Trade News

Amazon has added another California city, San Francisco, to its testing program for electric delivery vans made by Rivian.

Last month, Amazon began testing Rivian's van in Los Angeles, the first of 16 cities nationwide where the giant online retailer will be piling on miles and learning how the Rivian vans perform in real-world conditions.

San Francisco, with its many steep hills, will be a particularly brutal test. The vans, early hand-built preproduction vehicles, are estimated to be able to travel 150 miles on a charge. Amazon has ordered 100,000 Rivian vans and plans to begin operating fleets full time as early as 2022.

The electric vans potentially could save Amazon billions of dollars per year in maintenance and fuel costs as well as dramatically reduce the company's carbon footprint. Amazon is redesigning it delivery stations to accommodate electric vehicles.

If all goes according to schedule, Amazon could have as…

Tata Motors Ltd. said former Daimler AG manager Marc Llistosella will not be joining as its next CEO as previously announced.

Guenter Butschek will continue as the company’s CEO and managing director until June 30, the company said in a filing Friday. It did not give any reason for the change of decision.

Llistosella, who headed Daimler Trucks in Asia, was to take charge effective in July, as previously announced on Feb. 12. A former Airbus SE executive, Butschek has been CEO since 2016.

Tata Motors topped expectations during the most recent quarter after struggling with falling sales and rising debt. The turnaround followed deep cost cuts and improved vehicle demand, while the manufacturer remains largely dependent on its luxury Jaguar Land Rover unit.

From custom paint and cabinets to electric drivetrains. Twisted Automotive's Tom Maxwell explains how the UK company is reconstructing and modifying Land Rover Defenders.

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FRANKFURT -- Porsche is open to the idea of a potential stock market listing, with finance chief Lutz Meschke saying the advantages of such a move had been laid out.

"The decision has to be made by the Volkswagen management and supervisory board. We have largely discussed the advantages of such an initial public offering or listing already," Meschke said at Porsche's annual media conference.

Faced with tens of billions of costs for a radical shift towards electric mobility and software, VW is mulling a listing of Porsche, sources said last month.

Meschke, who has previously commented on how Ferrari benefited from being listed by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, already argued in favor of listing Porsche in 2018, saying the unit could be worth up to 70 billion euros ($83 billion) in such a scenario.

However, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess earlier this week said that Porsche, which contributed 42 percent to VW's operating profit in 2020, was vital to fundin…

Tesla Inc. cars have been banned from Chinese military complexes and housing compounds because of concerns about sensitive data being collected by cameras built into the vehicles.

The order, issued by the military, advises Tesla owners to park their cars outside of military property, according to people familiar with the directive who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The ban, relayed to residents of military housing this week, was triggered by concerns that the world’s biggest maker of electric vehicles is collecting sensitive data via the cars’ built-in cameras in a way the Chinese government can’t see or control, one of the people said.

Images of what was purported to be a notice about the ban were also circulating on Chinese social media. Multi-direction cameras and ultrasonic sensors in Tesla cars may “expose locations” and the vehicles are being barred from military residences to ensure the safety of confidential military…

TAIPEI -- Vietnam's largest conglomerate Vingroup said on Friday its car unit was in early stage talks with Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group about working together and that any partnership formed would focus on developing batteries and electric car parts.

Foxconn has proposed acquiring EV production lines owned by the unit VinFast, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

But VinFast prefers a partnership as it is keen to brand itself as an eco-friendly automaker and wants to retain its EV business, one of the sources said.

"Vingroup has received proposals from Foxconn but nothing is concrete yet. The partnership, if any, will focus on developing the batteries and electric car parts," a spokesman for Vingroup said. "No decision on working together to produce EVs has been made yet."

Foxconn declined to comment.

The world's largest contract manufacture…

BEIJING -- Chinese autonomous driving startup Momenta said Friday it has received $500 million from SAIC Motor, Toyota Motor and auto parts supplier Bosch, as the global auto industry pursues the autonomous future.

Other investors in the funding round include Daimler, Temasek, Yunfeng Capital and Tencent, Momenta said in a statement. It did not disclose the valuation.

