Trade News

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…

A time of crisis can be a time to make changes. They can range from perfecting the basics – such as the service drive walkaround – to investing in technology that will improve performance for years to come.

Speakers:Peter Chung, General Manager and Vice President, Magic ToyotaFred Fordin, Vice President, Dealer Professional Services and Escalations, CDK GlobalScott Gregg, Service Director, Tucson SubaruRick Wegley, Institute Instructor, NCM Associates Inc.Dave Versical, Chief of Editorial Operations, Automotive News

This conversation was originally broadcast on October 22, 2020, as the third of five conversations in the Fixed Ops Journal Forum series. The series runs through November 5. Learn more and register for future broadcasts here.

Mexican supplier Nemak swung to net income of $90 million in the third quarter from a $2 million loss a year ago as cost reductions took hold and automakers reopened plants after temporary closures due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Revenue declined 7 percent to $896 million from the year-ago quarter while earnings before interest, taxes and other adjustments rose 28 percent to $178 million.

"During the third quarter, we continued to implement measures to safeguard the well-being of our people and meet our customers' supply needs amidst the pandemic, while driving additional efficiencies to strengthen the long-term sustainability of our business," CEO Armando Tamez said in a statement.

In a call with analysts and media, Tamez credited Nemak's growth to leaner operations, restructuring efforts and a focus on deleveraging.

In North America, revenue fell 11.5 percent to $491 million, while EBITDA in the region was up 15.4 percent to $105 million. Europ…

Toyota and Lexus production is nearly back to where it was a year ago, top Toyota Motor North America executives said Thursday, adding that they expect a continuing recovery for the industry to yield 14.5 million U.S. sales this year.

That result would still be down from 17.1 million U.S. light-vehicle deliveries in 2019, but significantly above the levels of this past spring during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Sales cratered to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 8.7 million in April and have climbed every month since, according to Motor Intelligence.

Speaking via teleconference from the company's headquarters in Plano, Texas, Chris Reynolds, Toyota Motor North America's head of manufacturing, said North American production had increased to 93.7 percent of capacity by the end of September. That compares with 95.9 percent at the same point a year earlier.

"Many of our plants have been working overtime and Saturdays to help meet strong custom…

Continental is exploring a sale of its turbocharger unit as the German supplier conducts a major restructuring to stem losses, according to people familiar with the matter.

Europe’s second-largest car-parts supplier is working with Citigroup Inc. on the disposal, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. The business is no longer seen as strategically important and lacks the scale required to compete globally, one of the people said.

Talks with potential buyers are ongoing and there’s no certainty they will result in a sale. Representatives for Continental and Citigroup declined to comment.

Turbochargers were for years a popular way for automakers to shrink their engines and make them more efficient. But stricter auto-emissions standards are now forcing companies to embrace electrification, limiting the growth potential for turbos. Garrett Motion Inc., one of the top suppliers of the components along with BorgWarne…

NHTSA said Thursday it was closely watching Tesla Inc's release of a software version intended to allow its cars to drive themselves, saying it stood ready to protect the public against safety risks.

Tesla on Tuesday night released a beta, or test version, of what it calls a "Full Self Driving" software upgrade to an undisclosed number of "expert, careful" drivers. The release prompted online posts by excited recipients who shared video snippets of their car driving supposedly autonomously on city streets at night.

During a Tesla earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Elon Musk said the latest upgrade was planned to be widely released by the end of this year, with the system becoming more robust as it collected more data.

"NHTSA has been briefed on Tesla’s new feature, which represents an expansion of its existing driver assistance system. The agency will monitor the new technology closely and will not hesitate to take action to protect (the) public against unr…

Musk's Boring Co. seeks expansion of Las Vegas tunnel project

Elon Musk is expanding his Sin City ambitions.

The Tesla CEO's Boring Co., which is months away from opening two tunnels that will transport passengers under the massive Las Vegas Convention Center at up to 155 mph, has applied for a special-use permit to spread the tunnel system across Las Vegas.

Boring's $52 million Convention Center Loop is scheduled to be finished in January. The tunnels are expected to speed convention center guests across the 200-acre campus in less than two minutes in modified, autonomous Tesla electric vehicles.

Boring marked the end of excavation in May, breaking through a concrete wall near the center's 1.4 million-square-foot West Hall expansion. This week, a video emerged on Twitter that appears to show the first vehicles entering the tunnel system.

Now Boring is proposing to extend service from the convention center to casinos along the Strip, as w…

Big achievements require big investments, and according to research firm PitchBook, autonomous vehicle (AV) startups spend $1.6M every month on average. 

The lion’s share of that cost goes into testing and the infrastructure needed to support it. A single real-world autonomous prototype vehicle, outfitted with sensors and data recording gear, can cost up to $500,000. The cost of processing and storing all the data generated isn’t too far behind.

In 2017 carmakers and tech companies alike, such as GM, Hyundai, Volkswagen, and Waymo, were predicting self-driving cars would arrive by 2020, and spending big to make it happen. From August of 2014 to June of that year, automakers and tech companies invested $80B in AV technology according to a study by the Brookings Institution.

Only a year later, accidents involving self-driving prototypes seemed to cause developers to lose momentum. At the same time, the technical challenges required for Level 5 autono…

NEW YORK -- CarLotz Inc., a U.S. consignment store for used vehicles, is nearing a deal to go public through a merger with blank-check acquisition company Acamar Partners Acquisition Corp. at a valuation of close to $830 million, including debt, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

The deal would make CarLotz the third major U.S. online car seller to go public this year, following in the trails of Vroom Inc. and Shift Technologies Inc., as online vehicle sales boom during the coronavirus pandemic powered by consumers seeking to practice social distancing.

An agreement could be announced as soon as Thursday, the sources said, requesting anonymity because the matter is confidential. CarLotz and Acamar declined to comment.

Richmond, Va.-based CarLotz, which was founded in 2011, operates a consignment platform that splits profits from vehicle sales with the car owners. This business model differs from those of Vroom and Shift, which buy…