Trade News

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. agreed to buy Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. for about $2.8 billion, strengthening its position as No. 1 in the U.S. market and almost doubling its presence in China, where auto sales are surging again.

Cooper shareholders will receive $41.75 a share in cash and 0.907 shares of Goodyear, or about $54.36 a share in total, according to a statement Monday. That’s 24 percent above Cooper’s closing price as of Feb. 19.

With Cooper, founded in 1914, Goodyear gains the fifth-largest tire manufacturer in North America by revenue, with about 10,000 employees worldwide. In China, Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear will gain better access to local manufacturers and create broader distribution for Cooper replacement tires.

The tire industry is recovering from the pandemic slump. Last week French tire maker Michelin predicted business will return to pre-pandemic levels in the second half of 2022, with CEO Florent Menegaux saying the company needs…

Xos, a maker of electric commercial vehicles, has agreed to go public through a merger with a blank-check company, NextGen Acquisition Corp., according to a statement viewed by Bloomberg News.

The deal values the combined equity at $2 billion, the companies added.

To support the transaction, the special purpose acquisition company will raise $220 million from investors including Janus Henderson Group and a group of truck dealers led by Thompson Truck Centers.

Some of Xos' customers include United Parcel Service Inc., armored car service company Loomis AB and transportation company Lonestar.

Dakota Semler, Xos’ co-founder and CEO, said in an interview that the Los Angeles-based company has other distribution partnerships that haven’t been announced yet. Semler said states like California, which are phasing out cars that produce emissions, will help increase demand for commercial electric vehicles like Xos.

“Fleets have to begin planning for …

PARIS -- Faurecia said on Monday it is targeting sales close to 25 billion euros ($30.29 billion) and an operating margin above 8 percent of sales by 2025.

"Overall, the group will strongly outperform the market over the next five years, and is particularly well-positioned in the fast-growing premium, electric and commercial vehicle segments as well as in China," CEO Patrick Koller said in a statement issued on Faurecia's Capital Market Day.

This would compare with sales of 14.65 billion euros and a margin of 2.8 percent of sales in 2020 as Faurecia was hit by the COVID-19 crisis.

Faurecia targets sales of at least 16.5 billion euros for 2021 and of at least 18.5 billion euros for 2022.

The supplier also expects its operating margin to return close to pre-COVID levels of 7 percent of sales in 2021, rising to 8 percent in 2022.

The decision of automaker Stellantis to distribute its participation in Faurecia to its shareholders will increase …

The Virginia Automobile Dealers Association is supporting state legislation that would impose California's vehicle emissions standards and zero-emission vehicle mandates after initially opposing a similar measure last year and asking lawmakers to delay action on emissions rules until 2022.

Virginia's House Bill 1965 — passed by the Senate last week and expected to be signed by Gov. Ralph Northam — adopts the more stringent auto pollution rules set by the California Air Resources Board and requires automakers to provide increasing percentages of ZEVs to their franchised dealers starting with the 2025 model year.

VADA CEO Don Hall said the association opposed the bill when it was introduced "without any complementary efforts to support EV adoption."

The group has since pivoted from that position as the state's lawmakers proposed a package of supplemental bills to support EV sales, including a point-of-sale rebate program, a study of …

When General Motors launched its "employee discount for everyone" sale in the spring of 2005, its U.S. dealerships had nearly 1.2 million vehicles crammed onto their lots.

This winter, the automaker has only about one-third that much inventory. Many pickups and SUVs have buyers within days of arrival, or even before they come off the delivery truck.

It's no coincidence that GM expects to earn about the same amount this year — at least $10 billion, it projected this month — as it lost in 2005. Executives at GM and other automakers, after pandemic-induced factory disruptions showed what tight supplies can do for the bottom line, aim to keep dealer lots sparser long-term.

"I suspect that you're going to see a permanent change in our industry. I do not think that we'll ever get back to the high, high levels of inventory and slower turn," Sonic Automotive President Jeff Dyke told analysts and investors last week. "We're all pushing for that, including the ma…

Alisyn Malek, executive director at the Commission On The Future Of Mobility, a nonprofit thinktank, discusses the infrastructure needs for electric vehicles, the role of public transit in a post-COVID world, and kickstarting a new effort to address global mobility challenges.

