Trade News

The seeds of Faith Mba's entrepreneurial spirit were planted while growing up in Nigeria, but they sprouted thousands of miles away in Vermont.

Mba's journey to owning a Toyota-Ford dealership in New England spanned three continents, beginning at a flea market in Nigeria where he hawked women's clothing with his mother. He worked for a few years in the Netherlands before coming to the northeastern U.S., where his wife was raised.

As one of the few Black people in tiny Westminster, Vt., and with his thick accent, Mba knows he stands out. His worldly perspective has taught him to approach uncharted territory as a cultural chameleon of sorts.

He learned to speak Dutch and German in the Netherlands, where he met his wife. Coming from a tropical climate, the 44-year-old says he hates snow — which there's plenty of in the Northeast — but has learned to ski.

He left eastern Nigeria for the Netherlands in 2002 to attend school.…

YOKOHAMA, Japan — CEO Makoto Uchida has led Nissan Motor Co. for barely a year. But what a year it has been.

When he took the helm on Dec. 1, 2019, Nissan was still reeling from the arrest of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn. Ties with alliance partner Renault were strained, and Nissan was wallowing in red ink. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, plunging Nissan even deeper into crisis.

In May, Uchida unveiled a revised midterm plan he called Nissan Next that aims to restore profitability next year and put the Japanese carmaker on the road to recovery by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024. Japan's No. 2 automaker wants to cut ¥300 billion ($2.88 billion) in fixed costs by then and reduce global production capacity from 7.2 million to 5.4 million vehicles.

Another top priority is restoring profitability in the key North American market, rolling back destructive U.S. incentive levels and fleet sales and improving relations with dealers there.

Speakin…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said there will probably be a wider roll out of a new "Full Self Driving" software update in two weeks.

In October, Tesla released a beta, or test version, of what it calls a "Full Self Driving" software upgrade to an undisclosed number of "expert, careful" drivers.

"Probably going to a wider beta in 2 weeks," Musk said on Twitter on Friday, in a reply to a user asking if the software would be available in Minnesota.

Musk had said earlier it was planned that the latest upgrade would be widely released by the end of this year, with the system becoming more robust as it collected more data.

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…