Trade News

American Honda is leaving the “Wonder Years” for the wrestling ring. WWE star and actor John Cena is replacing Fred Savage as the new voice of the brand in a major marketing pivot aimed at giving its ads a more rugged tone.

The switch -- which begins Friday with a new ad from longtime Honda agency RPA -- comes as the automaker tries to boost its crossover and pickup truck sales. Trucks, vans and SUVs will account for 76 percent of U.S. auto sales this year, according to consultancy AlixPartners. But Honda’s sales are still about 50 percent cars and 50 percent trucks and SUVs/crossovers, according to Ed Beadle, Honda’s assistant vice president for integrated marketing.

“We would like to keep those sedan buyers but grow that proportion of SUVs,” he says.

Click here for Honda's Future Product pipeline from Automotive News.

Savage, forever linked to the TV show “Wonder Years” that ended its run in 1993, had been voicing Honda’s ads since 2014. He was…

Tesla Inc.’s new factory in Austin, Texas, won’t build only the Cybertruck: State filings suggest the company also plans to make batteries on site as part of an ambitious strategy to further integrate its supply chain.

“The facility is proposing to operate a cell-manufacturing unit to produce the battery packs that are installed in the vehicle,” says an 188-page air-quality permit application filed with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The documents Bloomberg reviewed were filed between July and September.

CEO Elon Musk announced during the electric-car manufacturer’s quarterly earnings call in July that Tesla had chosen Austin as the site of its next plant. In addition to building the Cybertruck, Semi and Roadster, all of which are still in development, the company’s second U.S. assembly factory -- after its flagship plant in Fremont, Calif. -- also will make the Model Y crossover for East Coast customers.

The environmental permit applica…

A draft budget law weaving its way through France’s parliament may force car shoppers to reconsider purchases of Porsche, Ferrari or Lamborghini models with low gas mileage.

The government in Europe’s second-largest auto market after Germany is planning to more than double the “malus” -- or penalty -- consumers must pay based on cars’ carbon-dioxide emissions to as much as 50,000 euros ($59,000) in 2022.

The proposal would increase what already are the continent’s costliest taxes on polluting passenger vehicles.

“This would be relatively bad news for supercars, luxury and exclusive vehicles, and a show stopper for foreign imported cars,” said Felipe Munoz, an analyst at auto-market researcher JATO Dynamics.

Governments around the globe are taking a range of approaches to hastening the demise of the internal-combustion engine. California announced plans recently to ban sales of new ICE vehicles by 2035. China’s government has poured upwards of $30…

Interior supplier Yanfeng has revealed its next step in its effort to attack germs including COVID-19 inside cars.

The China-based company's Experience in Motion 2021 Shared (XiM21S) concept, which is due early next year, will include two ways to battle bugs, Yanfeng Technology Chief Technology Officer Han Hendriks told Automotive News Europe.

The first solution is applying anti-bacterial coatings to kill germs on high-touch areas such as handles.

The second employs an ultraviolet light feature first shown in the XiM20 concept and reported on by ANE last autumn.

"We have launched a technology that uses UVC (ultraviolet-C) light, which has the spectrum that can actually kill 99.9 percent of all bacteria and viruses, including the COVID-19 virus, within a matter of minutes," Hendriks said.

"This is not a light technology that we have invented," the CTO said. "It's being used to clean hospital operating rooms. But we have developed a solution whe…

Dealers face a number of service department challenges beyond the pandemic, including declining rates of customer retention and satisfaction. But there are solutions out there.

Speakers:

Eliza Johnson, Director, Carlisle & CompanyScott Doering, Vice President of Customer Service, Volvo Car USANick Latino, COO, Performance Auto GroupDawn Matthews, Service and Parts Director, David Auto GroupScott Thompson, Senior Vice President, Business Leader, CRM and Layered Applications, CDK GlobalDave Versical, Chief of Editorial Operations, Automotive News

This conversation was originally broadcast on October 8, 2020, as the first of five conversations in the Fixed Ops Journal Forum series.

Amazon and Rivian revealed a custom electric delivery van onThursday that is set to hit the road next year.

The new EV is in line with Amazon's commitment to be net zero carbon by 2040 through the Climate Pledge.

The vehicles will begin delivering packages in 2021, and 10,000 electric delivery vans will be manufactured by 2022, Amazon said in a blog post. By 2030, 100,000 electric delivery vans will be in commission. The vehicles will be manufactured at Rivian's plant in Normal, Ill., according to an Amazon spokeswoman.

"When we set out to create our first customized electric delivery vehicle with Rivian, we knew that it needed to far surpass any other delivery vehicle," Ross Rachey, director of global fleet and products for Amazon, said in a statement.

"We wanted drivers to love using it and customers to feel excited when they saw it driving through their neighborhood and pulling up to their home. We combined Rivian's technology with our de…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. informed U.S. salaried employees Thursday that most of them will continue working remotely through June amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The move comes roughly a month after General Motors announced a similar decision.

