Trade News

High-flying shares of Tesla Inc. surged again on Monday after its stock split took effect and attracted more buying from investors.

Tesla shares rallied another 10 percent, elevating the EV market capitalization to over $440 billion, making it more valuable than blue-chip companies such as Walmart and Johnson & Johnson.

Tesla split its stock 5-for-1, joining Apple's 4-for-1 split on Monday, with both companies saying they aimed to make their shares more affordable to individual investors. Apple and Tesla's share splits applied to shareholders of record on Aug. 24.

Robinhood and other brokerages increasingly let customers buy fractions of individual shares, making the benefit of stock splits less obvious than in the past. Splits have become less common. Just three S&P 500 members announced splits in 2020, down from 12 in 2011, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.

The success of the splits for Apple and Tesla could lead CEOs of other comp…

CLEVELAND -- Carvana Co., an online platform for buying and selling used cars, expects to create 400 full-time positions near Cleveland at a new inspection, reconditioning and distribution facility that has been approved for a state tax credit.

The Ohio Tax Credit Authority on Monday approved an eight-year, 1.4 percent tax credit to Tempe, Ariz.-based Carvana for a project that the state said would create $13.3 million in new annual payroll. As part of the tax credit agreement, the authority requires the company to maintain operations at the project location for at least 11 years. The authority said in a project overview that Carvana's fixed asset investment would go toward "building and land costs, along with new machinery and equipment."

An authority spokeswoman wrote in an email that the estimated value of the tax credit for Carvana is $1.345 million. The actual value of the tax credit is based on jobs created and new payroll tax generated, as verified by th…

Shiloh Industries Inc. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will be part of a stalking horse agreement auction and sale process.

Shiloh, primarily a supplier of lightweighting, noise and vibration products, has entered into a stock-and-asset purchase agreement with Grouper Holdings, a subsidiary of private equity firm MiddleGround Capital, the supplier said Sunday in a statement.

A stalking horse agreement sets the minimum acceptable bid for a sale of a bankrupt company and is arranged in advance of an auction in an attempt to maximize the value of its assets.

Through the agreement, Grouper is acquiring all of Shiloh's assets. This includes the equity interests of Shiloh's direct and indirect subsidiaries for a total consideration of $218 million in cash.

The Ohio-based supplier has also received a commitment of $123.5 million in debtor-in-possession financing from existing lenders, consisting of $23.5 million new money subfacility and a roll-u…

Nio Inc. boosted the size of its capital raising by almost 20 percent as investors rush stock sales by EV makers.

The U.S.-listed, Shanghai-based firm sold 88.5 million American depositary receipts at $17 apiece, according to an emailed statement Monday. It initially planned to sell only 75 million shares.

The some $1.5 billion raised in Nio’s latest offer will be partly used to increase the company’s interest in Nio China. Funds will also be spent on R&D into autonomous driving technologies as well as other general corporate purposes.

Investors are showing an increased interest in clean-energy car companies. Stock in Tesla Inc. has surged this year, making founder Elon Musk a centibillionaire with a net worth of $104 billion. Li Auto Inc., another Chinese EV maker, raised $1.1 billion in late July while XPeng Inc. had a stellar debut last week.

Nio’s once-shaky financial position is looking stronger. Earlier this year, it got a $1 billion inv…

TOKYO -- Mitsubishi Motors' former Chairman, Osamu Masuko, died from "cardiac insufficiency" on Aug. 27, the Japanese automaker said in a statement on Monday. He was 71.

Masuko, a veteran of the Mitsubishi conglomerate, had just weeks after he resigned as chairman, citing health reasons for his decision to step down.

Masuko joined Mitsubishi Motors in 2004 and became president in 2007. He oversaw the creation of the partnership between Mitsubishi and Nissan.

Mitsubishi Motors said he died on Aug. 27.

"He built solid relationships with the management of partners, the Alliance companies and the Mitsubishi Group through good communications by leveraging his personality and extensive connections," the company said.

The former chairman's death comes as the alliance between Mitsubishi, Nissan and French automaker Renault SA struggles to regain profitability in the aftermath of the ouster of former alliance chairman Carlos Ghosn.

Masuko was…

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New jobs, new chances to make a mark

In 2007, on his first day at Hyundai, marketing boss Joel Ewanick fired the ad agency that had previously employed him.

Last year, on his first day as Daimler CEO, Ola Källenius laid out a 20-year vision for building a carbon-free — and profitable — business.

This first week of September will mark a number of chances for executives to make strong opening moves in new positions. Among them:

The ever-optimistic Jack Hollis takes over as Toyota's senior vice president of automotive operations on Tuesday. He succeeds Bill Fay, who is retiring after 38 years at the automaker.

In Monday's issue of Automo…

The venture capital firm’s managing director discusses ground transportation opportunities, SPAC ‘mania,’ ‘Zoom dating’ and lessons learned from the rise of Lyft and the fall of Better Place.

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NAGOYA, Japan — If things had gone according to plan, a cavalcade of Toyota vehicles would have rumbled into Tokyo this month, heralding the 2020 Summer Olympics and wrapping up an unprecedented seven-year, five-continent endurance drive by the country's flagship automaker.

Instead, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, forcing the cancellation not only of the Summer Games but also of Toyota's so-called Five Continents Drive in its highly anticipated home stretch.

It was an especially bitter pill for Toyota because, as a top sponsor of the Olympics, this was supposed to be its year to shine on the world stage. Toyota Motor Corp. had a lineup of robots, electric vehicles and other gizmos to showcase, and the conclusion of the global drive would be their drumroll.

"It's a real pity," said Hiroshi Yokoyama, group manager of brand management at Toyota's Gazoo Racing Co., the motorsports unit that oversaw the drive program. "But because of …

The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed the pivotal vehicle in McLaren Automotive's transition to a 100 percent electrified portfolio, but the British exotic automaker's future product plans are now coming into clearer focus.

Last week, McLaren released details of its newest vehicle architecture, which, in a different direction for the brand, has been specifically developed to accommodate hybrid powertrains. It's still a central monocoque carbon-fiber tub, the key component that the automaker builds its supercars around. But McLaren's previous two hybrids, the P1 and the Speedtail, have not been on dedicated hybrid platforms.

The upcoming vehicle, code-named P16, will feature a plug-in hybrid powertrain and have an electric range of roughly 19 miles, with a charge time of three to four hours, McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt told Automotive News last week. The electric motor sits between the engine and the gearbox, Flewitt said, but he declined to say which …

Volkswagen of America executives are still working with their German counterparts to lock up sufficient allocation of the ID4 — VW's new Tiguan-size battery-electric crossover — from the single German plant supplying Europe and North America.

Some 99 percent of Volkswagen's 650 U.S. dealers have signed up to sell the ID4 when it goes on sale late this year. VW is under some pressure to get the vehicle in U.S. dealerships — at least those in zero-emission vehicle states — by the end of 2020 to fully comply with the terms of its multibillion-dollar settlement over its 2015 diesel- emissions scandal. The BEV is to be revealed globally on Sept. 23 and will be available in all but a handful of U.S. dealerships next year.

"The factory [in Zwickau, Germany] is ramping up hard" since the start of production this month, said Duncan Movassaghi, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Volkswagen of America. "We believe that the demand for the …