Trade News

With gold chandeliers, stained-glass windows and a marble fireplace, Brown Bros. Cadillac looks nothing like a typical dealership.

Gary and Bruce Brown's mother designed the extravagant, 15,000-square-foot showroom in Louisville, Ky., that surrounds cars with 19th-century oil landscapes by Harvey Joiner and Carl Brenner on walls of floral paper and rustic brick.

"I've been told by a number of people that it looks like the lobby of a fine Southern hotel," said Gary Brown, who now owns the dealership with his brother. "I think her aim was to make it a very comfortable, stylish place to buy a Cadillac. At that time, Cadillac was still the dominant luxury car in America."

But Cadillac's dominance ended two decades ago, and in two weeks, downtown Louisville will be without a Cadillac dealership for the first time in more than a century. The Browns are among the more than 175 Cadillac dealers who have decided to take a buyout instead of going along for the r…

The semiconductor shortage roiling global auto production has hit Nissan Motor Co.'s Canton, Miss., assembly plant, where the company builds pickups, sedans and commercial vans.

Frontier and Titan pickup output was idled for two days in late January, according to a factory memo obtained by Automotive News. The pickup line is also scheduled to be down on Feb. 8, the memo indicates.

Nissan builds about 410 mid- and full-size pickups at the factory each day, according to AutoForecast Solutions.

The midsize Frontier will undergo a major redesign in late summer, its first since 2004.

Altima assembly at Canton has also been affected. Overtime and Saturday production of the midsize sedan was cut for a part of January, the memo notes.

Output at Nissan's larger Smyrna, Tenn., factory so far has not been affected by the chip shortage. Nissan builds mostly crossovers at Smyrna, including the brand's best-selling Rogue compact crossover.

"Nissan…

DETROIT — The UAW is expected to receive an independent monitor within the next 90 days as part of a consent decree with the federal government approved by a judge late Friday night.

The deal, announced in December, includes a six-year period of oversight, $1.5 million fine and potential changes to its election process after prosecutors found evidence of rampant corruption among top officers.

The approval of the consent decree by U.S. District Judge David Lawson Friday included new timing details and officially started the clock on the process to implement the independent watchdogs.

The union has 30 days from the consent decree approval to suggest three candidates to become its independent monitor. After that, the government can either approve one or seek additional options, but will seek to select one within 60 days of receiving the initial candidates. They must then be approved and appointed by the court.

The monitor…

DETROIT — The UAW is expected to receive an independent monitor within the next 90 days as part of a consent decree with the federal government approved by a judge late Friday.

The sweeping deal, announced in December, includes a six-year period of oversight, $1.5 million fine and potential changes to its election process after prosecutors found evidence of rampant corruption among top union officers.

The approval of the consent decree by U.S. District Judge David Lawson Friday includes new timing details and officially started the clock on the process to implement independent watchdogs.

The union has 30 days from approval of the consent decree to suggest three candidates for the independent monitor. After that, the government can either approve one or seek additional options, but will seek to select one within 60 days of receiving the initial candidates. They must then be approved and appointed by the court.

The monitor will have the power to bri…

Vehicles can interact with other vehicles, infrastructure and pedestrians through CV2X, or cellular vehicle-to-everything technology.

One group of industry leaders is seeking to expand on the idea behind this technology by creating standards to make safer the interactions between cars and other kinds of wheels on the road: bicycles.

Michigan-based Tome Software, bicycle company Trek, Ford Motor Co. — which owns e-scooter company Spin — and other partners have been collaborating on B2V, or bicycle-to-vehicle, guidelines to help vehicles communicate with bikes, scooters and roadside infrastructure related to cycling.

It's an important collaboration considering the number of vulnerable road users, such as cyclists, pedestrians and scooter riders. It's also timely given the increased interest in bike and scooter ridership since the onset of the pandemic last spring, said Eric Bjorling, brand marketing director at Trek.

"What you'll see post-COVID is…

Despite years of development, mergers, partnerships, startups and stall outs, digital auto retailing software hadn't truly been tested in the U.S. until a deadly virus forced radical changes in how people purchase vehicles.

As COVID-19 cases surged nationwide last year and government mandates shuttered dealership showrooms, software giants and startups alike realized dealership clients needed more from their products than they had to offer — a way for customers to completely purchase a vehicle online.

For dealers scrambling to remake how they sold cars, the end-to-end digital retailing race had many front-runners, but no clear winners.

"Like every other dealer back in April and May, we called everybody," said John Altman, COO of Beyer Auto Group in northern Virginia. "We decided that we didn't like any of them. None of them really had a good solution, like they'd really gotten there yet."

So many retail technology vendors hit th…

LOS ANGELES — Honda's Ridgeline has long been odd truck out in the growing midsize pickup segment.

It is based on a front-wheel-drive unibody crossover. Its crew-cab looks are angular and soft. And for a small truck, it is remarkably roomy and fun to drive, thanks to its car-based platform.

But America's pickup buyers vote with their wallets for tall, chunky and relatively cramped rear-wheel-drive competitors with body-on-frame architecture and a bouncy ride. Exhibit A is the Toyota Tacoma, with sales of 238,806 last year for the top spot in the category.

For 2021, Honda will try to split the difference, introducing a midcycle exterior design freshen that moves the product closer to its better-selling competitors.

The Ridgeline going on sale this week has new sheet metal from the front roof pillars forward, a flatter hood, squared nose and upright grille.

To burnish its truck credentials, it will also com…

General Motors CEO Mary Barra just stomped on the electric-vehicle accelerator pedal. Call it the Biden effect.

Six months ago the automaker backed the Trump administration in a legal battle that could have neutered California’s longstanding right to set its own tougher carbon-emission rules. About two weeks after Trump lost, GM withdrew from that fight and two weeks after he left office, it pledged to match the state’s mandate to sell only electric vehicles starting in 2035 -- and do that all across the U.S.

Why the 180? Barra is getting a jump on President Joe Biden’s policies, which are expected to help GM and its rivals build and sell more EVs in the U.S. He wants to restore the $7,500 tax incentives that companies including GM and Tesla Inc. exhausted under Trump’s watch, and Biden plans to build 500,000 charging stations across the country. That could make EVs more affordable and ease concerns of would-be buyers about battery-powered cars’ driving range.…

Growth in auto-dimming mirror unit shipments and a strong mix of products with advanced features helped supplier Gentex Corp. post a 44 percent jump in fourth-quarter net income.

The company, which released its financial results Friday, also said it benefited from cost reductions implemented over the year.

The Zeeland, Mich., supplier of digital vision, connected car, dimmable glass and fire protection products posted net income of $143.3 million for the fourth quarter, a company quarterly record, compared with $99.5 million in the year-earlier period.

Net sales for the quarter also broke a company quarterly record with $529.9 million, a 19 percent increase from a year earlier. During the quarter, Gentex paid down the remaining $25 million balance of its short-term debt.

As one of the earlier suppliers to report quarterly results, Gentex is often viewed as a bellwether for global suppliers.

"When you combine this level of financial perform…