Trade News

Record-breaking Florida car dealer and philanthropist Rick Case, CEO of Rick Case Automotive Group, died Monday at his home in Fort Lauderdale from complications of cancer. He was 77.

In 1962 at age 19, Case opened his first dealership, a used-car lot named Moxie Motors, in his hometown of Akron, Ohio. In 1966, he opened a Toyota dealership. By age 29, he had amassed a chain of motorcycle stores.

Case was determined to continuously break sales records, according to his family, and he challenged himself by betting on fledgling vehicle brands. He opened some of the first U.S. dealerships for brands such as Toyota, Honda, Acura, Hyundai and Kia. Sales volumes at many of his stores set brand records.

Case and his wife, Rita, moved from Akron to Fort Lauderdale in 1985. They opened one of the country's first Hyundai dealerships. Their Acura dealership was that brand's highest-volume store several years in a row.

Case's empire, now in its 59th year, has…

WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES -- California plans to ban the sale of new gasoline powered passenger cars and trucks starting in 2035 in a dramatic move to shift to EVs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday.

Newsom told a press conference the state was committing to a "firm goal" to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 and was encouraging other states to take similar action.

Newsom's order labeled the elimination of gasoline-powered vehicles a "goal" and a "target" after his office said earlier his order would require the sale of nothing but zero emission passenger vehicle starting in 2035.

The move would be the most significant to date by a U.S. state aimed at ending the use of internal combustion engines for passenger travel.

California is the largest U.S. auto market, accounting for about 11 percent of all U.S. vehicle sales, and many states choose to adopt its green vehicle mandates.

Ne…

Tesla Inc. appeared to suffer a network outage that left owners of its electric cars unable to connect to their vehicles via the company’s mobile app.

People filed hundreds of complaints on the website DownDetector.com saying they can’t use their mobile apps or get through to Tesla’s customer-service lines. One owner said he accidentally locked his keys inside the car and couldn’t open it.

Robert Vogt, a Model S owner from Ann Arbor, Mich., confirmed that his mobile app was down around 11:30 a.m. EDT.

“If you’re unable to unlock your car and drive, that’s a problem,” he said.

Other users tried to bring the issue to the attention of CEO Elon Musk via Twitter.

The company’s stock plunged 10.3 percent to close Wednesday at $380.36 following news about the outage.

Tesla shares already were sinking Wednesday morning after the company’s highly anticipated Battery Day presentation failed to wow Wall Street. Musk laid out a plan to build a $…

Verifying a customer's identity in digital vehicle sales is a leading fraud issue for dealerships during the COVID-19 pandemic. Notary services are one option dealerships have at their disposal to confirm an identity outside the dealership, and experts say these services are increasingly performed virtually.

For most dealerships, there is still an identity check before final delivery, Digital Air Strike COO Erica Siestma told Automotive News. This can be done either in-person at the dealership or through a notary for out-of-state or remote deliveries.

"Even with Carvana there is an ID check so there is no true 'digital transaction' like you may have with buying something from Amazon," she said in an email.

Because several states require certain documents such as car transfers to be notarized, retaining a commissioned notary inside a dealership is not unusual. However, an alternative to the traditional notary method of identification…

Nikola Corp.'s talks with energy firms including BP PLC to build hydrogen-refueling stations have been stalled following a short-seller's allegations that the electric automaker misled investors, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Potential partners have been reluctant to move forward amid the heightened scrutiny, but a deal could still come together, the Journal reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Nikola and BP did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Shares of Nikola plunged 26 to close Wednesday at $21.15. The stock has fallen steadily since it closed at $79.73 on June 3.

In a scathing report two weeks ago, short-seller Hindenburg Research said it had enough evidence to show Nikola and its founder Trevor Milton made false claims about the company's proprietary technology to form partnerships with automakers.

Milton resigned following the allegations but Nikola CFO Kim Brady said Tuesday the comp…

HAMBURG -- German prosecutors said on Wednesday they charged another eight Volkswagen employees over the scandal surrounding cheating on diesel engine emission tests.

The eight are accused of fraud, false certification and violation of the law against unfair competition, the Brunswick prosecutor's office in VW's home state of Lower Saxony said in a statement.

Some are also alleged to be responsible for embezzlement and tax evasion, or for aiding and abetting those crimes.

Volkswagen admitted in September 2015 to having used illegal engine control software to cheat U.S. pollution tests, triggering a global backlash against diesel and costing the carmaker more than $30 billion in fines.

The eight are accused of being involved in the diesel manipulation between November 2006 and September 2015.

