Trade News – Page 628

Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata names former Daimler exec CEO

Tata Motors Ltd. has appointed former Daimler manager Marc Llistosella to become its next CEO after Guenter Butschek asked to step down due to personal reasons.

Llistosella, who previously headed Daimler Trucks in Asia, will take charge in July, Tata Motors said Friday. Butschek, a former Airbus SE executive, has been CEO since 2016 and will stay on until June 30, according to the company.

“Marc is an experienced automotive business leader with deep knowledge and expertise in commercial vehicles” and “extensive operational experience in India,” Tata Chairman N Chandrasekaran said in a statement.

While Tata Motors beat expectations for the quarter that ended in December, it has struggled with falling sales and rising debt. The Mumbai-based company is largely dependent on its Jaguar Land Rover luxury-vehicle unit and laid out plans last year to cut costs by 2.5 billion pounds ($3.5 billion).

DAILY DRIVE PODCAST: February 12, 2021 | Why dealers are optimistic about ’21

Join Automotive News Publisher Jason Stein for a daily podcast series about the coronavirus crisis. He’ll speak with industry experts, insiders and Automotive News reporters about how the virus is impacting and reshaping the automotive industry.

While new-vehicle inventory remains a pressing worry for the industry, U.S. auto retailers are mostly optimistic about business this year. Automotive News Retail Editor Amy Wilson provides insight into Automotive News' 2021 Dealer Outlook Survey.

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Farley calls for settlement between LG Chem, SK Innovation

WASHINGTON -- Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley on Thursday publicly encouraged South Korea's chemicals and electric vehicle battery maker LG Chem Ltd. and SK Innovation Co. to reach a settlement on LG's battery allegations that SK stole trade secrets.

The U.S. International Trade Commission on Wednesday sided with LG Chem, but permitted SK to import components for domestic production of lithium ion batteries for Ford's EV F-150 program for four years, and for Volkswagen of America's EV line for two years.

"A voluntary settlement between these two suppliers is ultimately in the best interest of US manufacturers and workers," Farley wrote on Twitter, adding that "ITC ruling makes way for @Ford to bring to market our groundbreaking electric F-150."

LG Energy Solution and SK Innovation did not have comment on the matter when reached by Reuters on Friday. Volkswagen declined to comment.

The ITC said the decision would allow the automakers to transition …

PSA, Renault rivalry defies Macron’s French battery vision

President Emmanuel Macron's vision for France's automakers to join forces in building batteries for cars of the future is not going exactly as planned.

The more than 120-year rivalry between PSA Group and Renault has proved too fierce to overcome, even for a 5 billion-euro ($6 billion) project backed by their powerful shareholder, the French government.

Instead, PSA, now part of Stellantis, and oil giant Total are pushing ahead without Renault, which may pursue its own plans with South Korea's LG Chem.

Macron sought to form a united front because batteries will be one of the most powerful forces to reshape Europe's auto industry in decades. Getting significant regional production up and running to counter Asian dominance and meet the needs of a booming electric-car market will take years, and it's been made more difficult by the pain inflicted by the pandemic.

"Every carmaker with plans to make and sell electric vehicles in Europe will need to ev…

Avoid legal snags posed by remote sales

Arranging test drives and selling and delivering cars and trucks remotely have become common during the COVID-19 pandemic. But such sales can create potential legal problems for dealerships.

"This is just the tip of what could be a very large iceberg," said Eric Johnson, an Oklahoma City-based partner for Hudson Cook, in the NADA workshop "Selling Cars Remotely Without Driving Afoul of the Law" on Thursday. Terry O'Loughlin, director of compliance for Reynolds and Reynolds, moderated the workshop.

At a high level, a big issue is that state and federal laws were typically written before many of the technologies in routine use today were even invented. So it's tricky to interpret how they apply and how federal laws may interact with differing state laws.

A prominent example is that many of the rules that are being applied today to online auto sales were written with face-to-face, door-to-door salespeople in mind, attorneys said. The…

‘No bad blood’ as LMP-Atlantic deal dies

LMP Automotive Holdings Inc.'s revised agreement to acquire a 70 percent stake in eight Atlantic Automotive Group dealerships in New York is off after the parties "mutually" agreed to terminate the deal.

The used-vehicle retailer and vehicle subscription provider said the proposed transaction — trimmed last month following October's announcement for LMP to buy a 70 percent stake in 16 dealerships — was being canceled "primarily due to contiguous dealership location matters that the parties could not overcome," LMP COO Richard Aldahan said late Thursday in a news release.

Last month, Aldahan told Automotive News the slimmed-down agreement was made to adhere to automaker preferences that retailers not own contiguous dealerships of the same brand. He said then that manufacturers typically don't want a single owner with multiple same-brand stores in a concentrated geographic area.

Atlantic CFO Rob Dito told Automotive News that the companies reached the mut…

Tight supplies spell ‘opportunity’ for GMC

Buick-GMC dealers' primary task this year? Turn already-tight inventory as quickly as possible.

