Meanwhile, demand for chips surged from the consumer electronics industry as people worked from home and played video games. Now carma…

DETROIT -- The impact of the global semiconductor shortage on the auto industry spread on Saturday, as Stellantis warned its highly profitable pickup trucks were hit, while Ford Motor Co. said it would cut more U.S. production.

Stellantis, the world's fourth largest automaker, said it will build and hold for final assembly its Ram 1500 Classic trucks at its Warren, Michigan, and Saltillo, Mexico, assembly plants. When chips become available, the vehicles will be completed and shipped to dealers.

The action will last "a number of weeks," a Stellantis spokeswoman said, declining to reveal how many trucks would be affected. The chip shortage, which has hit automakers globally, stems from a confluence of factors. Carmakers shut North American plants for two months during the COVID-19 pandemic last year and canceled chip orders. Meanwhile, demand for chips surged from the consumer electronics industry as people worked from home and played video games. Now carma…