Trade News

Smashing the auto industry's remaining glass ceilings can be difficult work — but it's much more fun if you have a friend who's always standing by with a hammer.

That's the case with Leah Curry and Susan Elkington. In the early 2000s, the two met as managers in the welding shop of Toyota's massive assembly plant in Princeton, Ind. Though vastly different, they quickly became lifelong friends, trusted confidantes and, over time, champions of each other's careers.

Today, they command two of Toyota Motor Corp.'s largest assembly plants and are among the 2020 Automotive News 100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry.

Elkington, 49, is president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky — the automaker's largest assembly plant in the world — which makes the Camry and Camry Hybrid, Avalon and Avalon Hybrid and the RAV4 Hybrid, as well as the Lexus ES 350 and ES 300h.

Curry, 59, is president of Toyota Motor Manufact…

During the pandemic, work and home have blurred in unprecedented — some say unsustainable — ways.

Work days are filled with back-to-back Zoom meetings. Employees report working more hours with fewer breaks. Many schools are teaching virtually, so parents must juggle their children's remote learning alongside their full-time jobs.

For women, who research suggests are more likely than men to not be working as they shoulder child care needs during the pandemic, these challenges can be especially acute, several of Automotive News' 100 Leading Women honorees say. They see the coronavirus taking a toll on work-life balance in ways that will require flexibility and support from the C-suite to the factory floor to overcome.

The rapid escalation of COVID-19 in the U.S. in the spring upended the traditional 9-to-5 workday. Those who could transitioned to working from home, while manufacturers created a series of safety protocols to bring em…

"Barrack Obama. He would be the one I would aspire to have a conversation with, to be enlightened and to thank him for his contribution to history." -- Denise Gray, LG Chem Michigan

"My husband. He is the most on-point person I know. He never puts off for tomorrow what he could do today. He gets more out of a day than probably anyone that I know. I admire that. That is not me. I'll get deterred and go from one thing to another. I get it done, but it might look more like sausage-making with me." -- Juanita Powell Baranco, Mercedes-Benz of Buckhead and Mercedes-Benz of Covington

"Nikola Tesla — he was the inventor. He was a humanist, not only an inventor. That, to me, is a hero." -- Suzana Cizmic, Bosch

"I lost my mom earlier this year. She's the one who always told me you can do anything. She really encouraged me to pursue my studies and focus on math and sciences. She was always taking me on educational field trips to science cent…

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/

Leah Curry and Susan Elkington are presidents of two of Toyota’s biggest North American assembly plants. But 17 years ago, they worked side by side in a body weld shop in Indiana and became close friends.

Nine leaders from the 2020 list joined Automotive News via Zoom to discuss the most pressing issues facing them today and beyond. We explored key themes from that conversation in this podcast series.

IN THEIR WORDS

The 2020 honorees tell it like it is. Here are their confessions, insights and advice.

From the publisher: After 20 years and 5 editions, successes yet to be counted

Publisher Jason Stein comments on the achievements represented in the 2020 edition of Automotive News' 100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry program.

How we selected 100 Leading Women

Every five years since 2000, we have put together a list of 100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Indu…

As technology gains revolutionize how vehicles look and work, those strides also are poised to expand women's place in the auto industry.

Female leaders will be crucial to the industry's evolution as gas-powered engines make way for electric vehicles and as car buyers increasingly expect vehicles to provide safety, entertainment and connectivity, several of Automotive News' 100 Leading Women contend. This coming shift dovetails with greater awareness on the part of automakers, parts suppliers and other automotive companies of how a more diverse work force — including on leadership teams — can benefit their businesses.

"We're at a true point of renaissance about the possibilities and the transformation that's about to happen," said Deborah Wahl, chief marketing officer for General Motors. "This is probably the most innovative period that I've seen in my whole career. The change in how we do work, how people think about doing work, how we look at transformation …

Volkswagen Group's board signed off on a $3.7 billion deal for its heavy-truck unit Traton to acquire Navistar International Corp., deepening the German company’s bet on the lucrative North American market.

VW will provide Traton with a 12- to 18-month loan of 3.3 billion euros ($3.9 billion) to fund the transaction, according to a statement Saturday. Details of the deal -- in which Traton will pay $44.50 a share for the 83 percent of Navistar stock it doesn’t own -- were unchanged from an announcement last month. It’s expected to close mid-2021.

Navistar, the maker of International branded trucks, is a major player in North America. Traton has coveted the company as a means to challenge sector leaders Daimler and Volvo AB on a global scale. The VW unit makes Scania and MAN vehicles and is largely dependent on sales in Europe and Latin America.

