Trade News

BEIJING -- China's top pickup truck maker Great Wall Motor Co. said Friday it posted a 24.5 percent drop in first-half profit as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world's biggest auto market.

The Baoding-based company, which has a joint venture with German luxury automaker BMW, said in a stock exchange filing it recorded a 1.15 billion yuan ($168 million) net profit in the first half, down from a 1.52 billion yuan profit a year earlier.

Revenue for the first half fell 13 percent to 35.93 billion yuan ($5.2 billion).

China's overall auto sales are slowly recovering from a virus-blighted start to the year. Sales in July rose for a fourth consecutive month yet are still down 12.7 percent year to date.

Great Wall sold almost 400,000 vehicles in the first six months this year, down 13 percent from a year earlier.

Its sales of pickup trucks surged 38 percent due to new P-series models while utility vehicle sales tumbled 20 percent.

Great Wall …

BOSTON -- A federal judge on Friday expressed doubt about arguments by two Massachusetts men seeking to avoid extradition to Japan to face charges they helped former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn flee the country.

U.S. Army Special Forces veteran Michael Taylor and his son, Peter Taylor, were arrested in May at Japan's request, after being accused of smuggling Ghosn out of Japan in a box on a private jet so he could escape to Lebanon.

Ghosn fled in December while awaiting trial on charges of financial misconduct, including by understating his compensation in Nissan's financial statements. Ghosn denies wrongdoing.

The Taylors' lawyer, Abbe Lowell, during a virtual hearing told U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald Cabell in Boston that Japanese prosecutors put forth a biased interpretation of their laws to justify bringing flawed charges against the two men.

Lowell said Japan's penal code does not make it a crime to help someone "bail jump," and th…

Hyundai enlists hybrid fleet in COVID-19 fight

Los Angeles may be known as the City of Angels, but sometimes it's the front-line heroes themselves who need assistance. Hyundai Motor Group has launched an initiative to provide it.

MoceanLab, the group's mobility service venture, has made a fleet of six Hyundai and Kia hybrids available to local organizations through its LA Heroes Fleet program. It's one of several initiatives Hyundai Motor has launched to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

One beneficiary of the program is the Street Medicine Team at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine.

According to the team's website, street medicine is a form of health and social services for unsheltered homeless populations that includes providing on-site health care and other forms of assistance, such as shoveling snow off a person's tent. The vehicles will allow the team to provide "a full spectrum of services, including COVID-19 t…

Hyundai Motor Co.’s U.S. plant is running flat out to meet demand for crossovers, and the company’s top North American executive says it will need to consider expanding production capacity if that continues.

The South Korean automaker was slow to transform its lineup to meet Americans’ penchant for utility vehicles but now is capitalizing on a rebound in showroom traffic following pandemic-related U.S. shutdowns. Crossovers were 67 percent of U.S. retail sales in July, thanks to the Tucson and Palisade models, according to Jose Munoz, Hyundai’s CEO of North America. That surpasses the company’s 2023 goal of 63 percent, he said in a phone interview.

“I’m very confident that we will be able to maintain at least 60 percent,” Munoz said, “and perhaps even more.” Even when competitors have a good supply of products, “we’re having a very solid performance.”

Hyundai’s assembly plant in Montgomery, Ala., which makes the Sonata and Elantra sedans and the Tucson m…

DETROIT -- Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged ex-UAW President Dennis Williams, who led one of the nation's most powerful labor unions from 2014 to 2018, with conspiring to embezzle funds from rank-and-file workers for nearly a decade.

Court documents say Williams and others spent hundreds of thousands of member dollars on trips to Palm Springs, Calif., golf outings, fancy dinners and other luxuries.

Williams, 67, becomes the 15th person charged in the ongoing corruption scandal. He's also the second former union president to be charged; his successor, Gary Jones, pleaded guilty to embezzlement and racketeering charges in June and awaits sentencing.

Williams was charged in a criminal information, which means he's likely to plead guilty. He faces a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

"The charges today are further steps forward in our relentless effort to ensure that the over 400,000 men and women of …

Electric-truck startup Rivian Automotive Inc. has hired a former Tesla Inc. executive to lead its engineering as the Amazon.com Inc.-backed company’s debut electric vehicles near production, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

Nick Kalayjian, who spent more than a decade at Tesla, will join Rivian as executive vice president of engineering and product, said the person, who declined to be named. Most recently he was a senior vice president at San Francisco-based Plenty Inc., according to his Linkedin profile.

