Trade News

Polestar, the electric performance brand owned by Volvo Car Corp. and its Chinese parent, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, named Nathan Forshaw head of operations in China and Asia Pacific.

The appointment, effective April 1, will “strengthen the collaboration between Polestar Asia Pacific and its global headquarters, and accelerate Polestar's development in the Asia Pacific market,” the company said.

Polestar also announced this week plans to expand its Asia Pacific market footprint beyond China to include South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, beginning later this year. 

Forshaw joined Polestar in 2016 and was the brand’s head of global strategy and business development. Prior to that post, he was a senior executive of AB Volvo in charge of the Swedish truck maker’s operations in Asia Pacific, according to Polestar.  

The company said its current China president, Gao Hong, is leaving for “personal reasons.”  Read more

<!--*/ <!--*/ */ /*-->*/ /*-->*/ Pandemic cut average time spent in U.S. traffic jams by 73 hours last year, study finds

Crowded cities. Nightmare commutes. Congested roads. Those are some of the challenges spotlighted in the annual Global Traffic Scorecard compiled by traffic analytics company Inrix.

The delays worsen every year. Except 2020.

The coronavirus upended travel across the world, and the company's latest report, issued this week, underscores the dramatic nature of the disruptions.

Traffic delays fell nearly 50 percent in major cities across the U.S. The average American driver spent 26 hours in traffic jams in 2020, a drop of 73 hours from just a year earlier. Collectively, motorists saved approximately 3.4 billion hours that would have been wasted sitting in traffic.

"COVID-19 has completely transformed when, where and how people move," Bob Pishue, transportation analyst at Inrix, said in a written statement. "Go…

Light-vehicle sales rose in February from a year earlier when the coronavirus disrupted output and demand. 

But year-to-date volume remains lower than the same period in 2019, indicating the market has yet to fully recover from pre-pandemic levels, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Thursday. 

New car and light-truck deliveries approached 1.16 million last month, 4.1 times the tally a year earlier when the coronavirus outbreak shuttered businesses and showrooms across the country. 

In the first two months, volume surged 74 percent to top 3.2 million. But that figure is 1.4 percent lower than the same period two years ago, CAAM said. 

Behind massive infrastructure construction projects the Chinese government launched in the post-pandemic period, sales of commercial vehicles such as trucks and buses remain robust. 

February deliveries of new commercial vehicles soared 250 percent to about …

Renault plans to sell its stake in Daimler worth about 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion), securing funds for its turnaround efforts after a record annual loss.

The French automaker will exit its entire holding in Daimler, a roughly 1.5 percent stake, according to a statement on Thursday.

Renault already has enough demand for all the stock, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

Proceeds from the sale will allow Renault to "accelerate the financial de-leveraging of its automotive activity," the company said.

It added that its industrial partnership with Daimler, which dates back more than a decade, remains unchanged and is not affected by the transaction.

Renault warned investors last month that another challenging year is ahead after recording a worse-than-expected 8 billion euro annual net loss.

CEO Luca de Meo has been battling daily to secure enough semicondu…

WASHINGTON/SEOUL -- LG Energy Solution said Thursday it plans to invest more than $4.5 billion in its U.S. battery production business through 2025 and add 4,000 jobs as it considers building at least two new U.S. plants, a company executive told reporters.

The South Korean supplier, a unit of LG Chem, said the investment will result in an additional 70 gigawatt-hours of U.S. battery production capacity. The company declined to say where in the United States it is considering a new battery manufacturing plant.

Denise Gray, president of LG Energy Solution's Michigan unit, said the investment, which would indirectly create another 6,000 jobs during construction, was being made to respond to the growing electric vehicle market.

"We are eager to expand our production capacity so that it can meet the needs of the numerous global automakers across the U.S. and Europe," Gray said.

LG is also in advanced talks with General Motors to build a more than $2 b…

Lithia Motors Inc. CEO Bryan DeBoer on Wednesday said his company could lead a consolidation of some publicly listed auto dealer groups to compete with online-only upstarts catering to younger, more internet-savvy car buyers.

DeBoer said mergers with three public companies would allow Lithia to expand more rapidly and turn its focus to building out its online sales platform.

