Trade News

Autonomous vehicles are not simply futuristic options. Though we may not recognize it, AVs have slowly integrated into everyday life. Automakers and tech companies now openly test autonomous prototypes on the road. Perhaps less noticeable, yet far more prolific, are the large number of passenger vehicles on the road equipped with advanced driver-assistance systems. And while not so obvious, automated braking systems, lane-keeping systems and other driver-assist features have already marked the debut of phased automated mobility technology.

The road to autonomous is long and one of incremental progress and deployment dependent upon many variables. While on-road and in-lab testing continues to march forward in the approach to full Level 5 autonomy, challenges to autonomous transportation have remained relatively consistent.

To reach full autonomy, developers must achieve and maintain a robust level of environmental awareness (360-degree perce…

Automotive News Publisher Jason Stein, left, and Group Publisher KC Crain toasted the 2020 Automotive News All-Stars from the stage of Detroit's Garden Theater last week. Instead of the customary in-person gathering, this year's event, sponsored by KPMG, was held via Zoom. The annual list of outstanding performers is selected by the Automotive News staff.

In June, Bob Brockman emailed employees at Reynolds and Reynolds Co. about management changes at the Dayton, Ohio, dealership management system giant.

Brockman, then its chairman and CEO, wrote that he had recently turned 79 and that it was time to plan for the company's future, according to the memo, which was included in a document federal prosecutors filed last week in a California court, where the former software executive faces charges of tax fraud. In the memo, Brockman wrote that Tommy Barras would become Reynolds' president and COO and lead a new executive committee, to which leaders who had reported to Brockman would report going forward.

Yet amid the transition taking place within the upper ranks of the privately held company, one key position remained intact: Brockman said he would continue in his post.

"I plan to focus my time and attention on supporting Tommy and our leadership team to position the company for transition an…

Northtown Automotive Cos. is the "official automotive dealer of the Buffalo Bills." But with the Bills having their best season in 25 years, Northtown also has become known as the team's unofficial trash talker.

The group, which sells new vehicles from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Honda, Toyota and about a dozen other brands, uses a electronic billboard along Interstate 290 to poke fun at the Bills' opponents.

"We know cars and your Carr is broken," the sign read before the Bills beat the Las Vegas Raiders and quarterback Derek Carr, 30-23. "Unplug the chargers," it said last month, ahead of a 27-17 victory over Los Angeles. "Losing is the Pitts, Ben" went up this month, a few days before the Bills handed Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger a 26-15 loss.

The NFL Network featured one of Northtown's taunts, with commentator Rich Eisen calling it "next-level trolling." The message, posted before the Bills beat the New England Patriots, 24-21, read, "Bra…

TOKYO — The star witness for Japanese prosecutors finished testifying against Nissan Motor Co. and its former U.S. human resources executive Greg Kelly this month, portraying a dysfunctional corporate culture in which company boss Carlos Ghosn signed his own paychecks and top brass were afraid to challenge him.

But testimony to date has shown only a tenuous link between Kelly and the alleged scheme to hide more than $80 million in deferred compensation to the former chairman.

The trial continues this week, with Kelly, 64, sitting in hearings scheduled on Christmas Day, which is not a public holiday in Japan, where Buddhism and the native Shinto religions are the main faiths.

Kelly's wife, Dee, who came from their Tennessee home to be with her husband for the trial, said rescheduling the Christmas trial date was a nonstarter with Japanese authorities.

In his testimony so far, Toshiaki Ohnuma, Nissan's general manager of the Secretariat division, w…

FRANKFURT — The drama that played out in recent weeks at the highest levels of Volkswagen Group can be explained with these two facts:

1. VW is in the midst of a generational shift toward a fully carbon-neutral business over the next 30 years.

2. The software-enabled, zero-emission vehicles favored by CEO Herbert Diess will have a dramatic effect on employment at the German behemoth.

In the end, the warring factions reached a tentative cease-fire over the future of the transformation plan and its embattled architect, Diess.

With no clear succession, investors feared his potential departure would paralyze the carmaker. That could have created a power vacuum that risked torpedoing the CEO's ambitious strategy and enveloping the company in further internal strife.

Supervisory Board Chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch brokered the truce that strengthened the hand of his CEO, whose ambitions include finally achieving a p…

DETROIT — As recently as the middle of this year, UAW President Rory Gamble assumed that the 85-year-old union would soon be stripped of its power and independence by the federal government.

A 3-year-old corruption investigation was continuing to uncover crimes at the labor organization's highest level, including by Gamble's two most recent predecessors, and U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider publicly criticized the UAW's lack of "active cooperation." Schneider made clear that one option available to him involved placing the union under federal receivership through the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

"It was very dim," Gamble told Automotive News last week. "I knew I needed to sit down with the prosecutor, but I also knew I couldn't go into that meeting empty-handed. The only way we were going to be able to salvage this thing is if we took some severe actions and got some value-added, serious reforms in place. We needed to sh…

Despite efforts by automakers and U.S. safety regulators to alert vehicle owners of safety recalls beyond the required mail notification, more must be done to address recall effectiveness, says Wayne Mitchell of Stericycle Expert Solutions.

Mitchell is global director of automotive solutions for the firm, where he helps automakers and parts suppliers with various business processes including recall outreach and identifying the status and condition of recalled vehicles.

"Is that vehicle on the road anymore or is it a tin can?" he told Automotive News. "There's no use mailing to the … last registered owner for two years if that car is crushed and has been recycled."

NHTSA in summer launched a mobile app called SaferCar that automatically checks for safety recalls and alerts users when a recall has been issued. Hyundai Motor Co. also introduced license plate reader technology through its website for U.S. drivers to access open safety recalls and service c…

About a half-dozen driverless testing deployments. The unveiling of perhaps the most thoughtful self-driving vehicles produced to date. A blockbuster acquisition.

No, the final stretch of 2020 has not lacked for excitement.

In a year in which many wondered whether the pandemic would slow the pace of autonomous-driving developments, the opposite has happened, and the scramble of activity has underscored the potential of robotaxis carrying passengers around urban areas.

It also has brought into sharper focus the business models that companies are formulating to capture a slice of what Zoox CEO Aicha Evans calls a "multitrillion-dollar opportunity."

Zoox may be the most ambitious in its aspirations. From its inception six years ago, the Bay Area startup embarked on a plan to handle the major challenges involved in a ride-hailing business all by itself: Develop its own self-driving system. Create an all- electric, purpose-…