Trade News

Daimler is slowly pulling back the curtain on how its line of Mercedes-Benz sports cars will evolve as the leading luxury-vehicle maker goes electric.

CEO Ola Kallenius has dropped hints this month that Mercedes plans to challenge brands including crosstown rival Porsche by introducing plug-in performance models. He told German monthly Manager Magazin in an interview published Thursday that it’s very likely Mercedes will introduce a battery-electric platform for sports cars in the coming years.

“We have a very comprehensive product portfolio, including very attractive sports cars, and sports cars will go electric as well,” Harald Wilhelm, Daimler’s CFO, said Friday on Bloomberg Television. “So stay tuned.”

Tesla Inc. has popularized EVs in no small part by proving they’re capable of measuring up to or even outperforming sports cars. Porsche started selling its debut electric model, the Taycan, late last year.

Mercedes must electrify its sports car…

Motional and Lyft said their self-driving ride-share service in Las Vegas is resuming after the coronavirus pandemic paused operations earlier this year.

Motional, the joint venture between Hyundai Motor America and Aptiv, was rebranded in August and is relaunching in alignment with COVID-19 guidelines.

According to a statement from Motional on Thursday, 70 percent of Americans said the coronavirus is impacting their transportation decisions.

"Our vehicles now include a clear partition between the front and rear seats," Gretchen Effgen, vice president of marketing at Motional, told Automotive News. "At the start of each shift, all high-touch areas in the vehicle are sanitized."

Motional also supplies hand sanitizer, gloves and wipes inside the vehicle and asks riders to wear masks during their ride.

"Government partners in Las Vegas and Nevada have been instrumental in supporting the partnership and making self-driving ride-hails a reality …

Scott Painter, the founder and former CEO of online car leasing startup Fair, is exploring a bid to acquire the company from SoftBank Group Corp.'s Vision Fund and other investors, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The effort comes as Fair, which leases vehicles by working with car dealerships, is recovering from a setback in its attempt to expand in ride-sharing. It ended a program that provided weekly rentals for Uber Technologies Inc drivers earlier this year, citing an unexpected increase in insurance premiums.

Painter, who stepped down from Fair last year, is in talks with special-purpose acquisition companies, including Cantor Fitzgerald LP's CF Finance Acquisition Corp II, about making an offer for the startup, the people said.

The sources cautioned that a deal with a SPAC was not guaranteed and was one of several options considered by Fair. They asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential.

SoftBank declined …

Sales and profits rebounded for Gentex Corp. in the third quarter because of cost-saving actions, new launches and some quick decision-making.

Gentex released its performance results Friday in what could be a positive bellwether for global suppliers.

The Zeeland, Mich., supplier of dimmable rearview mirrors and other electronic components posted net income of $117.1 million for the third quarter, a 5 percent increase from the same period a year earlier. Gentex posted its second-highest sales quarter in company history, with net sales of $474.6 million.

CEO Steve Downing said customer orders came back so quickly that it caught the company by surprise.

"In fact," Downing said in a statement releasing the financial data, "during the third quarter, volumes increased so quickly that it became very difficult for our operations team to keep up, but in typical Gentex fashion, the team pulled together, with many salaried employees volunteering to help…

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.

Deborah Wince-Smith, CEO of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, examines the state of manufacturing in the U.S. and explains how the pandemic is exposing security vulnerabilities in the supply chain.

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Automakers are investing billions of dollars to bring new electric vehicles to consumers in the U.S. and other global markets, but their success hinges on securing the most critical and expensive component: the battery.

A handful of companies based in China, Japan and South Korea make automotive-grade battery cells, which has upset the traditional dynamic between automakers and suppliers. These battery giants -- though little known to the general public and relatively new to the auto industry’s sprawling supply chain -- are key to manufacturers’ goals of bringing dozens of new EV models to U.S. showrooms by 2025.

