Trade News

WASHINGTON/SEOUL -- The U.S. International Trade Commission on Wednesday delayed a decision in a trade secrets case involving South Korean battery makers LG Chem and SK Innovation to Feb. 10.

LG Chem, an EV battery supplier for Tesla Inc. and General Motors, filed its trade complaints against SK Innovation last year in the United States over allegations of trade secret theft, seeking to block SK from producing battery cells in the U.S. and importing the components necessary to make the cells. SK denied wrongdoing. The decision had been expected on Thursday.

An adverse ruling by the ITC could lead to an import ban on SK Innovation's batteries and necessary components, potentially causing setbacks for Volkswagen Group and Ford Motor Co. as they move to build new EVs.

SK Innovation is building its first battery factory in Georgia which is set to begin production in 2022 and could be affected by an adverse ruling. The factory with capacity of 9.8 G…

Cruise has joined the growing ranks of self-driving technology companies removing human safety drivers from at least part of their test fleets. But those safety operators won’t be going far. No longer behind the wheel, they will remain nearby – in the passenger’s seat, company officials said Wednesday   “We recognize this is both a trust race as well as a tech race,” a Cruise spokesperson said. “We will maintain a safety operator in the passenger seat. The safety operator has the ability to bring the vehicle to a stop in the event of an emergency, but does not have access to standard driver controls.” Meanwhile, executives at the General Motors-backed company lauded the removal of humans from behind the wheel as signal of progress. It comes after five years of testing in San Francisco in which Cruise vehicles accumulated more than 2 million real-world miles of testing. Cruise said the first ride with no human behind the wheel occurred on a…

California tech company Huddlebots, producer of what its website calls "nanorobotic machines," is breaking new scientific ground. But Huddlebots' technology is not to be confused with the fictional nanobots described in science fiction writer Michael Crichton's novel Prey. Instead, Huddlebots' nanorobots are "molecules with a unique property that enables them to be programmed to carry out a specific task" thanks to "exploiting programmable self-assembly properties of nucleic acids."

Alas, like much of the science described on the site, Huddlebots doesn't actually exist. Nevertheless, the company has shown up nearly a dozen times as an employer on auto loan applications.

According to San Diego fraud company Point Predictive, Huddlebots' website is fake, established to trick lenders into accepting fraudulent employment information about a potential borrower. It's one fraud method contributing to the massive jump in income misrepresentation at auto lenders that Po…

Low interest rates and longer loan terms have been a saving grace for vehicle sales, according to Experian's latest State of the Automotive Finance Market report. Affordability remains a challenge, however, and consumers with the top credit backgrounds are returning to the used-vehicle market for deals.

Melinda Zabritski, Experian's senior director of automotive financial solutions, said the third quarter saw a return of higher-credit customers to buying used vehicles. Those buyers were enticed in the second quarter by generous automaker incentives, but those deals are waning as the year progresses.

Prime and above borrowers made up 55.3 percent of used vehicles financed in the third quarter, a new high for the report. Still, while new-vehicle loans were more expensive, longer terms and a low interest rate kept monthly payments down.

"Rates are over a percentage point lower than where they were last year. We're seeing the terms go u…

Asbury Automotive Group Inc. considers its first attempt to grow used-only sales with standalone locations a failed experiment. In 2017, when the last Q auto location closed, executives said the retailer planned to focus its investments on "alternative routes to market" that will deliver higher profits.

Clicklane, Asbury's omnichannel solution that formally launched last week, aims to tackle the central problem it faced with physical used-only stores: securing finance offers for credit-challenged consumers. Omnichannel refers to offering a seamless buying experience to consumers whether they shop online, in store or both.

The result could catapult the retailer's used-vehicle sales strategy into new markets while simultaneously improving the digital retailing environment for consumers in all credit tiers.

Lacking the lending infrastructure of a franchised store, Asbury's Q auto standalone used-only locations struggled to offer financ…

HAMBURG -- Volkswagen pledged to continue talks among its key stakeholders on Wednesday following a meeting of the company's supervisory board, as the world's largest automaker seeks ways to defuse a leadership crisis.

The meeting of the board of directors was convened after CEO Herbert Diess demanded a contract extension and more backing for his reform efforts, some of which had been opposed by the company's powerful labor chiefs.

"Talks between the participants continue in a constructive manner," the supervisory board spokesman said in a statement.

"Decisions were not made in today's meeting, as expected."

Diess has sought to shift VW from being the world's biggest maker of combustion engined vehicles into a company capable of mass producing electric and increasingly autonomous cars.

The pace and depth of his reforms, including efforts to lower costs in Germany and to transform Volkswagen into a tech company, has led to clashes with labor…

Join Automotive News Publisher Jason Stein for a daily podcast series about the coronavirus crisis. He’ll speak with industry experts, insiders and Automotive News reporters about how the virus is impacting and reshaping the automotive industry.

Mazda North American Operations President Jeff Guyton is seeing a spirit of cooperation among employees and a dealer body that has never been "higher" on the brand as it aims to eke out a U.S. sales victory during a volatile 2020.

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Michelin intends to convert its global tiremaking operations to a greener business in the next three decades, with a major environment initiative:

All of its tires will be manufactured using 80 percent sustainable materials by the year 2048.

That will require a significant transformation in the company's production systems, design and supply chains, acknowledged Alexis Garcin, chairman of Michelin North America, in an interview with Automotive News. But the company believes it already knows most of the materials and processes it needs to get the job done.

But 100 percent sustainable materials? That is still a quest to be determined, Garcin said.

"We don't know today how to get completely to 100 percent," he said. "We need time because we think the innovation and technology is not ready to support that. We still have some unknowns.

"But we have part of that answer. We know there will be 20 percent that will have difficulties, which is why we…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Rep. Mike Kelly's request for an emergency order that would block Pennsylvania from certifying its election results, including Joe Biden's win over President Donald Trump.

The Republican congressman and other plaintiffs had asked the court to prevent the state from taking any further action to certify its results of the Nov. 3 election and to undo any such actions already taken, according to a court filing last week.

Pennsylvania certified its presidential election results Nov. 24, declaring Democrat Biden the winner.

Kelly owns Mike Kelly Automotive, which retails Cadillac, Chevrolet, Kia, Hyundai and Toyota brands in Pennsylvania — a state where auto sales were temporarily banned in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The congressman's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.