Trade News

General Motors will phase out Chevrolet Equinox assembly at an Ontario plant and spend $787 million (C$1 billion) to retool the factory to build an all-electric commercial van.

The pledge comes as part of a new tentative labor contract reached with Unifor late Friday -- several months before it was due to be negotiated at the plant in Ingersoll, Ontario.

A GM spokesperson wouldn’t say where Equinox production would move, adding the company is focused on getting a ratified deal. GM also builds the Equinox at a plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

Earlier this week, GM said it’s launching a commercial electric vehicle business called BrightDrop and locked in FedEx Express as the first customer for a delivery van, the EV600, later this year.

The investment in the Ontario plant is contingent on union ratification “and confirmation of government support,” GM Canada said in a statement.

“GM Canada is engaged in discussion with the Ontario and feder…

DETROIT — Matt VanDyke, Ford Motor Co.'s director of marketing, will soon become the CEO of the company's FordDirect joint venture with dealers.

VanDyke, 48, will take the reins of the digital lead-generating company Feb. 1. He replaces Diane Craig, who became president of Ford's International Markets Group this month.

"Matt VanDyke has been an exceptional, dynamic leader at Ford, taking on challenges with Bronco and F-150 during the pandemic and leading our Built for America and Built to Lend a Hand campaigns," Kumar Galhotra, Ford's president of the Americas and International Markets Group, said in a statement. "His passion and experience in marketing make him an excellent choice for the FordDirect position, and we wish him well."

Additionally, Mike Gingell, FordDirect's senior vice president, product, marketing and dealer engagement, will become FordDirect COO, a position that has been unfilled since 2018.

"We are thrilled to have Matt VanDyke …

Toyota Motor Corp. led the automotive industry with 2,079 patents granted in 2020 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

That's according to a report from Fairview Research's IFI Claims Patent Services, which created a custom ranking exclusive to the automotive industry for Automotive News.

Toyota moved up from second to first last year with a 2 percent increase in patents granted over 2019.

The study ranks companies based on most innovations and granted patents.

"Innovation across Toyota is driving our transition to a mobility company, and Toyota's leading patent portfolio is one important measure of that progress, along with our investments in research, collaboration and partnerships," Frederick Mau, intellectual property counsel for Toyota Motor North America, told Automotive News in a statement. "We are excited to have expanded our patents across a wide range of advanced technology fields and proud of the incredible accomplishments of our…

WASHINGTON -- Tesla Inc. filed a petition with U.S. auto safety regulators saying that 612,000 vehicles produced since 2012 do not fully comply with federal safety standards because displays can be switched from miles per hour to only metric measurements, documents released on Friday show.

The automaker asked NHTSA to declare the noncompliance issue inconsequential to safety, according to the agency's filing.

Tesla said it corrected the issue in production in September and that more than 75 percent of the affected U.S. vehicles have accepted the firmware update released in September.

Tesla said if vehicles are set to only display to kilometers, all functions tied to speed limit like Traffic Aware Cruise Control and Speed Assist will "convert mapped data from mph to km/h, resulting in the vehicle speed automatically matching the appropriate speed limit."

Tesla added that vehicle operators can change the display back to miles per hour, saying the op…

PSA Group may reconsider its plans to re-enter the U.S. market with the Peugeot brand following the imminent completion of the merger between Fiat Chrysler and PSA, which will give the newly formed company an established presence in the country, Peugeot CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato said.

PSA’s strategic plan calls the French automaker to return to U.S. retail sales by 2026, and in 2019 the group’s CEO, Carlos Tavares, said the brand would be Peugeot, which left that market in the early 1990s. Peugeot is PSA's top-selling brand. Its other marques are Opel, Citroen and the upscale DS Autos.

Tavares will be the CEO of the merged company, Stellantis, which will include FCA’s American brands Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler. Jeep and Ram in particular have been highly profitable with their lineups of pickups and SUVs.

But the merger, to be completed Saturday with listings on the Paris, Milan and New York stock exchanges early next week, has made that plan le…

FRANKFURT -- Volkswagen Group said higher sales of battery-powered and plug-in hybrid vehicles helped to offset plunging demand in its global markets in 2020 caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Global deliveries fell 15 percent to 9.3 million last year, VW said in a statement.

The figure includes sales of the VW, Audi, Porsche, Skoda and Seat brands, as well as its VW commercial vehicles, Scania and MAN heavy truck units.

