Trade News

LOS ANGELES — One week after starting a new position as chief operating officer and executive vice president at Kia Motors America, Bill Peffer has resigned "in conjunction with his pursuit of a new opportunity in the automotive industry," the company said Friday.

Peffer, 50, had been promoted from vice president of sales operations in mid-December after a strong sales year at Kia. He formally started the COO job on Jan. 1. The operations position is the No. 2 spot in Kia's U.S. hierarchy behind Sean Yoon, president and CEO of Kia Motors America and Kia Motors North America.

Kia said late Friday it has not yet appointed a successor to Peffer after his abrupt resignation tendered Thursday. Kia did not offer any details on the automotive job that Peffer is pursuing.

"Bill Peffer's contributions helped Kia's U.S. sales outperform the industry and we are grateful for his service to the company. We sincerely wish him well in the next chap…

NHTSA is creating an initiative to coordinate research, conduct investigations and develop safety standards related to electric vehicle batteries.

As part of the initiative, the agency on Friday said it will collect and analyze data, conduct special investigations of EV crashes and noncrash events, conduct research on battery diagnostics and prognostics and explore risks related to cybersecurity and vehicle connectivity.

The move by U.S. safety regulators to address battery safety comes as EV fires have become a growing concern for the auto industry, with complaints of battery-related fires starting to stack up. Meanwhile, EV options in the U.S. are expected to grow through 2024, as automakers unveil more models.

Several incidents have involved Tesla vehicles bursting into flames after crashes, including a March 2018 accident on a freeway in California when a Model X caught fire twice in one day. Tesla has also been the focus of several investigations by…

TOKYO -- Honda could production in Japan due to a global shortage of automotive microchips.

The automaker plans to reduce domestic output by 4,000 units in January, a slowdown mainly affecting the Fit small hatchback at Honda's Suzuka plant, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Friday.

The bottleneck might result in the loss of tens of thousands of units through March for Honda, the report said. The cause is a tight supplies of computer chips for cars.

A Honda spokeswoman said the company is aware of the industrywide microchip shortage and is considering countermeasures. But it is too soon for Honda to say when the company might announce any output adjustments or how many vehicles might be impacted, she said.

Automakers and suppliers firs…

Mark Del Rosso, CEO, Genesis Motors North AmericaJoe Cardinale, President & Dealer Principal, Genesis of CoronaChris Pullara, Regional Director, Southern California Automotive Operations, CardinaleWay Automotive

Mark Del Rosso and Genesis of Corona dealership execs discuss GV80 sales projections, new facilities, Genesis Concierge and big opportunities for growth.

Apple Inc. will take at least half a decade to launch an autonomous, electric vehicle because development work is still at an early stage, according to people with knowledge of the efforts.

The Cupertino, Calif.,-based technology giant has a small team of hardware engineers developing drive systems, vehicle interior and external car body designs with the goal of eventually shipping a vehicle. That’s a more ambitious goal than in previous years when the project mostly focused on creating an underlying self-driving system. The company has also added more ex-Tesla Inc. executives to the project.

Still, some Apple engineers on the project believe the company could release a product in five to seven years if Apple goes ahead with its plans. The car is nowhere near production stage, the people said, though they did warn timelines could change. They asked not to be identified discussing sensitive, internal work. The majority of the team is currently either working fro…

Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz complied with Europe’s tighter emissions limits last year as a late surge in plug-in vehicle sales spared the world’s largest luxury-car maker from fines.

Mercedes shipped just under 160,000 plug-in hybrid and fully-electric cars in 2020, with the fourth quarter accounting for about half of those deliveries, Daimler CEO Ola Kallenius told reporters on Thursday. He had cautioned in the past that meeting the emissions target would be a close call.

“The good trend we’ve seen in the third quarter continued in the fourth quarter driven by China, but not only China as other markets improved as well,” Kallenius said of overall demand. Mercedes plans to speed up the rollout of electric models and is committed to meeting more stringent emissions rules in the coming years, he said.

Daimler navigated the biggest industry slump since World War II better than initially feared and also made progress restructuring its sprawling industrial operat…

U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced she is resigning from President Donald Trump’s cabinet after supporters of the president breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday in protest of his election loss.

“Yesterday, our country experienced a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supporters of the president stormed the Capitol building following a rally he addressed,” Chao said in a statement on Twitter. “As I’m sure is the case with many of you it has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.”

Chao said she is resigning as of Jan. 11 and will help her announced successor, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who was nominated by President-elect Joe Biden.

She is the first cabinet secretary to announce her departure after the events and joins a growing list of administration officials who have stepped down with two weeks before the end of Trump’s term, including former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who …

Cox Automotive Inc.'s Pivet unit will provide cleaning and maintenance services for the self-driving cars of Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Co. and auto supplier Aptiv .

According to theagreement announced Thursday, Cox said Pivet will coordinate daily, weekly and monthly cleaning and disinfection as well as provide mechanical support to Motional's self-driving fleet in Las Vegas.

"This partnership will enable our expansion as we bring driverless technology to more people in more cities," said Gretchen Effgen, vice president of Motional.

In December, Lyft Inc. and Motional said they planned to launch a multi-city U.S. robotaxi service in 2023.

Lucid Motors Inc. is in talks with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to build an electric vehicle factory potentially near the Red Sea city of Jeddah, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move would mark a significant expansion for Newark, Calif.,-based Lucid. Saudi Arabia is trying to become a Middle Eastern hub for manufacturing EVs as it diversifies its economy from oil.

The $360 billion Public Investment Fund, already a shareholder in Lucid, will provide much of the money for the site at the King Abdullah Economic City, the people said, asking not be named because the discussions are private. Plans are advanced but could change, the people said. PIF and Lucid have also considered Neom, a new city being developed in the northwest of Saudi Arabia, as a possible site for the plant.

Lucid is one of a several U.S. companies seeking to take on Tesla Inc. The startup is targeting the luxury end of the EV market and its CEO, Peter Rawlinson, …