"The health and safety of our workforce continues to be our top priority," the automaker said in a statement. "With careful consideration of the current environment including local and state requirements, as well as ongoing planning for our work spaces, we have extended the current work arrangement for our North America team working remotely to continue through June."

Most Ford salaried employees have been working from home since mid-March. Ford in recent months has called them in to gather office belongings so it can begin to reconfigure workspaces.

Ford had previously said its work-from-home plans would extend through the end of the year, but executives hinted they would be expanded.

Human Horizons, the electric vehicle startup created by two former executives at General Motors’ joint venture with SAIC Motor Corp., used the Beijing auto show to formally introduce its first model. 

The HiPhil X is being positioned as a sporty electric SUV under the premium brand for connected EVs. 

The EV offers two variants – a four-seat version priced at 800,000 yuan ($117,820) and a six-seater that retails for 680,000 yuan -- according to Human Horizons. 

It is 5,200 mm long, 2,062 mm wide and 1,618 mm tall, with a wheelbase of 3,150 mm. 

Powered by 220-kilowatt front and rear dual electric motors and a 97-kilowatt-hour battery pack, the HiPhil X has a range of 630 kilometers on one charge under NEDC standards. 

The vehicle also features Level 4 autonomous valet parking, a 5G-V2X communication network, artificial intelligence-enabled voice control functions and facial-recognition entry.

Human Horizons …

Sales at three Chinese electric vehicle startups – Nio, XPeng and Li Auto – continue to rise as the country moves beyond the crippling effects of the coronavirus outbreak.

Nio’s September deliveries advanced for the seventh straight month, soaring 133 percent to 4,708, the company said this week. 

The number includes 1,482 ES8 SUVs, 3,210 ES6 crossovers and 16 EC6 coupe-like crossovers, according to the company. Deliveries of the EC6 began on Sept. 25.

In the first three quarters, Nio’s cumulative sales reached 26,375, a surge of 114 percent from the same period last year.

Last month, deliveries at XPeng soared 145 percent to 3,478. The tally comprises 2,573 P7s and 905 of the company’s first model, the G3 crossover.

XPeng’s second product, the P7 sedan, went on sale in late June. 

Through September, sales at XPeng rose 9.7 percent to 14,077. 

Li Auto launched sales of its first and only product, the Li One SUV…

Sales gains at Geely Automobile Holdings, China’s largest domestic passenger vehicle maker, continue to accelerate after starting to rebound in April in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

Geely’s September deliveries rose 11 percent to 126,365, the Hong Kong-listed company said Thursday. 

The sales growth continues to be driven by its new premium brand, Lynk & CO, as well as exports.

In September, demand for Lynk & CO’s lineup -- four crossovers and one sedan -- jumped 38 percent to 18,745. 

Geely exports more than doubled to 8,068 during the month. 

Because of a 44 percent plunge in first-quarter deliveries, at the height of the pandemic, Geely’s total sales through September dropped 9 percent from a year earlier to 875,472. 

Given the strong recovery in recent months, Geely has maintained a goal of hiking annual sales by 3.5 percent to 1.41 million in 2020. 

Because of China’s Nationa…

Sales at Lincoln grew for the fifth-straight month in September on demand for the brand’s first two locally produced models. 

China deliveries at Ford Motor Co.’s luxury brand surged 75 percent to a monthly record of more than 7,300, Lincoln said this week via its local social media channels. 

Volume was mainly generated by the Corsair and Aviator crossovers assembled at Ford’s joint venture with state-owned automaker Changan Automobile Co.

In September, sales of the Corsair, which went on sale in March with a starting price of 246,800 yuan ($36,348), exceeded 4,000. 

Deliveries of the Aviator, which went on sale in July starting at 509,800 yuan, surpassed 1,400 in the month.

Lincoln didn’t disclose China sales of imported products in September or year to date. 

The next Lincoln model to be built in China will be the Nautilus crossover, according to documents Ford submitted this year to the Ministry of Industry a…

SEATTLE/WASHINGTON -- Virgin Hyperloop has picked West Virginia to host a $500 million certification center and test track for billionaire Richard Branson’s super high-speed travel system.

The center will be the first U.S. regulatory proving ground for a hyperloop system designed to whisk floating pods packed with passengers and cargo through vacuum tubes at 600 mph or faster.

Branson announced the decision in a press conference on Thursday, joined virtually by U.S. Transportation Department Secretary Elaine Chao, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, and U.S. Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.

“Today we lay the foundation for commercial deployment and operations across the United States of America and beyond,” the company’s CEO Jay Walder told reporters.

In a hyperloop system, which uses magnetic levitation to allow near-silent travel, a trip between New York and Washington would take just 30 minutes. That would be twice as …