Trade News

Volvo Cars has named Odgard Andersson CEO of its newly formed autonomous drive software development company, Zenseact, the automaker said Wednesday.

It is Andersson's second big promotion in the last 18 months. The previous one came in May 2019 when she succeeded Atif Rafiq as Volvo's chief digital officer.

Andersson, 48, joined Volvo in 2016 from Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson executive, where she spent 20 years and where her focus was on transforming the telecom industry from hardware to software-oriented development.

Starting next month she takes responsibility for a company formed from the pieces of Volvo and supplier Veoneer's former automotive software joint venture, Zenuity.

Under the terms of the breakup, Zenuity has become a holding company for the intellectual property that the partners co-developed. Zenseact and Veoneer have equal rights to use that technology.

As part of the agreement, Zenseact absorbed 600 of Zenuity'…

The American Financial Services Association's annual Vehicle Finance Conference and Expo will go virtual for 2021, mirroring the decision of the National Automobile Dealers Association this week.

NADA said it plans to move its annual event to February amid uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic. The American Financial Services Association, the national trade association for the consumer credit industry, hosts its event on vehicle financing in the days leading up to the NADA Show.

"We're working with members to identify how best to meet their needs and best respect their time," Dan Bucherer, a spokesman for the financial association, said in an emailed statement. "We're looking at several virtual options in the January/February time frame and later in the spring with in-person or hybrid programming."

The NADA Show, which typically draws tens of thousands of dealers, vendors and others from across the U.S. and other countr…

British electric vehicle startup Arrival said Wednesday it has raised $118 million from U.S. funds manager BlackRock Inc.

Five-year-old Arrival is focused on development of electric commercial vehicles, including vans and buses. It previously had raised $111 million from Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co and sister company Kia Motors Corp., as well as an undisclosed amount from United Parcel Service.

Before the latest funding round, Arrival was valued at $3.3 billion by investor website PitchBook.

Arrival has an order for 10,000 electric delivery vans from UPS, with an option for another 10,000.

It is positioned as a potential rival to U.S. startup Rivian, which is backed by Ford Motor Co. and Amazon, among others, and is building 100,000 electric delivery vans for Amazon.

BlackRock also is backing Rivian.

A deal between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Unifor remained elusive early Wednesday as the 11:59 p.m. ET strike deadline nears, Unifor President Jerry Dias said.

“We’ve got a long ways to go between now and midnight,” Dias told Automotive News Canada.

Negotiations between the two parties, which impact about 8,400 workers in Canada, continued on Wednesday in Toronto. The union has aimed to secure a new product for FCA’s Windsor, Ont., assembly plant and is looking to pattern a new contract with the company off of the one it recently secured with Ford Motor Co., among other goals.

“We’re still arguing with the pattern and there’s a lot of other issues we need to get our hands around. We’ve got major issues in some of the locations that we need to tidy up,” said Dias, who declined to offer specifics.

Should the two sides fail to reach an agreement by the strike deadline, unionized FCA workers in Canada could begin striking.

A strike woul…

WASHINGTON -- Nissan Motor Co's U.S. lending arm agreed Tuesday to pay a $4 million fine to settle a government agency's allegation that it improperly repossessed hundreds of consumers’ vehicles.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said that between 2013 and 2019, Nissan Motor Acceptance Corp., a subsidiary of the automaker's North American unit, "wrongfully repossessed hundreds of consumers' vehicles despite the consumer having made payments" or taken other actions. Nissan must pay up to $1 million to consumers subject to a wrongful repossession.

NMAC said it denied wrongdoing but agreed to settle and takes the agency's "assertions seriously and share their commitment to fair practices for all our customers."es.

NMAC repossessed vehicles from consumers who made payments that decreased delinquency to less than 60 days past due or took other steps that should have prevented repossessions, the bureau said, adding NMAC told consumers it would not rep…

When it arrives at U.S. dealerships next summer, Volkswagen's new 2022 Taos compact crossover will give the brand a second offering in the crowded, popular segment — a model that will be shorter and less expensive than the Tiguan.

The Taos, which will be built in Puebla, Mexico, is based on the same MQB modular global architecture as the Tiguan, and it will share a number of the same components.

At 9.3 inches shorter in length than the long-wheelbase Tiguan sold in the U.S., which has available third-row seating — the shorter version is not sold here — the Taos will help bring new entry-level crossover customers to the brand, Volkswagen believes.