"If there's going to be consolidation in the industry, it's most likely going to come from us," DeBoer said. He declined to say whether talks were ongoing or name the companies he was interested in, but said they had good coverage of the central and southeastern parts of the United States.

Lithia has said it plans to further expand this year by acquiring smaller, individual dealerships.

"(Consolidation) does seem to make sense and could help focus all of our attention, as well as ensuring a greater pipeline of vehicles, eliminate other people from being able to enter the spa…

Editor's note: A previous version of this story listed an incorrect prior price for the Model 3 Long Range AWD. 

Tesla Inc. is increasing some vehicle prices in the U.S. by as much as $10,000, according to the automaker's website.

The biggest price hike comes on the high-performance version of the redesigned Model S sedan, which Tesla revealed less than two months ago. The Model S Plaid Plus variant will start at $151,190, including a $1,200 shipping fee. That's up from $141,190, including shipping, when Tesla announced the redesign in late January.

The price of the Model Y Long Range has increased by $1,000 to $51,190, including shipping.

The Model 3 Standard Range Plus price has increased to $38,690, including shipping, from $38,190 earlier. The Model 3 Long Range AWD was lowered to $47,690, including shipping, compared with $48,190 before, according to the website.

The prices of the Model X Long Range and Model X Plaid crossovers, w…

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Customers in the highest credit tiers opted for new vehicles in larger numbers in the fourth quarter, credit bureau Experian said last week. The shift from used vehicles was driven in part by past and upcoming stimulus checks, residual incentive activity from the third quarter and tight inventory, though the credit bureau said the exact reasons for the shift were unclear.

The trend of higher-credit consumers opting for used vehicles was disrupted last year when strong automaker incentives enticed those buyers to the new-vehicle market. Residual incentives and forthcoming stimulus checks may account for why prime customer share of new-vehicle originations rose in the fourth quarter, said Melinda Zabritski, Experian's senior director of automotive financial solutions.

The fourth-quarter report drops the curtain on a dramatic year in auto finance, she said, when many trend lines were reversed amid the unparalleled industry and government response to the pandemic's…

Darwin Automotive's finance platform has integrated with Fetch, an electronic auto insurance comparison and purchase platform. The online marketplace allows auto customers to search for and compare insurance rates as part of an in-store or digital retailing process.

The integration is the latest example in a growing trend of U.S. dealerships incorporating auto insurance into their offerings in the hopes of helping customers cut costs associated with vehicle ownership.

RK Auto Group in Virginia Beach, Va., went live with the Fetch integration in February. The program will continue rolling out, state by state, across Darwin's footprint, CEO Phil Battista told Automotive News. Dealerships can opt in to the auto insurance add-on at no additional cost, he said.

Fetch generates a limited number of offers to streamline the process and keep shoppers from getting bogged down at the insurance stage. The platform allows customers to purchase …

Nissan's top North America executive will take a broader role as the Japanese automaker realigns its regional focus.

Jérémie Papin, 47, has been promoted to the new role of chairman of the Americas, giving him responsibility for Nissan's operations across North and South America. He starts the role on April 1.

It is a regional management structure that Nissan previously adopted in 2007, when it hoped to use a centralized U.S. executive team to coordinate sales and manufacturing strategies across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and other markets. But Nissan dropped the hemispheric approach in 2014 when it turned its focus to bearing down on U.S. sales growth.

Papin currently is vice chairman of North America, where he oversees the U.S., Canada and Mexico. He assumed that role last June.

As part of Nissan's four-year transformation plan, the automaker is consolidating seven business regions down to four key reg…

Car shoppers want more finance information sooner in the process, confirming industry beliefs that placing more emphasis on finance and insurance in digital retailing is critical for some consumers, a recent CarGurus survey found.

Vehicle affordability is an ongoing concern in the automotive retail industry, with average transaction prices steadily increasing every month. Inventory constraints restricting new- and used-vehicle options for consumers is an additional hurdle for consumers pursuing a specific price point.

In the survey of 754 consumers conducted in November 2020, 93 percent of car shoppers agree that pre-qualifying for a loan prior to visiting the dealership would be useful. Just two in three respondents, however, even knew this was an option, CarGurus said.

All respondents either intended to buy a car within the next 12 months or had purchased one in the last two years, CarGurus said. Respondents also needed to have f…