VW is Navistar’s second-largest shareholder with a 16.7 percent stake, narrowly behind billionaire investor Car…

WASHINGTON -- Volvo Cars is recalling 54,000 U.S. vehicles for an airbag defect after one crash death tied to the issue, according to a filing with U.S. regulators.

The unit of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is recalling 2001-03 model year S80 and S60 vehicles sold or registered in high humidity U.S. states because the driver side frontal airbag inflator may rupture, sending metal fragments flying, when the air bag is deployed.

According to the Volvo filing with the government, Volvo will replace the inflators with a modern propellant and inflator. Parts are expected to be available by March.

NHTSA said Saturday it confirmed one person in the United States was killed when a ZF/TRW FG2 twin driver airbag inflator containing the propellant 5AT-148N exploded.

The issue has been the subject of NHTSA and Volvo meetings since August 2019.

The agency said the fatal incident was the only known rupture incident for this type of inflator around the wor…

The election of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States promises a renewed effort to tighten up vehicle emissions/mileage regulations and encourage electric vehicle production, a shift in tone from the outgoing White House administration.

A more immediate concern for the president-elect: The global COVID-19 outbreak — which has killed more than 232,000 people in the U.S. since early this year and threatens to be even deadlier as winter approaches — and its effects over the auto industry and the economy at-large. According to a report on Tuesday by Politico, he is planning to create a task force of medical experts to tackle the virus.

Biden, 77, was projected the winner Saturday over Republican President Donald Trump, 74, by several news organizations in a tightly contested race. The former vice president has touted an ambitious clean-energy plan that could encourage a new wave of transportation propped up by federal investments in e…

DETROIT — A friendly competition designed to spark innovation at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles as employees work from home produced a smartphone app that the company is now releasing to help customers learn about their vehicles.

FCA's "Pitch Night" event during the summer led to the submission of more than 500 ideas related to connectivity and infotainment that were then voted on. The virtual event, borrowing from the "Shark Tank" TV show format in which entrepreneurs pitch ideas to a panel, ended with one winner: an augmented reality app called Know & Go that breaks down key features by having the user simply point the camera at a part of the vehicle.

When looking through the camera, the user will see a name and description overlaid on the particular feature. The upcoming Ram 1500 TRX, due out before the end of the year, is the first vehicle that can be used with the app.

The concept came about after two employees — Feature Innovation Manager Carolina …

After 67 years selling cars and trucks at Ron Lewis Ford in Beaver Falls, Pa., Quentin Strouss had plans for a grand send-off.

He wanted to retire on Oct. 23 — his 90th birthday.

It would be a well-deserved double celebration for a career that started when tail fins were popular, gas was 29 cents a gallon and Elvis Presley was still four months away from recording his first album.

Since walking into the showroom in March of 1953, Strouss' career has entailed two changes in address and one change in ownership. He's been around to witness Ford vs. Ferrari — the real thing in 1966 and the movie in 2019.

He's outlasted 10 CEOs, seven brands and two iterations of the Taurus.

He's sold at least 12,000 vehicles, according to unofficial records. But after giving the calendar a second look, the soon-to-be nonagenarian realized he needed to sell at least one more.

Even after six decades on the job, St…

To get their products in front of consumers' eyeballs, auto dealers often look to TV. And not just traditional broadcast and cable. Auto marketers are vying for a growing number of consumers watching content on streaming services such as Hulu, including on so-called smart TVs and via connected devices such as Apple TV and Amazon's Fire TV Stick.

Known as over-the-top TV, or connected TV when referring to the devices that deliver streaming content, the medium is similar to traditional TV in that it reaches viewers earlier in the shopping process, several marketers told Automotive News. It's also a digital video option that uses data to target consumers in market to buy with more relevant and frequent messages.

The format isn't new. Households for years have used streaming services to complement — even replace — cable or satellite boxes. But the coronavirus pandemic accelerated consumer interest in streaming content as they spent more time at home this spring, a…

Swiss prosecutors froze more than $1 billion held in bank accounts belonging to Bob Brockman, who’s been charged in the U.S. for alleged tax evasion and money laundering. Reynolds and Reynolds Co. announced Friday that Brockman stepped down as CEO and chairman of the dealer management system giant.

A spokeswoman at the Geneva prosecutor’s office said that accounts were frozen but didn’t specify what banks held the funds.

Brockman was indicted in October by U.S. federal prosecutors for allegedly using a network of secret Caribbean entities to evade taxes on $2 billion in investment income in what may be the largest prosecution of its kind in U.S. history. Brockman is accused of using a Bermuda-based family charitable trust and other offshore entities to hide assets from the Internal Revenue Service while failing to pay taxes. He was also charged with money laundering and other crimes.

The case is “the largest-ever tax charge against an individual in the U…