Trade News

The merger between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group to create the world’s fourth-largest automaker by volume has taken more than two years to negotiate, according to documents filed with regulatory authorities this month.

The deal was discussed over a series of international meetings, in Geneva, Paris, Frankfurt, Detroit, Turin and elsewhere.

Major players included:

PSA CEO Carlos Tavares and FCA CEO Mike Manley; John Elkann and Robert Peugeot, heirs to the Agnelli and Peugeot industrial dynasties; and Key top-level managers, as well as lawyers, bankers and consultants. 

Tavares and Manley kept the deal alive through a surprise overture for a merger from FCA to Renault, a seemingly intractable dispute over pre-merger distributions, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a revision of the terms. 

As of late November, all seems set for a closing by the end of the first quarter of 2021, with only antitrust approvals in several juri…

Faurecia is preparing to be a fully independent company after PSA Group divests its stake in the supplier as part of its merger with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Among the initiatives Faurecia is pursuing is an annual investment of up to €60 million ($71 million) in hydrogen technology and cooperation with ZF on cockpit technology.

CEO Patrick Koller, 61, spoke with Klaus-Dieter Floerecke of Automobilwoche, the German-language sibling publication of Automotive News, about the challenges ahead for the industry's No. 8 parts maker on Automotive News' current ranking of the top global suppliers. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: You have said that you want Faurecia to be the world leader in fuel cells. How will you achieve this?

A: We are already one of the very few companies that can offer the entire system. And only a few suppliers are capable of industrializing the technology. At the moment, the most important thing is to come up with enough volume in order to…

Even before the pandemic struck, Gautam Narang says, the self-driving truck company he co-founded three years ago had gained momentum with customers.

But since COVID-19 arrived, stretched supply chains and accelerated growth of delivery trends with consumers, Narang, CEO of Gatik, says interest in autonomous goods-hauling has mushroomed.

The pandemic "changed everything," he said. "We saw a huge spike in the number of orders that our vehicles were fulfilling, and the number of runs we were doing for our customers. … We've expedited our deployments. We've added vehicles ahead of schedule."

Gatik added to that momentum last week, signing a contract with another major partner. The company will begin hauling goods for Loblaw Cos., the largest Canadian food retailer, in January. Gatik will deploy five of its Ford Transit 350 box trucks in the partnership, running them on five routes between delivery hubs and retail stores as often as 12 hours per day, seven …

When the Ford Mustang Mach-E arrives at dealerships next month, salespeople may not have to deal too much with customers' range-anxiety concerns.

The all-wheel-drive base model's driving range between charges — 211 miles — is good for about a week's worth of commuting.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics' latest data, the average American drives 29 miles per day to and from work.

Three other Mach-E models have been EPA-certified to go even further between charges.

The base model of the rear-wheel-drive Mach-E is rated at 230 miles on a single charge.

An extended-range awd model has a 270-mile rating and the extended-range rwd Mach-E can travel 300 miles between charges — about equal to the distance a V-6-powered Ford Edge with all-wheel drive can travel on a single tank of fuel based on the EPA's 21 mpg combined city/highway rating for the vehicle.

Ford previously said the Mach-E's range will start at 230 miles, wi…

General Motors Co is planning to apply for a banking charter that would allow its lending unit to hold deposits and expand its auto-finance business, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The automaker's finance arm, General Motors Financial Company Inc, has been talking to federal and state banking regulators for months about forming an industrial loan company and could file its applications as early as December, the report said.

"Industrial Loan Company" charters allow non-banks to originate loans and collect insured deposits.

GM did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

FRANKFURT -- Volkswagen will discontinue the Passat sedan in the U.S. and Europe as the automaker increases its focus on electric vehicles and SUVs, company sources familiar with the plans said.

In Europe, VW will keep only the Passat station wagon when a new generation of the midsize car is due toward the end of 2023, the sources told Automotive News Europe. The wagon will continue in markets such as Germany where the body style remains popular.

U.S. sales of the Passat increased 25 percent during the first three quarters, according to VW of America data, but were low at just 16,190 units.

The Passat is Europe's No. 1-selling midsize model, with a volume of 88,478 through October, according to JATO Dynamics market researcher. Its closest competitor at No. 2 and platform mate, the Superb from sister brand Skoda, had sales of 47,889 during the same period.

