Trade News

Infiniti's bestseller — the midsize QX60 — receives a makeover this fall with an updated powertrain and more muscular styling.

The 2022 QX60 three-row crossover will be the first product launch since Nissan Motor Co. hatched greater collaboration between the mass-market Nissan and premium Infiniti brands.

Infiniti will share platforms, powertrains and assembly lines with Nissan to boost product development efficiencies. The second-generation QX60 will test whether the brands can share more components without sacrificing their distinct identities.

Updating the QX60 is a critical step in rejuvenating Infiniti, which has suffered multiyear sales declines in the U.S. In 2020, Infiniti deliveries slumped 32 percent -- the largest annual drop in the brand's history.

U.S. sales of the QX60 tallied 22,880 last year and accounted for 29 percent of Infiniti volume.

The QX60, along with the compact QX50, form the "backbone of Infiniti's sales in the …

The European Union is considering building an advanced semiconductor factory in Europe in an attempt to avoid relying on the U.S. and Asia for technology at the heart of some of its major industries.

The EU is exploring how to produce semiconductors with features smaller than 10 nanometers, and eventually down to 2 nanometer chips, according to people familiar with the project. The aim is to curtail dependence on countries such as Taiwan for chips to power 5G wireless systems, connected cars, high-performance computing, and more.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea, the two leaders making the most innovative processors in the sector, could be involved in the EU project but nothing has been decided, a French Finance Ministry official said in a press briefing on Thursday, following the report from Bloomberg.

The plans come at a time when automakers are grappling with semiconductor shortages. Europe’s biggest c…

LG Energy Solution Co., the South Korean company that supplies electric-vehicle batteries to Tesla Inc. and others, said it expects to meet with SK Innovation Co. soon to talk about a settlement after the International Trade Commission banned imports of the latter company’s products to the U.S. for 10 years.

Any agreement on compensation will depend on how authentic SK Innovation’s proposal is, Woongjae Han, senior vice president of LG Energy’s legal department, said during a briefing in Seoul on Thursday. LG Energy isn’t considering engaging in legal action with other companies, he said.

The International Trade Commission on Wednesday ruled against SK Innovation, dealing a potential blow to efforts by Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen Group to ramp up production of electric vehicles.

SK Innovation will be able to import components for four years for domestic battery production for Ford’s EV F-150 launching next year, and for Volkswagen’s American MEB line f…

Apple's car plans could involve several potential manufacturing partners capable of building an electric self-driving vehicle for the technology giant.

The secret project has gained momentum in recent months, adding multiple former Tesla executives, gaining the supervision of Apple's top artificial intelligence executive and ramping up road tests. The initiative, known as Project Titan inside Apple, is attracting intense interest because of its potential to upend the automotive industry and supply chains, much like the iPhone did to the smartphone market.

If and when Apple commits to building a car, it is likely to seek multiple partners -- including a major one to build the vehicle and many others to supply key components. The following companies -- whose representatives declined to comment -- are possible candidates:

Foxconn

Foxconn Technology Group already has a close relationship with Apple. For well over a decade, it has been the U.S. company…

FRANKFURT -- Volkswagen Group and Microsoft are expanding their cooperation involving the U.S. software giant's cloud technology to include speeding up development of automated driving.

VW's new software division will build a cloud-based platform with Microsoft that will help simplify development processes and allow faster integration into its vehicle fleet, the automaker said Thursday in a statement.

The partnership will make it much easier to deploy software updates to add new features to cars, a practice that helped to set Tesla apart from many rivals.

The deal means that cars that are sold with a few driver-assistance features today could add new capabilities over time that bring them closer to autonomous driving, said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of cloud and artificial intelligence at Microsoft.

"For our phones 15 or 20 years ago, when you bought it, it pretty much never changed. Now, we expected every week or every couple of day…

HANGZHOU, China -- Like many others in the auto industry, Geely Chairman Li Shifu has been irked by skyrocketing valuations for electric car manufacturers such as Tesla Inc. and Nio Inc., sources at the Chinese automaker say.

Getting Geely, which owns Volvo Cars and 9.7 percent of Daimler, to a place where it too may claim a sizeable chunk of China's burgeoning electric car market and burnish its share price at the same time, has preoccupied Li for much of the past year, they added.

