Trade News

DETROIT — General Motors has told most of its U.S. salaried employees that they should continue working remotely through June 2021, stretching their work-from-home setup to as long as 15 months.

A "significant number" of employees have returned to their offices safely on a full-time or part-time basis, but the majority of GM's salaried workforce in the U.S. is still working remotely, spokesman David Caldwell said.

GM joins other large companies, including Amazon, Google and crosstown rival Ford Motor Co., in allowing employees to work remotely into next year during the coronavirus pandemic. Instead of instructing more employees to return to their offices soon, GM said its salaried employees will continue to work as they are either remotely or on-site.

"Our current outlook in the U.S. is to continue operating as we are today until June 30, 2021. During this period, we're listening to feedback and working on the elements of a more flexible work culture," C…

MEXICO CITY -- Volkswagen Group said late Monday it had severed ties with a distributor in Mexico City after a Twitter user posted photographs taken at the business showing a wall decorated with an image of a Nazi celebration of the Beetle car.

In a statement, Volkswagen's Mexico unit condemned the images from the salesroom in the southern neighborhood of Coyoacan and stressed its commitment to upholding human dignity.

"We strongly disapprove of (the distributor) showing those images at its facilities, which showed a regime that emphasized hatred and discrimination at a point in history that has fortunately been left behind," Volkswagen said.

The dealership could not immediately be reached for comment.

Initially founded in the 1930s on orders by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler to build the "people's car", Volkswagen employed forced laborers for the German military effort in World War Two.

The automaker's decision on the Mexican distributor came …

Most of the money spent on hydrogen fuel cells has been aimed at reducing the precious metal content, such as platinum, to lower the cost of the electricity-producing device. Automakers have made massive progress in that regard, as well as in reducing the size of the fuel cell stack.

But there is one part of the fuel cell that no automaker company ever talks about: high-volume production. That's because most of the fuel cells built for automobiles today are hand-made by technicians.

As of 2018, Toyota was building about seven Mirai fuel cell vehicles per day, all by hand.

The news Tuesday of General Motors' deal with startup truckmaker Nikola provided no details about the technology GM plans to embrace to crank out fuel cell stacks quickly and with zero defects. The stack, you will recall, contains membranes and thin metal plates, and much like the cells in a battery pack, the more the cells are stacked in a fuel cell, the more elect…

Tesla Inc. shares slid on Tuesday after the EV maker missed out on being included in the S&P 500 Index, taking investors who had bet on its entry to the benchmark by surprise.

Tesla shares closed Tuesday's trading down 21 percent to $330.21, the biggest one-day loss since early February. Declines started premarket and worsened as General Motors said it would take a $2 billion equity stake in Nikola Corp. and partner with the fledgling truck maker to engineer and manufacture its Badger pickup.

Broader markets also fell across the board.

Ahead of the S&P’s Friday announcement, Tesla’s price had largely reflected the assumed inclusion, said Baird analyst Ben Kallo, who called the decision “a relatively surprising development.” Instead of Elon Musk’s Tesla, S&P Dow Jones Indices added online retailer Etsy Inc., chip gear maker Teradyne Inc. and medical technology firm Catalent Inc.

“We think shares were reflecting expectations for substant…

Jeep, with an eye on profits and prestige, is resurrecting the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer. The big luxury SUVs, among Jeep's most storied nameplates, have remained in the hearts of collectors and enthusiasts since they were dropped several decades ago. Jeep is previewing its plans with the Grand Wagoneer concept, ahead of a new production model coming in 2021. The Grand Wagoneer flagship is widely expected to exceed $100,000 in top trims. We've rounded up some early reviews of the concept from automotive journalists.

"The return of the Wagoneer will give the brand a model to position above the Grand Cherokee and to compete with the full-sized models from Ford and General Motors. It will be based on the Ram pickup truck, but it will have an independent rear suspension like its domestic competitors. The new design nods at the original, with rather flat sides, simple window designs, and a front fascia that slants forward. The wheel arches and grille borrow fr…

Joining the cadre of ultraluxury and exotic SUVs this year is the Aston Martin DBX. Aston's first SUV is powered by a 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V-8 engine making 542 hp and 516 pound-feet of torque and has all-wheel drive. The first DBX rolled off the automaker's production line in Wales in July. Here's a batch of initial DBX reviews from the automotive media.

"While drifting and off-roading the DBX is good fun, the real test begins when we take it on a 300-mile tour of some of England's best roads. The drive, you will not be surprised to hear, is conducted in traditional British rain. The V-8 actually impresses more when asked to do less, its effortless muscularity and keen low-rev response is well-suited for relaxed cruising. Refinement is good, markedly better than in Aston's traditional sports cars, and although the DBX's cabin lacks the sepulchral hush of something like a Rolls-Royce Cullinan or Mercedes GLS in the softest GT setting, the air springs allow for…

Volkswagen is teasing the first images of its new subcompact crossover, set to debut next month, that is based on a South American vehicle. It will be assembled in Mexico and slot both in price and size below the popular Tiguan.

The name of the vehicle has not yet been officially revealed, though it is expected to start with a T and be more familiar to American ears than the names of some of VW's previous crossovers.

It is based on the Volkswagen Tarok, a subcompact crossover designed for South American markets, VW executives have said. The development lineage, along with planned production in Mexico, will allow the brand to keep costs down, VW executives say.

"We're excited to share the first glimpse of the newest member of the Volkswagen family," Scott Keogh, CEO of Volkswagen of America, said in a statement. "Great things come in small packages, as Volkswagen has proven throughout the years with its iconic Beetle, Golf and Jetta.…

I wanted to share a couple of notes during this short holiday week:

First, nearly two-thirds of vehicle transactions in June were at least partially digital, according to franchised dealers surveyed for Cox Automotive's third-quarter Dealer Sentiment Index, released this week.

In the bulk of those June transactions, 51 percent, the customer handled at least some portion of the purchase online, according to data from Jonathan Smoke, Cox's chief economist. Eleven percent were completely digital. Smoke said the survey didn't specify what constituted a completely digital transaction — states generally still require wet signatures to complete a purchase, for example — but added that dealers likely interpreted a completely digital transaction as one in which most of the process is handled online.

The survey's findings come in the wake of franchised dealers this spring accelerating their shift toward digital retailing, particularly in states that prohibited sho…

TOKYO – Nissan COO Ashwani Gupta, the executive leading Nissan's global revival plan, will personally oversee North America as chairman of a new five-member regional board created to ensure the U.S. market regains its central role as a pillar of profitability for the carmaker.

The new North America board of directors will have its first meeting in the third week of September, after a regional gathering of U.S. dealers, Gupta said in a Monday interview.

It was not immediately clear when the appointments are effective.

Other board members will be Jeremie Papin, who was appointed North America's vice chairman in May, and Christian Vandenhende, the parent company's chief quality officer and vice chief performance officer. Another director will be a Chris Reed, senior vice president for R&D at the Nissan Technical Center. The fifth member will be an outside director.

"I will make sure NNA is getting all the resources and the support it needs to exe…