Trade News

In deciding to nominate Federal Trade Commission member Rohit Chopra to oversee the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Joe Biden tapped a vocal advocate of regulation by enforcement.

Chopra's appointment as head of the federal watchdog comes at a particularly sensitive time for the auto industry, where subprime customers face heightened scrutiny when applying for auto loans and are all but vanishing from the new-vehicle market.

As an FTC commissioner, Chopra has been an outspoken critic of how some dealerships are compensated for arranging customer financing.

Chopra aired his views on indirect auto lending as part of a particularly egregious case of unfair and abusive practices the FTC pursued against New York dealership Bronx Honda.

The retailer agreed last May to pay $1.5 million to settle a gamut of FTC charges, from deceptive advertising to double-charging consumers taxes on vehicle purchases.

In particular, allegations tha…

As the calendar flipped to 2021, my email inbox became littered with story pitches from experts and analysts about how to make the new year great. Some of the pitches were tied to the service lane and typically included a bullet-point list of how to make 2021 remarkable.

Somewhere on just about every list was the advice, "Forget about 2020."

I completely understand the sentiment, but the year did have some redeeming qualities.

Jim Henne is general manager at Performance Toyota in Sinking Spring, Pa., 90 minutes northwest of Philadelphia. His service business was off 40 percent last April, and he had to furlough 70 percent of his staff at the start of the pandemic and deal with customers afraid to come in. He'd be right to want to forget 2020.

But Henne thinks about the things he and his staff accomplished against enormous odds, efforts that will be an important part of their 2021 operations. Expanding service pickup and delivery. Initiating contac…

SEOUL -- Kia Corp. said on Wednesday it's reviewing cooperation on self-driving electric vehicles with multiple foreign firms, making no mention of a report linking it to a project with tech giant Apple Inc.

Kia's comment, issued in a regulatory filing as its shares surged nearly 20 percent in Seoul, came after domestic online publication Edaily reported late on Tuesday that Kia's parent, Hyundai Motor Group, had decided Kia would be in charge of proposed cooperation with Apple on EVs. The report cited unnamed industry sources.

Hyundai Motor declined to comment. Apple was not immediately available for comment outside of U.S. business hours.

Kia's sister company Hyundai Motor Co. said earlier this month it was in early talks with Apple, after local media reported the firms were discussing an EV and battery-tie up, sending Hyundai shares up nearly 25 percent. Apple declined to comment at the time.

In December, Reuters reported that Apple was moving …

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Joe Biden will order U.S. agencies on Wednesday to revisit fuel efficiency standards as well as rules governing emissions from airplanes, and appliance and building energy efficiency standards, the transition team said.

The Trump administration in March finalized a rollback of U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards to require 1.5 percent annual increases in efficiency through 2026, well below the 5 percent yearly boosts in Obama administration rules it discarded.

The Trump administration said the rollback would result in about 2 billion additional barrels of oil being consumed over and at least 867 million metric tons of carbon dioxide being emitted over the life of the vehicles.

During the campaign, Biden vowed to "establish ambitious fuel economy standards" and to negotiate them with workers, environmentalists, automakers and states.

Biden is also directing agencies to reconsider Trump's 2019 decision to revo…

Volkswagen has lost tens of thousands of cars in production in China due to the global chip supply shortage that is hitting automakers around the world.

"It was hurting us already in December and we lost some 10,000 cars since then simply because we lost 50,000 cars in production in December because of some chips," VW's China head, Stephan Wollenstein, said during an online media briefing Wednesday.

Wollenstein said the chip shortage is mainly impacting models using the automaker's Electronic Stability Program, a system of sensors that works with a car's Anti-lock Braking System to prevent the wheels seizing up after an unexpected swerve.

Some other components may also be affected, he said, without providing further detail.

"You see how vulnerable our industries are if only one chip is missing," Wollenstein said. "This will unfortunately continue in the first quarter." The company is in the process of contacting chipmakers worldwide to better sho…

Departing President Donald Trump pardoned Anthony Levandowski, saving the engineer from more than a year in prison for stealing trade secrets from his former employer, Alphabet's Waymo.

The pardon was supported by venture capitalist and Trump supporter Peter Thiel, virtual-reality developer Palmer Luckey and former Walt Disney executive Michael Ovitz, among others, according to a statement from the White House on Tuesday.

In August, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ordered Levandowski to spend 18 months in prison, concluding one of the highest-profile criminal cases to hit Silicon Valley and describing it as "the biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen."

Levandowski had pleaded guilty to trade secret theft.

Levandowski was an autonomous vehicle pioneer, helping the Google car project, now known as Waymo, during its early years.

Uber Technologies hired him to run its self-driving initiative and Levandowski allegedly downloa…

FRANKFURT -- Mercedes-Benz hopes to rekindle interest in its slow-selling full-electric vehicles with the EQA, which will compete with battery-powered compact cars such as the Tesla Model 3 and VW ID3.

Mercedes describes the EQA as an "urban entry model" targeted toward young, urban customers.

Marketing and sales chief Britta Seeger touted its "sustainability, versatility and fresh look."

The EQA can accelerate from 0 to 100 kph (62 mph) in 8.9 seconds and has a top speed of 160 kph (99 mph).

The small utility vehicle is being launched as the EQA 250 with a range of 426 km (265 miles) under the WLTP test standard. Output is rated at 140 kilowatts or 188 hp.

Additional variants including all-wheel-drive models with higher output and longer ranges will follow, including a version with a range of more than 500 km, Mercedes said.

The EQA 250 will go on sale in Europe on Feb. 4, with prices starting at 47,541 euros ($56,300) in Germany, …

The Porsche Taycan is about to get a bit more affordable — if you can get your hands on one.

The German sports car maker is expanding the full-electric Taycan lineup in the U.S. with a new entry-level variant.

Badged the Taycan, the rear-wheel-drive version starts at $81,250, including a $1,350 shipping fee. It will arrive in U.S. stores in the spring.

The base Taycan will be available in two battery configurations and deliver up to 300 miles of driving range, based on Europe's Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure, or WLTP.

At launch, the car was offered in high-powered, high-priced Turbo and Turbo S versions. Those models arrived in late 2019 with starting prices of $154,860 and $188,960, including shipping.

U.S. demand for the Taycan has been brisk since the launch. The EV was Porsche's third best-selling car in the U.S. in the third quarter.

For all of 2020, Porsche delivered 4,414 units — a number that would have b…

Nissan Motor Co. is moving to promote all contract workers in Japan to full-time positions as the automaker’s push to cut fixed costs gives it more room to invest in its talent pool.

About 800 contract employees will become full-time employees from April, Azusa Momose, a spokeswoman for the company said, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report that said it would impact people at Nissan’s plants, R&D centers and head office in Yokohama. Nissan will also abolish its system of hiring contract workers.

The promotions, which will increase expenses, are a sign of Nissan’s confidence in its outlook as the automaker makes progress in its push to cut 300 billion yen ($2.8 billion) in annual fixed costs. The cuts have afforded the company a greater ability to push to retain skilled personnel by bringing them on full time, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

“This will help enhance workplace unity, increase operational efficiency, improve employee m…