Management has no plans to replace the current U.S. version because of the continued shift a…

WASHINGTON -- Hyundai Motor Co.'s and Kia Motors Corp.'s U.S. units on Friday agreed to a record-setting $210 million civil penalty with U.S. auto safety regulators over the untimely recalls of 1.6 million engines for fire risks.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the two affiliated Korean automakers agreed to consent orders after the agency said they had inaccurately reported some information to NHTSA regarding the recalls.

Hyundai agreed to subject to a total civil penalty of $140 million, including an upfront payment of $54 million, an obligation to spend $40 million on safety performance measures, and an additional $46 million deferred penalty if it does not meet requirements

Kia's civil penalty totals $70 million, including an upfront payment of $27 million, requirements to spend $16 million on specified safety measures and a potential $27 million deferred penalty.

"It’s critical that manufacturers appropriately recognize…

WASHINGTON -- NHTSA on Friday said it had opened an investigation into around 115,0000 Tesla vehicles over a front suspension safety issue.

The auto safety regulator said it was opening a preliminary evaluation into 2015-2017 Model S and 2016-2017 Model X vehicles after receiving 43 complaints alleging failure of the left or right front suspension fore links.

Tesla in February 2017 issued a service bulletin describing a manufacturing condition that may result in front suspension fore link failures, NHTSA said.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The 2017 service bulletin said some vehicles have "front fore links that may not meet Tesla strength specifications. In the event of link failure, the driver can still maintain control of the vehicle but the tire may contact the wheel arch liner."

NHTSA said 32 complaints involve failures that occurred during low-speed parking maneuvers, while 11 occurred while driving. Anoth…

Last March, Manheim was set to host a large event at its Pennsylvania namesake site to celebrate its 75th anniversary.

There was to be an overview of the auction's history, a special sale with more than 600 vehicles, and company leaders would be on hand to discuss the vital role the used-car market plays in the auto industry. Lunch would be provided.

The event never happened. Manheim had to make history, rather than just celebrate it, when the company switched its 70-plus auctions in the U.S. to all-digital sales within a matter of days as the COVID-19 pandemic raged.

"We knew that it was going to be an evolution," Manheim President Grace Huang said of the rise of digital sales. "We never meant for our lanes to go 100 percent digital block, especially in the course of a weekend," she added, referring to when auctions are without cars or bidders in lanes. "So we saw what was possible."

Digital sales have been something the company had been lookin…

Nearly two years ago, Charlie Gilchrist, then president of the National Automobile Dealers Association, warned that the biggest threat facing the industry was a shortage of qualified body shop technicians.

Even before Gilchrist sounded the alarm bells, Barton Ford in Suffolk, Va., was doing something about it.

The dealership has been teaming up with nearby schools to create a local talent pipeline that it's using to keep its service department humming.

Barton Ford set up a paid internship program with the College and Career Academy at Pruden, a technical school about 4 miles away, and has hired at least six students from the school over the past three years. This month, the dealership partnered with Ford to donate a 2015 F-150 Platinum to the school so students would have a modern vehicle to practice repairs on during class.

The dealership also has assisted nearby Tidewater Community College, paying part of students' tuition, donating tools and …

Nissan Motor Co. expanded its production footprint in China when a Nissan Qashqai compact crossover this week rolled out of a renovated assembly plant in Changzhou.

The factory, previously run by Dongfeng Motor Group, Nissan’s joint venture partner, has become Dongfeng-Nissan’s first production site in east China, and the fifth across the country.

The renovated plant can produce up to 120,000 vehicles a year. 

Aside from Changzhou, Dongfeng-Nissan assembles vehicles under the Nissan brand in four other cities: north China’s Zhengzhou, Northeast China’s Dalian, central China’s Xiangyang and South China’s Guangzhou.

Nissan’s China sales grew for the second straight month in October, rising 5 percent to 146,028, according to Nissan’s China office.

Due to a severe contraction in the first quarter, when the virus outbreak ravaged China, the Japanese brand’s total deliveries through October dropped 8 percent to 1.13 million.

Huawei Technologies, a major global supplier of communications equipment and smart phones, admonished managers this week who are pressing the company to build connected vehicles rather than only supply technology. 

The warning was included in a notice, signed off by Huawei’s founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, and posted in a section of the company’s website created for managers and employees.

Huawei reaffirmed its core business and position as a supplier of information and communications technology infrastructure and smart devices. 

“Despite the constant changes in the external environment in the past two years, we must be clear that building ICT infrastructure is the historical mission of Huawei,” the notice said.

The letter also directly addresses the company’s role and ties to the auto industry: “Huawei will not build complete cars, but will focus on ICT technology to help automakers build good cars and become a provider of incremental …