Trade News

Nissan will discontinue sales of its full-size Titan pickup in Canada, a struggling truck market this year.

Despite the fact that pickup sales have been a source of optimism in the U.S., Nissan's move is not surprising, given the Titan's anemic sales in Canada.

Canadian sales of the Titan last year cratered to 2,807, down nearly half from a year ago. Meanwhile, Nissan sold only 800 Titans in the first half of this year, accounting for just 0.5 percent market share in the segment.

"Based on our market objectives for Canada specifically, we have decided to focus our resources on current and future core models in our crossover and sedan portfolios," Nissan spokesman Dan Passe told Automotive News on Monday.

The pullback comes as financially stressed Nissan attempts a business pivot in the U.S. and orchestrates a product offensive that involves updating about 70 percent of its portfolio by mid-2021.

The automaker…

It’s not that car dealers don’t want to sell online; it’s just that most of them can’t.

Automotive e-commerce — a true start-to-finish transaction — requires a sophisticated digital platform that not only makes the vehicle look good, but links to inventory management systems, complex pricing models, trade-in valuations and third-party lenders. Of the 17,000 or so new-car dealerships in the U.S., as tracked by the National Automobile Dealers Association, the vast majority are relatively small businesses without the digital chops (or the capital) to build such an Internet engine.

Digital Motors Corp. says it can do it for them. The Irvine, Calif.-based startup says it has crafted a plug-and-play software package can give dealerships a seamless online experience for their customers.

CEO Andreas Hinrichs, who spent almost 20 years in various finance roles at Daimler, was planning on a July debut, but the pandemic forced his hand. Dealerships who had gotten w…

Ram put the truck world on notice in 2016 when it unwrapped a hulking TRX pickup concept that delivered 575 hp.

Now the off-road speedster is nearly here, and it has outdone the concept by raising the bar to 702 hp. The updated engine output leapfrogs the 450 hp of the Ford F-150 Raptor, giving Ram bragging rights in the hypercompetitive pickup market.

The 2021 Ram 1500 TRX, introduced as a concept at the State Fair of Texas four years ago, jets from 0 to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds and 0 to 100 mph in 10.5 seconds. It tops out at 118 mph and is rated at 650 pound-feet of torque.

Ram isn't being coy about its target with the TRX. The brand's North America head, Mike Koval Jr., described the pickup as an "apex predator" that "destroys" Raptors.

The idea for the TRX came from former Ram brand chief Mike Manley, now Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' CEO, who challenged designers and engineers to build a truck that could drive at sus…

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.

Arianne Walker, chief evangelist for Alexa Auto, discusses how e-commerce giant Amazon is improving functionality of the in-car version of its in-home virtual assistant.

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Police departments are under siege by twin crises: State and local coffers have been decimated by the coronavirus pandemic, and the Black Lives Matter movement is pressuring officials to target police budgets for cuts. That’s bad news for the automakers that supply law-enforcement vehicles, a niche business seen as a lucrative market not long ago.

Segment leader Ford Motor Co. and other police-vehicle manufacturers including Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and General Motors compete for contracts that have provided stable profits and image-related benefits. Most are gussied up versions of their mass-market cars and trucks, so they can be produced relatively cheaply but with lots of upgrades such as motion detectors and 12-inch touch screens.

And there’s been no better way to signal toughness and durability than by making the vehicle-of-choice for cops chasing suspects down gritty streets and unpaved roads.

“It’s a highly visible branding message to see first r…

The Swedish battery cell maker Northvolt has received a $525 million loan guarantee from the German government for a pilot plant.

Northvolt, set up by two former Tesla executives, has assembled more than $3 billion in debt and equity to finance production in its native Sweden, targeting battery-cell output equal to about 40 gigawatt-hours of capacity. 

The company said it is aiming for a 25 percent share of the European battery market, which has been dominated by Asian companies, including LG Chem, Samsung and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.

Last month Northvolt announced that it had raised $1.6 billion in debt financing from a group of banks, pension funds and other public institutions. It raised $1 billion in equity capital in 2019 from investors including BMW Group and Volkswagen Group. 

The guarantee from the German government is a stepping stone to Northvolt’s plan to operate with VW a “Northvolt Two” plant in Salzgitt…

Japanese government officials tried unsuccessfully to bring Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. together for merger talks earlier this year, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The idea, first put to the companies at the end of 2019, was rejected before it reached the boards of both sides.

Nissan, Honda and the prime minister’s office declined to comment.

Government officials feared Nissan's alliance with Renault might collapse, leaving the company exposed, people familiar with the matter told the paper.

SHANGHAI -- China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., a Tesla supplier, is developing a new type of electric-vehicle battery that contains no nickel or cobalt, a company executive said Saturday.

Nickel and cobalt are key ingredients in the batteries that power EVs. Battery makers from Japan's Panasonic Corp. to South Korea's LG Chem are lowering the use of expensive cobalt in their nickel-cobalt-aluminium  batteries or nickel-cobalt-manganese batteries.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk last month urged miners to produce more nickel, warning the current cost of batteries remained a big hurdle to the company's growth.

CATL makes NCM batteries and supplies lithium ion phosphate batteries to Tesla. It has partnerships with Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. and supplies Germany's Volkswagen Group and Daimler.

The new battery type will be different from existing NCA, NCM and LFP batteries and will have no expensive metals like nickel or cobalt, …

SHANGHAI -- China's Geely Automobile Holdings on Monday booked a 43 percent drop in half-year profit as the coronavirus outbreak continues to trouble the world's biggest auto market.

The result come as China's overall auto sales slowly recovers from a virus-blighted start to the year. Sales climbed for the fourth consecutive month in July yet are still down 13 percent for the year to date.

China's highest-profile automaker -- due to group investments in Volvo Cars and Daimler -- posted January-June net profit of 2.3 billion yuan ($331 million), it said in a statement.

The automaker sold 530,446 vehicles, down 19 percent on year, leaving revenue down 23 percent at 36.82 billion yuan, meeting analyst estimates.

To curb expenses, Geely reduced its workforce by about 12 percent during the first half to 38,000.

"Geely's 1H20 earnings are largely in line with our expectation, thanks to its significant cost cut efforts, especially in wages and inv…

Senior analyst Mike Ramsey discusses his consulting firm’s latest transportation-tech Hype Cycle report, realistic timelines for widespread self-driving vehicle deployments, the prospect of air taxis, and the new Jim Farley era at Ford.

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Editor’s note: This story is part of the annual Automotive News “Future Product Pipeline” series.

Volvo Cars is trading its diesel-powered past for an electron-charged future.

Globally, every new Volvo model will have an electric motor as part of the Swedish automaker's plan to make all-electric cars account for half of its global sales by 2025 — with the rest being hybrids.

The first of those all-electric models will roll into U.S. dealerships this fall.

The XC40 Recharge P8 is an electric version of Volvo's fastest-selling model — the XC40 crossover. The dual-motor EV delivers up to 408 hp and can go from 0 to 60 mph in 4.7 seconds. Volvo estimates that it will have an EPA-rated range of "more than 200 miles."

Another new sporty electric crossover — the C40 — is expected to arrive next year, followed by a battery-powered XC90 crossover.

Meanwhile, Volvo has a new plus-size luxury crossover in the works. The XC100, built on the nex…