Kalayjian replaces Mark Vinnels, who until this week had been Rivian’s executive director of engineering, the person said. Vinnels joined Rivian in late 2017 and was previously an executive at McLaren Automotive Ltd.

A Rivian spokesperson confirmed Vinnels has left the company, but did not specify how recently. Neither Kalayjian nor Vinnels could be reached for comment.

While Kalayjian is not a direct hire from Tesla, the move co…

NHTSA has launched a mobile app that automatically checks for safety recalls and alerts users when a recall has been issued, the Department of Transportation announced Thursday.

The agency's SaferCar app allows users to type in or scan their VIN and receive recall notifications on their iOS or Android devices. Users can save information for their vehicles, car seats, tires and other equipment in a "virtual garage" on their devices to get critical safety information and access other NHTSA online tools. If a recall is issued, the app directs the user to a local dealership handling repairs.

To inform the public of the app, there will be a paid digital campaign, organic social media push and outreach to safety partners, a NHTSA spokesperson told Automotive News.

"In today's world, smartphones are the tool of choice for many tasks and the updated SaferCar app is a new safety tool at the public's disposal," NHTSA Deputy Administrator James Owens said in a stat…

Veoneer will partner with Qualcomm Technologies on developing software for its driver assistance systems, the auto technology supplier said Thursday.

The Swedish supplier of vision systems, radar and software for advanced driver-assistance systems said it had signed a non-binding letter of intent with the U.S. technology company and expected to finalize a definitive agreement in the second half of this year.

Veoneer's software development strategy, increasingly important with the auto industry in the midst of a rapid transformational shift, has been under scrutiny since it ended its Zenuity software joint venture with Volvo Cars in April.

"This is a significant event for Veoneer which we are very happy to announce," CEO Jan Carlson told Reuters, adding that he expected the integrated software and system-on-a-chip platform would generate major interest from customers.

Veoneer, which competes with companies such as Aptiv , Bosch and Continental, has…

HAMBURG/BERLIN -- Continental played a big part in the Nazi's armaments and war economy, using forced laborers to make products such as gas masks, a study presented by the company showed on Thursday.

Continental commissioned the independent research by historian Paul Erker to explore the darkest chapter of the company's history. It provides an opportunity to learn from the past to create a better future, the company said.

"The study shows that Continental was an important part of Hitler's war machine," Continental CEO Elmar Degenhart said.

The research, which included units VDO, Teves, Phoenix and Semperit, which were not part of Continental at the time, exposed how corporate culture was distorted and how the company shifted from making products for the Nazi's consumer society to arms.

The supplier used 10,000 forced laborers during World War II from occupied Belgium and France as well as Soviet prisoners of war, showed the study entitled "Supplie…

Join Automotive News Publisher Jason Stein for a daily podcast series about the coronavirus crisis. He’ll speak with industry experts, insiders and Automotive News reporters about how the virus is impacting and reshaping the automotive industry.

Colorado Automobile Dealers Association President Tim Jackson discusses life on the ground in Colorado, clean-air initiatives and plans for the 2021 Denver auto show.

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Louisiana auto dealers woke up to the devastation that Hurricane Laura left behind after making landfall overnight.

Laura hit Cameron, La., at 1 a.m. Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane. It was later downgraded and, as of midday, was listed as a Category 1 hurricane. Major damage was visible throughout southern Louisiana.

About 609,000 homes and businesses were without power in three states, The Weather Channel reported. So far, one death attributed to the storm has been reported.

Will Green, president of Louisiana Automobile Dealers Association, said in an email that many of his members closed their dealerships Wednesday and Thursday as the storm continues to make its way up the state.

"Many I have talked to have lost power and have damage to their buildings, especially those in the Lake Charles area," he said.

The Louisiana Independent Auto Dealers Association said it is still waiting to hear from dealers in the impacted areas. Typically,…

TOKYO -- A Japanese mobility venture has unveiled two adapted vans, one which can serve as a workspace or a mobile shop, and another that pumps fresh air through the vehicle to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading between passengers.

It is the first commercial offering from Monet, a joint venture between SoftBank Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. In one version, the adapted Toyota Hiace van takes in outside air and circulates it through the interior, which is also fitted with screens and curtains to limit virus transmission. It can seat eight passengers in the back. The other version of the van allows users to fix fittings to the floor and arrange the interior as a shop or work space.

The Monet joint venture was first announced in October 2018 with the goal of becoming a platform for driverless services.

Neither design incorporates self-driving technology and, in the case of the multi-purpose design, Japan's road rules require fittings such as tables to be s…