Trade News

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ Jeep still traversing new terrain

Jeep may be about to turn 80, but it hasn't lost its knack for storming over new terrain.

Just look at the price tag for a fully loaded edition of the reborn Grand Wagoneer, revealed last week. It will check out at an eye-popping $110,000 as it fulfills the late Sergio Marchionne's dream of pitting the brand born for the battlefield against the likes of the Lincoln Navigator, Cadillac Escalade, Lexus LX and Land Rover Range Rover.

Monday's issue will also shed some light on two new Jeep initiatives:

■ Certified salespeople known as Wagoneer Ambassadors will undergo special training to sell the Grand Wagoneer and its Wagoneer sibling, which will start at a mere $59,995. It's part of an effort to make sure that dealers offer a sales experience that matches the lofty price tags.

"I really believe that the level of sophistication — the technology that we have in the car — is so hig…

BERLIN -- Volkswagen Group plans to cut more jobs in Germany through voluntary measures such as partial retirement and buyout packages as part of efforts to trim fixed costs.

The agreement with labor representatives could lead to as many as 5,000 job reductions and about 500 million euros ($598 million) in restructuring expenses, according to Handelsblatt, which reported the news earlier Sunday.

"Due to our high investments in the expansion of electromobility and digitalization, Volkswagen was able to develop a pioneering role as a driver of automotive change,” VW’s personnel chief, Gunnar Kilian, said in a statement on Sunday. "This requires continued strict cost management in order to finance the necessary investments in the future," he said.

Kilian did not confirm the number of jobs that would go.

Older employees who take early or partial retirement will have their pensions topped up, Handelsblatt said.

VW is also extending a hiring…

Phil Koopman, co-founder and chief technology officer at Edge Case Research, offers a consumer-friendly complement to the SAE Levels of Automation. Further, he discusses safety standards for self-driving cars and methods for ensuring systems can handle rare driving scenarios.

How do I subscribe?

Apple Podcasts: “Shift: A podcast about mobility” is available on the iTunes Store and through the ‘Podcast’ app pre-installed on all iOS devices. Click here to subscribe.

Spotify: "Shift: A podcast about mobility" can be streamed through Spotify on your desktop, tablet or mobile device. Click here to subscribe.

Google Play: "Shift: A podcast about mobility" is available on Android devices through the Google Play store. Click here to subscribe.

Max Senges traded the visionary buzz of Silicon Valley for an old-school German industrial center bracing for a dramatic overhaul.

As head of Volkswagen's new coding school in Wolfsburg, the former Google researcher is a small but important part of the automaker's massive push into software.

VW's strategy — involving more than $30 billion in investment and multiple projects and partnerships — is critical to catch up to Tesla and counter the existential risks posed by the automotive ambitions of Apple and Alphabet.

"The car industry is changing from a focus on, 'faster, stronger,' to becoming more sustainable and smarter," said Senges, who worked at Google for more than a decade. "What matters for us here is to foster a mindset" that can bridge the tech and auto worlds.

While VW is one of the largest auto producers, it's now pitted against companies that have routinely disrupted industries, casting former leaders aside in the process. And they are…

A U.S. senator born and raised in a small coal-mining town will have a big say in the future of electric vehicles.

With an evenly split Senate, centrist Democrats are in position to steer President Joe Biden's plans to build up infrastructure and combat climate change through the chamber. Expect Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia with a decade of Senate experience, to have a moderating influence on the president's ambitious clean-energy goals.

Manchin, 73, chairman of a key committee and the former governor of a state that twice voted for former President Donald Trump, is determined to protect communities in West Virginia amid a global transition to renewable energy.

"I'm an all-in energy person," Manchin said last week during the American Council on Renewable Energy's virtual policy forum. "You can't leave any of these communities from traditional fuel sources behind."

Manchin, a Farmington nativ…

Efforts are underway to correct the global industry shortage in semiconductors: Chipmakers are looking for ways to boost capacity, the federal government is now taking steps to encourage chip production and automakers are reevaluating supply chain practices.

But those remedies will have little impact on the current shortage, say analysts and forecasters who are tracking the problem.

"You can't just snap your fingers and say, 'I need 20 or 30 percent more chips,' " said Jeff Schuster, president of LMC Automotive's Americas operations. "I think there's a feeling that, essentially, you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Schuster and others point out that, despite the positive long-term benefits of various recent steps, such as squeezing more capacity out of existing microchip plants, they won't deliver quickly enough to solve the current supply glitch. Federal government intervention can do only so much in the short term. …

SHIMUKAPPU, Japan — Japanese roads are packed with their share of eccentric automobiles. The look of pint-sized minicars, skinny tall vans and hybrids galore may take overseas visitors by surprise.

