Trade News

Criminal charges against Sonic Automotive Inc. CEO David Smith, including felony assault by strangulation, were voluntarily dismissed last week by the Mecklenburg County, N.C., district attorney's office, the court and Smith's lawyer confirmed Monday.

Smith, 46, was arrested Oct. 5 and spent a night in jail after a 22-year-old woman, not related to Smith, told the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department that she was assaulted and restrained at a Charlotte home. She had minor injuries of bruises and scratches, according to the police report.

He was indicted by a Mecklenburg County grand jury this month on the felony charge, plus misdemeanor charges of false imprisonment, assault on a female and interfering with emergency communication. The indictment was a procedural action to move his case forward in the Mecklenburg County Superior Court after Smith had waived a probable-cause hearing Dec.1.

According to Mecklenburg County Superior Court, the distri…

CEO Mike Stanton sets the record straight on the notion that U.S. retailers are not interested in selling battery-electric vehicles in the coming years.

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General Motors said Monday that due to the global semiconductor chip shortage the U.S. automaker is building certain 2021 light-duty full-size pickup trucks without a fuel management module, hurting those vehicles' fuel economy performance.

The lack of the active fuel management/dynamic fuel management module means affected models, equipped with the 5.3-liter EcoTec3 V8 engine with both six-speed and eight-speed automatic transmission, will have lower fuel economy by one mile per gallon, spokeswoman Michelle Malcho said.

Malcho emphasized all trucks are still being built, something GM has repeatedly stressed it would try to protect as pickups are among GM's most profitable models. She declined to say the volume of vehicles affected.

"By taking this measure, we are better able to meet the strong customer and dealer demand for our full-size trucks as the industry continues to rebound and strengthen," Malcho wrote in an email.

The change runs throug…

Tesla Inc.'s Elon Musk and his finance chief have added tongue-in-cheek titles while another one of the company’s top executives changes roles.

Musk, the carmaker’s CEO, is now also the “Technoking of Tesla,” and CFO Zach Kirkhorn has added the title “Master of Coin,” according to a regulatory filing. Both will maintain the positions of CEO and CFO.

In a separate filing, the company said Jerome Guillen, who’s been president of automotive since September 2018, transitioned last week to president of Tesla heavy trucking. Musk first showed a Semi prototype in December 2017 and said at that time Tesla would start production in 2019. It’s now planning to start deliveries by the end of this year.

“As Tesla prepares to enter the critical heavy-trucks market for the first time, Mr. Guillen will now leverage his extensive background in this industry to focus on and lead all aspects of the Tesla Semi program, including the related charging and servicing netwo…

FRANKFURT  -- Volkswagen Group plans to have six battery cell production plants in Europe to secure supply for its electric vehicle push.

The plants will have a production capacity of 240 gigawatt hours per year, VW said during its Power Day on Monday.

"Together with partners, we want to have a total of six cell factories up and running in Europe by 2030, thus guaranteeing security of supply," VW's technology and procurement chief, Thomas Schmall, said in a statement.

VW said it will build the factories alone or with partners.

The first two factories will operate in Skelleftea, Sweden starting in 2023, and in Salzgitter, Germany, starting in 2025.

The third will be in France, S…

Ford Motor Co. is the first major automaker in Europe to say it would sell only fully electric passenger vehicles there by 2030. The decision is the culmination of a tumultuous two years under the leadership of Briton Stuart Rowley, who has overseen a $1 billion reduction in structural costs that included closing plants and cutting more than 10,000 jobs.

More upheaval looms as the company continues to adjust to an EV future, Rowley told Automotive News Europe Associate Publisher and Editor Luca Ciferri and Correspondent Nick Gibbs. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: Ford was the first major manufacturer in Europe to say it was going to have an all-electric passenger-car range by 2030. You will use Volkswagen Group's MEB platform for one, possibly two, electric cars. What is your platform strategy to expand your range further?

A: I'm not giving details now. You know, 2030 was an important date we put out there. But I think even more important is that by mid-2…

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ 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.

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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. …