“There are not enough batteries to fulfill the automakers’ near-term promises,” said Sam Jaffe, managing director of Cairn ERA, an energy-storage consulting firm in Boulder, Colo. “A lot of new battery factories are being built. But there is a battery-supply problem in the near term. All of the incumbent automakers are scrambling at this point.”

STOCKHOLM -- Sweden's Autoliv, the world's largest producer of airbags and seatbelts, reported higher than expected quarterly earnings on Friday as it returned to profit in the wake of a plunge in car production due to the pandemic.

Autoliv reported a third-quarter operating profit of $175 million compared with a $154 million profit in the year-ago quarter and a mean forecast of $163 million based on a poll of analysts published by the company.

On an adjusted basis, operating earnings were $206 million in the quarter, up from a year-ago $183 million.

The rival of ZF and Joyson Safety Systems also said that for the full year it expected to further outperform global light vehicle production during a "very busy" fourth quarter for order intake.

"The worst demand decline on record in the second quarter was followed by a faster than expected recovery in the third quarter, with its challenges of managing the supply chain," CEO Mikael Bratt said in the …

PARIS – Faurecia said revenue fell by 7 percent in the third quarter to 3.9 billion euros ($4.62 billion), a better result than expected, fueled by strong growth in China. 

The French supplier has upgraded its second-half guidance on sales, profitability and net cash flow, CEO Patrick Koller said in a statement Friday.

"Our sales in Q3 were better than previously expected. Despite ongoing uncertainty related to the COVID-19, we are now more confident about worldwide automotive production in the second half of the year that should drop only in the mid-single digits vs. the second half of 2019," Koller said in a statement.

Faurecia’s sales fell by 19.7 percent in the first quarter, as coronavirus restrictions first affected its China business, and by 50 percent in the second quarter, as lockdowns spread to Europe and North America.

Koller said sales in September were up 1.2 percent compared with the same month in 2019. He said Faurecia was expe…

Nissan North America is repositioning some senior leaders as the automaker works on a turnaround of the U.S. business.

Two top executives will swap roles as part of the reorganization, Nissan told dealers Thursday in an email obtained by Automotive News. Nissan confirmed the moves, which take effect Nov. 1.

Judy Wheeler, 58, will oversee U.S. sales and be tasked with shoring up the brand's retail operations. In the first nine months, Nissan Division's U.S. sales tumbled 38 percent compared with the same period a year ago.

In her new role as division vice president of sales and regional operations in the U.S., Wheeler will run the field sales organization and lead sales operations, distribution, fleet and certified pre-owned sales.

For Wheeler, the new role is familiar. She was division vice president for U.S. sales before taking her present role as division vice president of Dealer Network Development & Customer Quality in 2018.

David …

WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a review of decade-old pension cuts to some retirees at a former General Motors parts unit.

Trump's memo ordered the head of the Treasury, Commerce and Labor departments to "address" cuts to non-union retiree pension payments within 90 days at Delphi Corp. after the pension plan was turned over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp in 2009.

The cuts impacted about 20,000 salaried retirees, including many in Ohio, a key state in the 2020 presidential election.

Delphi was reorganized after several years of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and company no longer exists under that name. In 2018, it spun off its powertrain business into a new company called Delphi Technologies, which earlier this month was acquired by BorgWarner Inc. The supplier's existing automotive technology business was renamed Aptiv in 2017 and the company retained that name after the spinoff.

FRANKFURT -- Tesla's executive overseeing construction of the electric carmaker's "gigafactory" near Berlin has left his position, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

Tesla declined to comment on whether Evan Horetsky, head of engineering, procurement and construction at the German plant, was still with the company. Horetsky could not be reached for comment.

According to Horetsky's LinkedIn profile, he directed teams leading project design, construction and technical program management across Tesla's global factories and energy products.

German broadcaster RBB was first to report the departure. RBB said there would be no delays in the factory's planning application process as a result of Horetsky leaving.

The Berlin plant will be Tesla's first in Europe. The automaker announced plans last November to build the Gigafactory in Gruenheide, outside Berlin, with plans to have the factory up and running by July  2021 to star…