Trade News

Dealerships have operated at varying capacities amid the coronavirus pandemic, with some locations restricting vehicle sales to online only and others opening showrooms for customers. Regardless, customers spent more time online to execute a car purchase and completed more of the finance and insurance process online than ever before.

Customer adoption of digital tools is contingent on what a dealership offers and also on how they promote those features, said Michelle Denogean, chief marketing officer of digital retailing platform Roadster.

Denogean said she was surprised results of a September study found elements of the vehicle finance transaction, such as F&I product selection and price negotiation, had higher adoption rates than virtual trade-in assessment tools, which have been around longer.

"It is a huge indicator of where we're moving," she said.

In the study that surveyed 320 franchised dealerships and 1,000 recent car buyers, Roadst…

Volkswagen Group's heavy-truck division set a deadline for Navistar International Corp. to accept its takeover bid, dousing hopes for a richer offer than the $3.6 billion dangled last month.

VW’s Traton unit said that its $43-a-share offer expires at 6 p.m. Central European Time Friday and will be withdrawn unless it’s notified of a willingness to proceed. Navistar signaled last month it would seek a higher bid than what Traton offered.

The price “represents our best and final offer,” Traton said in a letter to Navistar’s board of directors. Navistar shares plunged as much as 21 percent to $35, matching Traton’s initial offer made in January. A Navistar spokeswoman said the manufacturer is mulling a response and next steps.

Shares of Navistar closed Wednesday's trading down 19 percent to $36.

“A potential Navistar acquisition appears in jeopardy,” Christopher Ciolino, a Bloomberg Intelligence industrials analyst. “A strategic buyout of Navistar …

Unprecedented times brought on by the coronavirus pandemic called for unprecedented support. As the positive impacts of the stimulus fade, the automotive finance industry — among others — is calling for another round.

The swift actions taken at the onset of the pandemic through the passage of the CARES Act were impactful, if short-lived, in terms of the ongoing crisis. After significant government-facilitated stimulus in March and April, incomes rose for U.S. households even while unemployment levels peaked. Consumers had more money in their pockets; deposits and savings accounts at commercial banks surged $1.6 trillion from the end of February to mid-July, according to Cox Automotive.

Because of the extra cash and government unemployment benefits, auto loan performance has been positive. But without more assistance, auto lenders are concerned about the long-term impacts the virus will have on customers' ability to repay their auto loans.

Jonathan Smok…

Mercedes-Benz will introduce its new EQ subbrand in the U.S. with an electric variant of the S-Class sedan, Daimler CEO Ola Kallenius told Automotive News Wednesday.

Initially, the automaker had planned to launch with the EQC compact crossover.

"We will start and lead with the EQS, that's our strategy for the U.S.," Kallenius said. "We said that for positioning the EQ brand in the U.S., start from the top and then go from there."

It's a noteworthy strategy for the truck-obsessed U.S. market. Light trucks account for 75.5 percent of total vehicle sales in the U.S.

Still, the S-class draws some of the brand's most loyal customers, with 70 percent of owners staying with the nameplate or another Mercedes model, the company says.

The EQS sedan is Mercedes' full-electric rival to the Tesla Model S and is slated to arrive in the U.S. next summer. It will travel more than 700 km (435 miles) on a single charge, based on the WLTP testing cycle.

LOS ANGELES — Acura's fourth-generation MDX arrives in dealerships next year with upscale exterior styling, a modern interior and a performance Type-S variant that will mark a first use of that trim in its crossover lineup.

Acura, which presented a prototype of the redesigned MDX at a virtual event Wednesday, is billing the crossover as the pinnacle of its lineup. The top-end RLX sedan was dropped after the 2020 model year, leaving Acura with five nameplates: the ILX and TLX sedans, the RDX and MDX crossovers and the NSX supercar.

Sales of the three-row crossover have tallied more than 1 million over the last two decades, making it the brand's top-selling model.

"The new MDX marks a turning point for Acura as our new flagship and the most far-reaching effort yet to deliver on our Precision Crafted Performance brand promise," said Jon Ikeda, vice president and Acura brand officer. "We knew we needed to deliver something more emotio…

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…