Trade News

Virgin Hyperloop conducts first human test of high-speed tube travel system

Remember hyperloops? The idea is to place passengers in pods and, using electromagnetic levitation, whisk the pods through giant tubes in a near vacuum at more than 600 mph.

While it may still sound like science fiction, the concept, popularized by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has been moving closer to reality. The U.S. government is even working out how to regulate it.

One of the leading companies striving to commercialize high-speed tube travel, billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Hyperloop, passed a major milestone Sunday. It completed its first human test run, albeit in a scaled-back version.

The test was on Virgin Hyperloop's 0.3-mile DevLoop test site in Las Vegas. The two passengers were Chief Technology Officer Josh Giegel and Director of Passenger Experience Sara Luchian. A launch video shows the pair grinning broadly during the short ride, which hit a top speed of 107…

FRANKFURT -- German auto supplier and tire maker Continental AG on Thursday named the head of its core automotive division, Nikolai Setzer, as its new CEO.

Setzer, 49, will replace Elmar Degenhart, 61, who is stepping down on Nov. 30 for health reasons, the company said in a statement.

Setzer had been seen as the crown prince to succeed Degenhart, having worked for Continental his entire professional life. From 2009 he led the passenger car division, joining the board of management. He previously led the company's high-margin tire division. He joined the tire-development operations in 1997 after studying mechanical engineering and economies in Germany and France.

In 2019, Setzer became spokesman for the newly created Automotive Board, which is tasked with profiting from the transformation of the automotive industry as it transitions from combustion engined toward electric and autonomous vehicles.

On Wednesday, Continental warned of further restruc…

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.

Doug Timmerman, Ally Financial's president of auto finance, says the U.S. auto lender posted its best third quarter in five years while payment deferrals are nearing pre-pandemic levels.

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DETROIT — The 2022 E-Transit represents Ford Motor Co.'s first battery-electric vehicle designed for commercial buyers as the automaker looks to increase its dominance of the van market and fend off new rivals angling for fleet customers.

The E-Transit, revealed Thursday and scheduled to go into production late next year, will start around $46,000 in the U.S., including shipping. The low-roof cargo van variant will get up to 126 miles on a charge, company officials said, although they declined to discuss other range estimates or elaborate on how range could be affected when the van is loaded with cargo.

The E-Transit, built at Ford's Kansas City Assembly Plant in Missouri, will be offered in three configurations, with three roof heights and three body lengths, in an effort to give business owners a variety of options to match specific needs. It also will come with an optional Pro Power Onboard mobile generator debuting on the 2021 F-150 pickup.

Ford sai…

Former Reynolds and Reynolds Co. CEO Bob Brockman will remain free on a $1 million unsecured bond while he fights federal charges of tax evasion and wire fraud, a judge ordered Wednesday.

Attorneys for Brockman, who last week stepped down as Reynolds' chairman and CEO, and federal prosecutors said in a court filing Wednesday that a review of Brockman's bail conditions ordered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California did not recommend any changes from temporary conditions a judge set last month.

A bail review hearing that had been set for Thursday will be removed from the judge's calendar, according to the court filing.

Brockman, 79, was indicted last month on 39 counts that include tax evasion, wire fraud, money laundering and evidence tampering. Prosecutors say Brockman created an elaborate offshore scheme over two decades to avoid taxes on $2 billion in income. His attorneys entered a not guilty plea on all counts at an initia…

FRANKFURT -- The head of the Berlin engine plant run by Daimler's Mercedes-Benz, Rene Reif, has defected to rival Tesla Inc., German union IG Metall said, calling on employees to protest his departure.

IG Metall said there would be a protest in front of the Mercedes factory on Thursday and called on Daimler to present solutions that would help guarantee the future of the plant.

"We will make clear that we see the defection of the factory manager as a betrayal," Jan Otto, head of IG Metall Berlin, said in a statement.

The German business paper Handelsblatt said industry sources had also confirmed that Reif, 57, would join Tesla.

Reif was one the most experienced manufacturing executives at Daimler. He helped to expand manufacturing capacity for Mercedes cars in China.

He was head of engineering and manufacturing at Beijing Benz Automotive, Daimler's Chinese joint venture, which has a capacity of 480,000 cars and started building the electric…

New-vehicle demand in China continued to grow for the seventh consecutive month in October as the economy kept recovering in the wake of the coronavirus. 

Industry-wide deliveries rose 13 percent to exceed 2.57 million last month, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Wednesday.

Sales of commercial vehicles including trucks and buses surged 30 percent to around 464,000. 

Demand for light vehicles -- sedans, crossovers, SUVs, multi-purpose vehicles and minibuses -- increased 9.3 percent to some 2.11 million.

Deliveries of electrified vehicles soared 105 percent to some 160,000. The number includes roughly 133,000 electric vehicles and 27,000 plug-in hybrids. 

After suffering a 43 percent contraction in the first quarter amid the virus outbreak, the Chinese new-vehicle market resumed growth in April. 

In the first ten months, industry-wide sales dipped 4.7 percent to around 19.7 million. Commercial …

BMW AG CEO Oliver Zipse said Wednesday he is weighing options for the company's mobility services joint venture with Daimler AG, including bringing in new partners or possibly a partial sale.

BMW wants to continue to participate in the mobility services market "whether we bring in new partners or whether we sell it," Zipse told a videoconference of reporters.

"This is a very dynamic environment," he said. "You will see where we make one or the other move."

The future of Free Now, the BMW-Daimler venture that includes car sharing, ride hailing and other services, has been uncertain. Last month, Germany's Manager Magazin reported Uber Technologies had offered 1 billion euros ($1.18 billion) for the venture.

DETROIT — GM Financial's loan and lease originations climbed in the third quarter, even as General Motors' U.S. light-vehicle sales fell 9.9 percent, and more customers paid their loans on time, despite economic uncertainty.

Only 2.1 percent of payments were 31 to 60 days past due during the quarter, compared with 3 percent in the third quarter of 2019.

"In a period of higher unemployment and economic uncertainty, we would normally see higher delinquency and higher losses. It was completely against the trend of what we should see," Dan Berce, CEO of GM Financial, told Automotive News.

Government stimulus cash and relief provided by GM Financial helped consumers early in the pandemic, he said. But lately, consumers have changed their spending behavior to prioritize paying off debt.

"They're not spending money on entertainment, vacations and restaurants," he said. "Instead they are making debt payments, in particular auto…