"A number of our key competitors do have two or more compact [crossovers] in the market. They're making good volumes with that sort of setup, so we're very confident that we're adding volume, we're adding performance here by bringing the Taos in alongside the Tiguan," said Duncan Movassagh…

DETROIT -- General Motors appealed the dismissal of its racketeering lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, claiming that a lower court’s decision to dismiss it was “patently wrong” and that its refusal to allow GM to include an amended complaint with additional allegations against FCA was “an abuse of discretion.”

GM requested an oral argument in Tuesday’s filing.

“Both the Supreme Court and this Court have made crystal clear that RICO’s proximate cause standard is readily satisfied when, as alleged here, a defendant uses a third party as a vehicle for intentionally inflicting injury on the plaintiff,” the automaker said in the filing. “And it should go without saying that a court cannot dismiss a complaint that plausibly pleads a viable legal claim simply because it is more inclined to believe the defendant’s story.”

U.S. District Judge Paul Borman denied GM’s motion to revive the case in August…

DETROIT — New CEO Jim Farley has already instituted a number of changes in his first weeks leading Ford Motor Co.

One thing that won't change? His weekend pastime.

Farley, 58, said Tuesday during an interview with SalesForce that he won't stop racing now that he's reached the top job. Oftentimes, key executives are asked to curtail certain activities that can be perceived as dangerous, but Farley said Executive Chairman Bill Ford made the allowance shortly after he was offered the promotion.

"It was probably the second conversation we had after we had talked about this leadership opportunity," Farley said. "I said, 'You know, Bill, I can't just stop racing. It's just who I am. It's my yoga. You've got to let me do this if I'm going to be a better CEO.' He was very supportive."

A number of top auto executives enjoy the sport, including General Motors President Mark Reuss and Toyota President Akio Toyoda.

Farley races a 1966 Ford GT40 as we…

Negotiations between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Unifor were progressing slowly over the weekend as Wednesday night’s strike deadline approached, according to the union.

The two sides were “not quite where we feel we should be with this limited amount of time left on the clock,” according to a Monday Facebook post by Unifor Local 444, which represents workers at FCA’s Windsor, Ontario, assembly plant. “We have given our Strike committee the nod to be READY if we cannot come to a tentative agreement with FCA.”

Unifor seeks a new product to build at the Windsor plant alongside the minivans already produced there, in addition to clarity on the future of FCA’s Brampton, Ontario, assembly plant. A strike deadline is set for Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. EDT. The talks affect more than 8,400 hourly workers at FCA’s Canadian operations.

FCA Canada spokeswoman LouAnn Gosselin declined to comment on the talks beyond a statement previously issued at the start of bar…

Daimler and BMW are exploring a sale of their jointly-owned parking app business Park Now, according to people familiar with the matter, as the German luxury automakers focus on their core automotive operations.

The companies are working with advisory firm Rothschild & Co. on the potential divestment, said the people, who asked not to be identified because discussions are private. Park Now is expected to fetch several hundred million dollars, they said.

Daimler and BMW merged their mobility operations last year and folded them into a joint venture called Your Now, which has five business segments including the parking operations. Their Free Now ride-hailing service has attracted interest from Uber Technologies Inc., people familiar with the matter said last month.

The potential disposals reflect Daimler and BMW’s focus on generating cash and improving efficiency within their core automotive operations. Carmakers have been scaling back their mobilit…

Tesla Inc. has cut the price of its Model S "Long Range" sedan by 4 percent in the United States, days after the electric vehicle maker reported record quarterly deliveries.

The company, which is expected to report third-quarter results on Oct. 21, cut the price to $71,990 from $74,990 in the United States. It also trimmed the starting price of the Model S by 3 percent in China.

Earlier this month, Tesla cut the starting price of its Chinese-made Model 3 sedans by about 8 percent to 249,900 yuan ($36,805).

The electric carmaker has been trimming prices on various models in its lineup at the same time legacy automakers are trying to make inroads in the electric vehicle market by launching their own electric cars.

Tesla said it delivered 139,300 vehicles in the third quarter, an all-time record, yet shares fell as some analysts doubted if Tesla could hit its ambitious year-end target.

Last week CEO Elon Musk told employees that Tesla has a …