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.

PARIS — Europe's car sales, slam-med by the coronavirus crisis in 2020, were supposed to bounce back this year. But instead, registrations fell by 26 percent in January.

The declines more closely resembled the dark days of last spring, when factories were closed and Europeans were confined to their homes in an effort to combat the coronavirus. Last month's sales in Spain took a 51 percent hit, Britain's fell 40 percent — to a low last seen in 1970 — and mighty Germany, Europe's biggest market, lost 31 percent.

At the same time, sales in China rose 30 percent. And demand in the U.S. held up, too, with the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate just under pre-pandemic levels of 17 million.

So what happened in Europe?

Initial optimism over COVID-19 vaccines faded as countries descended into infighting over supply and bureaucratic snags. With vaccine rollout slow and new virus variants discovered in Britain and other coun…

Thierry Bollore, the former Renault CEO who took the wheel at Jaguar Land Rover in September, last week ripped the covers off his new global strategy. If his plan is successful, JLR will shrink and grow at the same time — and build a stronger identity for troubled Jaguar.

The shrinkage will come from fewer nameplates and lower volume for Jaguar. JLR is abandoning its goal of 1 million global sales per year, a strategy put in place by Bollore's predecessor, Ralf Speth, who stepped down last fall from the CEO role and now is nonexecutive vice chairman. The company also announced last week that it is shrinking its global salaried work force by 2,000 employees.

JLR's growth will come in efficiencies gained from producing its vehicles on fewer architectures and deriving more revenue per vehicle by selling connected services and from subscriptions. "As a business we will be focused on value creation, on delivering quality and profits over volume," Bo…

Several public retailers that largely sat on the sidelines during the dealership acquisition action of the past few years say they are getting back in the game.

AutoNation Inc., Penske Automotive Group Inc., Group 1 Automotive Inc. and Sonic Automotive Inc. each indicated this month that they again are shopping for franchised dealerships and looking to expand store counts.

The plans by the four dealership groups come amid a recent surge in stock prices for public auto retailers and as competitors such as Lithia Motors Inc. and Asbury Automotive Group Inc. have snapped up stores. Dealership buy-sell activity has broadly skyrocketed following the early months of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when deals came to a short-lived standstill.

"We definitely have a lot of conversations going on, a lot of negotiations," Mike Jackson, CEO of AutoNation, the largest U.S. new-vehicle retailer, said last week. "I fully expect we'll have some…

Self-driving vehicles hold the potential to deliver a safer and more efficient era of transportation, but merely replacing human drivers with automated ones only takes progress so far.

Although autonomous vehicles are engineered to function largely without reliance on the outside world, there may be benefits unlocked — both for AV companies and society at large — by connecting the two. What if they acted not as lone rangers on the road, but as voluntary contributors to a larger traffic information network?

That's a question Argo AI sought to answer with a fellow Pittsburgh tech company, Rapid Flow Technologies, in a pilot project completed late last year. Findings were published this month, and they hint at what the future could hold.

On its own, Rapid Flow Technologies has deployed software on traffic lights to passively analyze vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian traffic at intersections and adapt signals. That can reduce delays by …

LOS ANGELES — Mazda's CX-30 subcompact crossover was called on to do some heavy lifting when it was offered for the 2020 model year. Its sales of just more than 38,000 last year kept the automaker in the black, with a 0.2 percent rise in deliveries across its seven-vehicle lineup, despite the pandemic.

But for 2021, the CX-30 has an even bigger challenge: to take on brands such as BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz in the small-crossover segment where labels still mean a lot.

Mazda engineers have armed the CX-30 with a new turbocharged engine, all-wheel drive and an upscale interior for the heavy lift.

The CX-30 2.5 Turbo, launched last month, is Mazda's strongest play yet as it seeks to move the brand upmarket without losing its mainstream buyers. The crossover sits on a new platform, with new infotainment software, high-end materials such as red leather and a full standard safety suite.

"We know the CX-30 has had great success in its current positioni…