The result: A flurry of tie-ups unveiled last month that lay bare Geely's intention to position itself as the go-to contract manufacturer for electric vehicles in China and beyond -- assembly services that will also offer up its engineering and development expertise.

"The chairman's attitude toward contract manufacturing is clear: He is embracing it and actively pursuing it," a Geely executive told Reuters.

Outsourcing production of some models through original equipme…

DETROIT — Ford Credit posted a $912 million profit in the fourth quarter, setting a record and serving as one of few bright spots as Ford Motor Co. reported a $2.8 billion quarterly loss.

The lender was among three business units, along with Ford's North America and Europe markets, to make money closing out the year. The profit, up about 45 percent from the same period a year ago, was the finance arm's best-ever fourth-quarter performance.

For the full year, Ford Credit earned $2.6 billion before taxes, down 13 percent from 2019, largely because of lower receivables and credit loss effects from the coronavirus pandemic.

Ford CFO John Lawler described the performance as "another strong quarter," noting Ford Credit was helped by improved auction values, which rose about 7 percent from the same period a year ago to $20,190 per vehicle. As expected, auction values were down slightly from the $21,125 posted last quarter.

T…

TOKYO -- Planning for the removal of Carlos Ghosn began as early as April 2018, well before the auto executive’s arrest on charges of financial crimes, according to court testimony by the Nissan Motor Co. insider who was instrumental in the downfall of the carmaker’s former chairman.

Hari Nada, a senior vice president at the automaker, was answering questions posed by the attorney representing Greg Kelly, the former Nissan director who was arrested on the same day as Ghosn in November 2018 and is currently standing trial.

“I thought Mr. Ghosn’s conduct within the company raised questions of criminality well before April 2018,” Nada said in the Tokyo District Court on Wednesday. “I was conscious of Mr. Ghosn’s behavior on a range of matters, and I was concerned of that over a number of years before 2018.”

Nada was responding to questions about a flowchart that he had asked internal and external lawyers to prepare, which was delivered to him at the end of …

Dealerships adjusting to a digital environment expect the changes to last, even though consumers still want to come into dealerships. Eventually.

For now, many customers remain wary of the coronavirus, and a study conducted by Lightico indicates that they'll be staying at home until a vaccine is widely available. Lightico is a software-as-a-service company that connects auto finance customers to lenders through a mobile portal.

A January survey of 1,129 American consumers found 86 percent of respondents were concerned about entering a dealership or going to a bank during the pandemic.

Vaccine access would make 39 percent of respondents likely to return to physical visits to a dealership, though nearly one-third said they would prefer completing as much of a vehicle purchase remotely as possible even after the pandemic abates.

Dealerships looking to enhance their digital retailing experience cannot forget the finance-and…

DETROIT — General Motors posted net income of $2.8 billion in the fourth quarter, including an adjusted $2.6 billion profit in North America.

The gain compares to a $194 million loss a year earlier as a result of the UAW strike.

The profit brings GM's full-year net income to $6.4 billion, down 4.5 percent from 2019, the automaker said Wednesday.

Global revenue in the fourth quarter rose 22 percent to $37.5 billion and adjusted earnings before interest and taxes rose to $3.7 billion from $105 million a year earlier.

GM earned $283 million from its international regions, compared to a $120 million loss a year earlier, and China equity income was $248 million, up from $239 million.

Earnings from GM Financial more than doubled to $1 billion.

A global shortage of microchips will reduce 2021 earnings by $1.5 billion to $2 billion before interest and taxes, GM said, but it won't affect growth and electric vehicle initiatives. GM plans to pr…

The Biden administration’s first test of its climate change policy could come this week in a legal dispute over battery components seen as key to growing electric vehicle adoption in the U.S.

The U.S. International Trade Commission is scheduled to decide Wednesday whether to ban imports of lithium-ion battery components that the South Korean battery maker SK Innovation will need to produce battery cells for the electric Ford F-150 and Volkswagen ID4 at a factory under construction in Georgia.

LG Chem, a supplier to such carmakers as General Motors and Tesla Inc., and a competitor of SK also based in South Korea, filed its claim in April 2019, alleging that SK’s batteries use stolen trade secrets.

If the commission sides with LG, the decision could upend battery output and hamper EV production in the U.S. A favorable ruling for LG could complicate the green energy agenda of President Joe Biden, who has pledged to promote EV adoption. One early example was…