But another vehicle will soon cause even the locals to do a double take — American-style pickups.

Few and far between on this country's byways, pickups seem absolutely anathema to Japanese tastes. But Jeep wants to jolt the status quo with its Gladiator. Jeep plans to introduce the Wrangler-based truck to Japan toward the end of this year, becoming what is believed to be the first U.S. brand in recent memory to directly import that most American of American vehicle types.

Jeep is counting on the Gladiator to help lift sales in this country to new heights. Targeting its eighth-straight year of record sales in Japan this year, Jeep wants to sell more than 20,000 vehicles annually in this notoriously finicky market in 2023, up from just …

Tesla Inc. plans to make adjustments to the manufacturing processes in its Chinese factory to boost production capacity in the world’s biggest car market.

The changes focus on spare-part production in Tesla’s Shanghai factory, including plans to improve the power system, chassis and electric motor, the company said in a statement on a Shanghai government website.

“The project aims to meet demand growth after the production capacity expansion in the factory, and it starts with improvements to the manufacturing process,” Tesla said in the statement.

The tweaks are the automaker’s latest effort to grow business in China, its second-largest market, where sales topped 120,000 units last year. Tesla is still ramping up production at its 42 million yuan ($6.5 million) factory on the outskirts of Shanghai, where it targets eventually to make as many as 10,000 supercharger poles annually.

China aims to boost electric vehicle sales this year by building mor…

SEOUL -- LG Energy Solution suggested that it could build a factory in the U.S. state of Georgia to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles, an official at the South Korean battery maker said on Saturday.

In a letter to U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, LG Energy Solution CEO Kim Jong-hyun said that "the company is prepared to do whatever we can to help the people and workers of Georgia," according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The wholly owned unit of LG Chem confirmed that the company had recently sent the letter to the senator, but declined to confirm the details.

Kim also said in the letter that if an outside investor acquires a separate SK Innovation plant in Georgia, LG could partner with it to run the facility, the newspaper reported.

"[The letter] was intended to clearly address the current situation that has been caused by SK's misappropriation of our trade secrets as well as to alleviate concerns about jobs in Geo…

American Honda Motor Co. will obtain two electric crossovers from its partnership with General Motors for the 2024 model year, the first volume products to emerge from the arrangement.

Under the product-sharing plan, GM will create the propulsion systems for the vehicles, "but everything above the platform will be uniquely Honda and uniquely Acura," Dave Gardner, American Honda's executive vice president of national operations, said in a phone conference with reporters last week.

He declined to say where the exact line of separation will be between GM's propulsion platform and the finished vehicles Honda and Acura will obtain through the partnership.

Gardner also said that Honda will step up its involvement with hybrid vehicles as the automaker attempts to reassert its identity as an industry leader in fuel efficiency and CO2 reduction.

He said that each of the company's core models will feature a hybrid option as its to…

As electric vehicles gain more of a presence on U.S. roads, energy companies are taking a crack at weaving networks of EV charging stations along highways.

Six major energy companies that make up the Electric Highway Coalition are looking at how to do so from the Atlantic Coast, through the Midwest and South and down into the Gulf and Central Plains.

Early this month, the coalition — which consists of American Electric Power, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Entergy Corp., Southern Co. and the Tennessee Valley Authority — said it wants to ramp up building EV fast chargers in its service regions.

"All of the partner utilities had [EV] initiatives going on on their own for their own service territories, but American Electric Power reached out to us and we formed this group of utilities to collaborate," said Kate Staples, manager of electrification for Dominion.

The utility supplies electricity and natural gas to more than 7 million customers in 16 st…

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk and the board of the electric-vehicle company have been sued by a shareholder who accused Musk of violating his 2018 settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over his Twitter use.

According to a complaint unsealed late Thursday in Delaware Chancery Court, Musk's "erratic" tweets, including a post last May 1 that Tesla's stock price was "too high," and the failure of Tesla's board to monitor his compliance with the SEC settlement have exposed shareholders to billions of dollars of losses.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The SEC settlement stemmed from Musk's August 2018 tweet that he was considering taking Tesla private and had "funding secured" for a possible $72 billion transaction.

He and Tesla each agreed the following month to pay $20 million in civil fines to settle with the regulator, and Musk agreed to have Tesla lawyers vet some of his tweets in advance.

The sha…