Trade News

LONDON -- Jaguar Land Rover appointed its creative boss to the board of management Wednesday to help redefine the Jaguar brand as Britain's biggest carmaker reviews its strategy under new CEO Thierry Bollore.

Bollore took over the company in September and faces a number of challenges including electrification, managing underutilization of its plants, handling the rapid fall in diesel sales and the effect of COVID-19 on the industry.

The Jaguar brand has also underperformed Land Rover in recent years with some model overlap.

Bollore said Chief Creative Officer Gerry McGovern would be "developing the character, distinction and personality of each" brand and the role includes leading the design function at the marques.

"Jaguar Land Rover continues to transform its business at pace and redefine its strategic direction," the Tata Motors-owned company said in a statement.

"In his new role McGovern’s recognized creative mindset along with his busi…

TAIPEI -- Major Taiwanese chipmakers are willing to prioritize supplies for automakers amid a global shortage of chips for the industry, the island's economics minister said after meeting with company executives.

Automakers around the world are shutting assembly lines due to the shortages, which in some cases have been exacerbated by the former U.S. administration's actions against Chinese chip factories.

"Chipmakers are willing to follow the government's request and try to support auto chips as much as they can to support production in the U.S., Europe and Japan," Economics Minister Wang Mei-hua told reporters.

The issue has become a diplomatic one, with German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier writing to Wang to ask her for help in addressing the problem. Wang also said the U.S., European Union and Japan had also been in contact.

The chipmakers are prepared to negotiate with clients of other products to see which clients are willing to delay or c…

TOKYO -- Nissan said Wednesday all its "new vehicle offerings" in key markets would be electrified by the early 2030s, as part of the automaker's efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The company, which plans to cover markets in Japan, China, the U.S. and Europe, said it will pursue battery innovations, including solid-state batteries, for electric vehicles and further develop its e-POWER hybrid technology to achieve greater energy efficiency.

"We're determined to help create a carbon-neutral society and accelerate the global effort against climate change," said Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida.

Nissan's plans comes as global automakers are pivoting from diesel vehicles to electric and hybrid models, while Japan aims to eliminate sales of new gasoline-powered vehicles by the mid-2030s, shifting to EVs, hybrids and fuel cell vehicles.

Japan laid out a green growth strategy last year that included ideas to to help achieve a 2050 carbon-neutral goal.…

LOS ANGELES — Kia is ending sales of two slow-selling sedans, the Cadenza and flagship K900, to make room for a growing stable of crossovers.

The 2020 model year will be the last for both sedans in the U.S.

Kia sold 1,265 of the midsize Cadenza last year and just 305 of the K900, a large rear-drive sedan that pushed the brand into luxury territory. As the two poorest-selling Kia products, their discontinuation does not come as a big surprise.

"As the auto industry shifts its focus from full-size sedans to SUVs, Kia is poised to succeed with a robust range of utility offerings which includes Telluride, Sorento, Sportage and Seltos," Kia said in a statement Tuesday. "As we realign our model lineup to meet consumer demands, the K900 and Cadenza will be discontinued for the 2021 model year."

The Cadenza, which straddled the midsize- and large-car segments, was introduced at the 2013 Detroit auto show and went on sale later that year as a 2014 model.…

FreeWire Technologies Inc., an EV charging and power startup, has raised $50 million in a series C funding round.

The round was led by energy-focused private equity firm Riverstone Holdings, said FreeWire CEO Arcady Sosinov in an interview Monday. Existing shareholders including the venture arm of BP Plc, Energy Innovation Capital, Trirec and Alumni Ventures Group also participated in the round, Sosinov said.

FreeWire has raised $100 million in total funding to date, including the new round, according to Sosinov. The company’s valuation in the new round couldn’t immediately be learned.

“One of the reasons we placed our bet here is that FreeWire’s technology is more advanced,” said Riverstone partner Robert Tichio, who will join the company’s board. “Its commercial relationships have even further and deeper penetration than almost all of its public comps.”

Six-year-old FreeWire’s products are used to charge EVs and power events and construction sit…

Aeva Inc, a company founded by former Apple Inc. engineers to supply a key self-driving car sensor, said Tuesday it had reached a deal to supply the sensors for self-driving heavy duty trucks being developed by TuSimple.

Aeva makes a lidar unit that helps give vehicles a three-dimensional view of the road and is in the process of becoming a publicly trade company through a merger with InterPrivate Acquisition Corp.

It has announced deals with automotive suppliers ZF Friedrichshafen and Denso Corp. to supply sensors to automakers for passenger vehicles.

But the deal with TuSimple represents Aeva's first move into the world of self-driving trucks.

Based in San Diego, TuSimple has minority-stake backing from Volkswagen's commercial trucking unit Traton to develop self-driving trucks. United Parcel Service In.c also has a minority stake in the startup, which is developing self-driving trucks with Navistar International Corp. slated to start production…

STOCKHOLM -- Swedish supplier Autoliv on Tuesday reported a 34 percent jump in fourth-quarter operating profit, boosted by a recovery in vehicle production following lockdowns to fight the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

Autoliv, the world's largest producer of airbags and seatbelts, said it expects around 20 percent organic sales growth and an adjusted operating margin of about 10 percent in 2021.

"Although the pandemic is not yet behind us, I am confident that our performance in the second half of the year shows that we have built a solid platform to move towards our mid-term targets," CEO Mikael Bratt said in a statement.

Autoliv reported a fourth-quarter operating profit of $307 million compared with $229 million in the year-ago quarter and a mean forecast of $283 million based on a poll of analysts published by the company.

On an adjusted basis, operating earnings were $311 million, up from $242 million a year earlier, the company said. Q…

SEOUL -- A Hyundai Kona EV caught fire last week in the first-ever known case of a recalled Kona catching fire, prompting authorities to investigate the adequacy of the recall, a South Korean transport ministry official said.

A series of fires prompted mass recalls of Hyundai's best-selling Kona EV in South Korea in October.

The latest Kona fire, on Saturday in the city of Daegu, is among 11 reported so far in the country. But this incident was different as it was the first Kona EV to catch fire after undergoing the recall process, the official said on Tuesday.

In South Korea, Hyundai has recalled 25,564 Kona EVs built during September 2017 to March 2020 due to the risk of short circuit possibly caused by faulty manufacturing of its high-voltage battery cells.

Recalled Kona EVs in South Korea get software updates and some receive battery replacements after inspection.

The recalled Kona that caught fire had only received a software update bu…

STOCKHOLM -- Veoneer and microchip giant Qualcomm have signed a collaboration deal to develop a software and chip platform for advanced driver-assistance systems, Veoneer said in a statement Tuesday.

The companies said in August that they would cooperate on the technology. Their joint platform will seek to rival companies such as Intel's Mobileye.

Veoneer, which also makes radars and vision systems, said it had formed Arriver, a dedicated software unit for the development of the complete perception and drive policy software stack.

"Today's agreement with Qualcomm Technologies and the creation of Arriver are key milestones in Veoneer's development," Veoneer CEO Jan Carlson said in the statement.

In December, Carlson told Automotive News Europe that the company was aiming to initially provide Level 2 autonomy with the product.

Veoneer said that Arriver software is already functional on Qualcomm's Snapdragon Ride Platform, "which will be avail…