The sales slide slowed in December when deliveries declined 3.2 percent compared with December 2019.

VW Group's Spanish-based Seat brand had the worst sales performance in 2020 with full-year deliveries down 26 percent, followed by Skoda, whose volume fell by 19 percent. VW brand's deliveries dropped by 15 percent, Audi was down 8.3 percent and Porsche was down 3.1 percent.

China, VW Group's biggest market, had the lowest sales decline because the country rebounded from the pandemic faster than the rest of the word. The g…

TOKYO — Kia is dumping "Motors" from its corporate name as part of a global brand relaunch meant to position the South Korea automaker as a mover in electric vehicles and new mobility.

In changing its name to Kia Corp., from Kia Motors Corp., the company is reaching for a new identity that better reflects its push into new fields, CEO Ho Sung Song said in news release. The move follows the adoption of a new company logo and slogan this month.

"Changing our corporate name and logo is not only a cosmetic improvement," said Song, who took the helm last April. "It represents us expanding our horizons and establishing new and emerging businesses that meet and exceed the diverse needs of our customers worldwide."

The new direction targets a mass ramp-up of EVs through 2025 and a rapid expansion into what the company calls purpose-built vehicles, or PBVs. These are runabouts dedicated to new mobility enterprises such as ride-hailing, robotaxis and on-the-go e-…

BMW is shutting down its vehicle subscription pilot at the end of the month.

The Access by BMW subscription pilot launched in April 2018 and never expanded beyond its initial Nashville market. It was targeted at affluent customers willing to pay high monthly fees for two tiers of service starting at $2,000.

"Our intent with the pilot was to learn about the viability of the subscription model and gauge customer interest," a BMW spokesman told Automotive News Thursday. "We are in the process of developing the next iteration of the program," he said, declining to elaborate on details.

Audi Select, a similar program offered by the Volkswagen Group premium brand, will be discontinued on Jan. 31, according to a notice on the service's website. It was billed as a new interaction with Audi dealers when it was launched at five Dallas-Fort Worth stores in Sept. 2018. 

Rival Mercedes-Benz ended a similar pilot last summer after seeing lackluster demand…

General Motors is working on a strategy to build at least one new electric vehicle inspired by its Corvette sports car, potentially expanding the brand from a single performance model into a family of vehicles, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. If the plan is approved, the most likely model to emerge later this decade would be a marriage of a crossover and a sports car.

The automaker has toyed with the idea of building different types of vehicles with Corvette styling and performance in the past but never took the plunge. Purists worried about muddying the image of a vehicle with legions of die-hard fans and owners.

GM has designers working on several Corvette-brand concept vehicles that target a wider range of buyers, said the people, who asked not to be named because the plan has not been publicly unveiled. These seek to blend Corvette’s reputation for high-performance driving and rakish styling with creature comforts such as more interior room…

Toyota Research Institute and Stanford University's Dynamic Design Lab said they are conducting research to design a new level of active safety technology.

The engineers are working to combine the instincts of professional drivers and automated driving technology to reduce vehicle crash-related fatalities.

"The reality is that every driver has vulnerabilities, and to avoid a crash, drivers often need to make maneuvers that are beyond their abilities," Gill Pratt, the institute's CEO, said in a statement. "Through this project, TRI will learn from some of the most skilled drivers in the world to develop sophisticated control algorithms that amplify human driving abilities and keep people safe."

A Toyota spokesman told Automotive News in an email that the research is examining how to control vehicles at their operational limits, including making aggressive vehicle-avoidance maneuvers.

Stanford researchers are experimenting with control over brakes w…

Danger can take many forms when it comes to driving. There are the dangers a driver might fail to see because he or she is distracted. And, in the age of COVID-19, there are new dangers that are invisible to the naked eye.

GHSP, a nearly century-old supplier based in Holland, Mich., used CES to showcase technologies to remedy both kinds of hazards.

The company introduced dual-stack rotary and multifunction controllers that allow drivers to access and control vehicle functions from the center console, without taking their eyes off the road.

It also showed off a much different safety product, its disinfectant system, Grenlite.

According to GHSP, Grenlite kills 99.9 percent of viruses and bacteria using UV-C light, helping to ensure that vehicles are safe from unseen threats such as the coronavirus.

The UV-C light units connect to a cloud-based monitoring system that recognizes when a surface or environment, such as a vehicle, has been used an…