They are accused of encouraging, supporting or at least not preventing the installation of illegal software in the engine management system of diesel v…

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said last week that the central bank's benchmark interest rate won't be raised until 2023, but the news won't be much help to car buyers. Rather than a positive note, the move signals a slow economic recovery as the U.S. continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic.

While the fed's interest rate remains near zero, Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke said consumers haven't seen substantially lower rates during the pandemic. As the boom in factory incentives of late March and April faded, rates in auto lending began to climb, Smoke said.

"The data clearly show that these low rates are not accessible to everyone," Smoke wrote in a blog post Sept. 16. "Furthermore, as fiscal stimulus fades while unemployment remains high, loan performance is likely to deteriorate, leading to even further tightening at least in the short term as the economic direction remains uncertain."

Economic act…

Ford Credit is offering payment relief to customers impacted by wildfires in Oregon as well as those recovering after Hurricane Sally, the lender said Tuesday. Qualified customers may delay one or two monthly payments, resuming their regular payment schedules when their situations improve.

Alongside other leading lenders, Ford Credit extended relief earlier this month for customers affected by the Iowa derecho and California fires, as well as those in the path of Hurricane Laura, which made landfall in Louisiana and cycled through Arkansas and Texas.

Hurricane Sally caused massive devastation on the Florida-Alabama state line last week, the Associated Press reported, with 105-mph winds and rainfall that measured in feet rather than inches.

The West Coast continues its battle with wildfires, which have killed at least 21 people and damaged millions of acres in California, Washington and Oregon. As it ripped through the Rogue Valley …

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., the Chinese company whose stable of brands includes Volvo and Lotus, said the underpinnings of a new electric model coming next year will be offered up to other manufacturers.

The architecture Geely developed for the Lynk & Co. Zero Concept unveiled Wednesday is an open-source platform available for other companies to use. Geely is in talks to license the technology to several other manufacturers, including Daimler, according to a Geely spokesperson.

“Our development of this transformative electric-vehicle architecture marks the biggest leap forward at Geely in more than a decade,” Li Shufu, the automaker’s billionaire founder, said in a statement. “This far-reaching innovation will greatly expand the volume and scalability of our zero-emission models.”

While demand for electric vehicles is outpacing cars running on combustion engines, they still represent a small portion of global sales. With batteries still years a…

NEW YORK -- Volkswagen's ID4 battery-powered compact crossover will hit U.S. dealerships late this year with an estimated 250-mile range from its 82-kilowatt-hour battery pack, three years of free charging and a $379-a-month lease price to announce its presence.

The long-awaited U.S. start to VW's $50 billion-plus investment in electrification, the ID4 will go on sale first in California and other zero-emission vehicle states. It will carry a sticker price of $41,190 including shipping but excluding any federal and state incentives.

Sales in 2020 are expected to be limited — VW begins taking $100 reservations today — but they will fulfill a legal obligation that EVs be offered across Volkswagen Group by the end of this year, as part of the German automaker's multibillion settlement of its diesel emissions cheating scandal. However, by mid-2021, the ID4 is expected to be available for purchase or lease across nearly all of VW's 650 U.S. dealerships.

Init…

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk described a new generation of electric vehicle batteries that will be more powerful, longer lasting and half as expensive than the company's current cells at Tesla's Battery Day event Tuesday.

Tesla's new larger cylindrical cells, called 4680, will provide five times more energy, six times more power and 16 percent greater driving range, Musk said.

"We do not have an affordable car. That's something we will have in the future. But we've got to get the cost of batteries down," Musk said.

Musk described planned improvements including changes to electrode materials, as well as improved cell design, production processes and integration into vehicles.

Tesla will produce the new battery cells initially on a new assembly line near its vehicle plant in Fremont, Calif., with planned output reaching 10 gigawatt hours a year by the end of 2021. Tesla and partner Panasonic Corp. now have production capacity of around 35 gigawatt hours…

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will idle its minivan plant in Windsor, Ontario, for three weeks beginning Sept. 28, just as contract talks between the automaker and Unifor are set to kick into high gear.

The shutdown comes after FCA scheduled production on each of the last two Saturdays.

“The Windsor Assembly Plant is planning to adjust its upcoming production schedule to better align with market demand,” FCA Canada spokeswoman LouAnn Gosselin said in a statement. “This includes scheduling down time from Sept. 28 through Oct. 16.

“Normal shift schedules are expected to resume the week of Oct. 19.

“As always, production schedules are subject to change.”   

The decision was made Monday, a day before Unifor reached a tentative three-year collective bargaining agreement with Ford Motor Co. and said FCA would be the next automaker it negotiates with.

When asked specifically, FCA Canada didn’t say whether the decision w…