"I don't see the landscape being massively different [from 2020], which on the one hand is a concern. But on the other hand, this is a massive opportunity," Duncan Aldred, vice president of global Buick-GMC told Automotive News. At Thursday's make meeting, he urged dealers to adopt strategies to sell inventory faster. "The core root to success this year has got to be fast stock turn."

Many Buick-GMC dealers sold vehicles before they arrived from the factory last year, which reduced dealers' floorplan costs, he said.

GMC sold a record 253,016 Sierra pickups in the U.S. last year even as the average transaction price rose. GMC says it expects to continue gaining market share, but Aldred doubts that inventory will return to the levels seen before the pandemic and the fall 2019 UAW strike.

GMC started 2021 with a three-day supply o…

Walser: Diversify and engage

The new chairman of NADA wants dealers to approach their operations and the industry with a "clean sheet of paper," asking how they would redesign both to be better if given the opportunity.

Paul Walser's answer? He would build a far more diverse dealer body, one that works in an improved and customer-based relationship with automakers, and one with politically active and engaged members.

Walser, 65, has been a dealer since he opened a Chevrolet store in 1985. He is a partner in Walser Automotive Group, which is headquartered in Minneapolis and has 27 stores in Minnesota, Kansas, California and Illinois.

In his opening remarks at the NADA Show, Walser used a clean sheet of paper to challenge members to think about the association and their roles as dealers in a different way, especially after a life-altering pandemic.

"The truth is, we don't live in the same world we used to," Walser told his virtual audience. "We need to…

Ford targets 13% retail growth in ’21

Ford Motor Co. executives told dealers Thursday they expect to grow retail sales to 1.7 million vehicles in 2021, a 13 percent year-over-year increase, even as a microchip shortage slows production in the first quarter and the ongoing pandemic hinders demand.

The automaker said it's aiming for its highest retail share growth in seven years, behind new products such as the Mustang Mach-E, Bronco Sport crossover and Bronco SUV. While some volume growth was expected over 2020's coronavirus-impacted figures, Ford said the goal for this year would represent 5 percent improvement over 2019.

Executives outlined the target during the company's NADA Show make meeting. Kumar Galhotra, Ford's president of the Americas and International Markets Group, was among the main speakers during the hourlong event. Others included Matt VanDyke, the incoming CEO of FordDirect; Marion Harris, CEO of Ford Motor Credit Co.; and Frederiek Toney, vice president of Globa…

Porsche expects Taycan to accelerate sales

Porsche expects U.S. retail sales to increase 17 percent over last year, the automaker told dealers at its NADA make meeting on Thursday.

Much of that momentum will be powered by Porsche's newest nameplate, the Taycan. Porsche projects U.S. sales of the electric fastback to double this year, dealers were told.

Porsche delivered 4,414 Taycans last year. That number could have been far greater had the pandemic not halted production just as U.S.-market Taycans were getting ready to be built.

At the make meeting, dealers asked about the prospect of an all-wheel-drive version of the entry-level Taycan, which would be popular in Snowbelt markets.

Porsche executives said they are pushing for the variant but noted it could be at least two years away.

Porsche knows that the "competition demands it and the dealers need it," said Mike Sullivan, chairman of the Porsche Dealer Board of Regents and owner of the LAcarGuy d…

EVgo plugs its chargers into Tesla

Tesla built its own so-called walled garden of car charging stations; now EVgo Services LLC is trying to lure some of Elon Musk’s vehicles into the wild.

The independent network of car plugs, owned by LS Power, said it will retrofit half of its 800 U.S. charging stations to accommodate Tesla vehicles, which come with a proprietary plug not seen on rival electric cars. It also plans to include Tesla ports at 200 stations to be built by year’s end. The strategy should give EVgo a jolt of revenue as it waits for a parade of electric vehicles promised from other automakers.

“In the Bay Area and L.A., we still see markets where there are queues,” said EVgo Chief Commercial Officer Jonathan Levy of the Tesla stations. “It’s a win for Tesla, because they’ll have happier customers...And we’re getting incremental kWH and that’s really important from a business perspective.”

In five years, sales of electric vehicles in the U.S. are expected to rise seven-fold, acc…

BorgWarner Q4 net income surges 63% following Delphi acquisition

BorgWarner Inc. said its fourth-quarter net income surged 63 percent after closing on its $3.2 billion deal to acquire Delphi Technologies in October.

The engine and drivetrain products supplier reported net income of $358 million during the quarter, up from $220 million during the fourth quarter of 2019. Revenue increased more than 53 percent in the quarter to $3.93 billion, largely because of the Delphi acquisition.

Revenue for its air management division was up 26.7 percent in the fourth quarter to $1.94 billion with most of that increase coming from a $312 million boost from Delphi business. Without Delphi, that unit's revenue would have been up just 2.8 percent on the quarter.

Same for BorgWarner's drivetrain segment, which reported sales of $1.45 billion in the quarter, up more than 38 percent from the same quarter last year with Delphi business accounting for $255 million of the roughly $400 million increase in sales.

The auto supplier's fu…