The four-year-old firm, led by Cao Xudong, a former Microsoft executive, is testing autonomous cars in Beijing and China's eastern city of Suzhou, and has a research center in Stuttgart.

Momenta is working with automakers to develop mass-production vehicles with automated driving functions to gather real-time data for the fully autonomous driving technologies for future products. Data is a key part of the self-driving industry which enables companies to improve their technologies in different environments.

Momenta will expand its workforce and gather more data to improve future techn…

Toyota Motor Corp. reported possible anti-bribery violations involving a subsidiary in Thailand to U.S. authorities last year, which could result in civil or criminal penalties.

The Japanese automaker is cooperating with investigations that may also lead to fines or other sanctions by the U.S. Department of Justice or Securities and Exchange Commission, according to an SEC filing Thursday. The agencies are responsible for enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits companies from paying bribes to foreign public officials.

“Toyota works tirelessly to uphold the highest professional and ethical standards in each country where we operate,” Toyota spokeswoman Shiori Hashimoto said in an emailed statement. “We take any allegations of wrongdoing seriously and are committed to ensuring that our business practices comply with all appropriate government regulations.”

The scope, duration and outcome of the investigations are unknown at this time, …

Nissan North America Inc. is recalling 126,809 vehicles because of a potential for tire failure.

The recall includes certain 2019-20 Altima and 2018-21 Titan models equipped with Continental tires. One or more tires on the vehicles in question may have been cured too long during production.

Sidewalls in the overcured tires could break, leading to rapid air loss. Belt edge separation may also occur, which could lead to tread and belt loss. Either condition can cause a loss of vehicle control, increasing the risk of a crash, according to the recall notice.

About 1 percent of recalled vehicles are believed to have the defect, the company said in a document filed with NHTSA.

A Nissan spokeswoman said the automaker is not aware of any injuries, crashes or fatalities associated with the recalled vehicles.

Nissan says it will notify all owners of potentially affected vehicles on April 28. Dealers were set to be not…

The U.S. government is working to help American miners and battery makers expand into Canada, part of a strategy to boost regional production of minerals used to make electric vehicles and counter Chinese dominance.

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Commerce is hosting a closed-door virtual meeting with miners and battery manufacturers to discuss ways to boost Canadian production of EV materials, according to documents seen by Reuters.

The move comes as demand for electrified transportation is set to surge over the next decade.

Conservationists have strongly opposed several large U.S. mining projects, leading officials to look north of the border to Canada and its supply of 13 of the 35 minerals deemed critical for national defense by Washington.

Tesla Inc., Albemarle Corp., Talon Metals Corp. and Livent Corp. are among the more-than 30 attendees at Thursday's meeting who will discuss ways Washington can assist U.S. companies expand in Canada an…

General Motors plans to shift all of the employees at its Customer Care and Aftersales World Headquarters in Grand Blanc, Mich. — about 900 — to work at its technical center in Warren, Mich.

A number of employees at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, the automaker's global headquarters, will also shift to the 710-acre Warren campus. GM spokesman David Caldwell said the exact count of Renaissance Center employees making the shift will be determined later this year.

Not all employees may physically move to Warren. Though the company plans to bring back its remote work force in the summer, some degree of remote work is likely to continue, Caldwell said.

"We're working on those details currently. The future will be more flexible," Caldwell said in an email. "We are seeking to maintain the benefits of remote work, while also ensuring our teams get the benefit of in-person collaboration."

The automaker also plans to hire tech …

Volkswagen Group this week hatched an ambitious road map to hike global battery output at the same time its China unit declared a goal to sell 1.5 million electrified vehicles annually by 2025. 

The target represents a giant leap from where VW Group stands now on China’s electrified battlefield: The largest carmaker in China remains a small player. 

How can the German auto giant achieve the lofty goal? Details of the plan VW Group China CEO Stephan Wollenstein and his management team disclosed Tuesday via social media: 

VW Group will expand annual production capacity of vehicles based on the MEB EV platform to 600,000 annually at its joint ventures with China FAW Group Corp. and SAIC Motor Corp.  15 MEB-based models will be produced under various VW Group brands locally as of 2025, which are expected to generate 35 percent of total annual vehicle sales that year.  VW Group is setting up two additional joint ventures majority owned b…