Trade News

LOS ANGELES — Hyundai Motor Co. is the latest major automaker to plan a distinct brand to contain its coming onslaught of electric vehicles.

It will be a mission of brand identity and awareness as Hyundai brings the venture to life.

Hyundai pulled the name Ioniq from its existing eco-friendly compact hatchback, which comes in hybrid, plug-in hybrid and EV versions. The low-volume Ioniq was pitched as something of a rival to Toyota's hybrid Prius, a nameplate that also was parlayed into a distinct brand effort at Toyota.

Hyundai said it is creating the Ioniq brand "in response to fast-growing market demand" as the company plans to "lead the global EV market."

Analysts say it's really a subbrand at best. The automaker confirmed that it will keep the Hyundai badge on the new Ioniq products and sell them through existing dealers. That's different from Hyundai's Genesis luxury brand, which has a separate identity and growin…

Bailout talks between Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Steel with the U.K. government have ended, leaving both companies to rely on private financing to overcome the impact of coronavirus on business, the Financial Times reported.

Talks for an emergency funding fell through as Jaguar Land Rover did not qualify for taxpayer support, the paper said.

Jaguar Land Rover also was unwilling to accept decarbonization requirements that would have forced the automaker to accelerate its program of vehicle electrification and phase out the diesel cars that still make up most of its fleet, the Financial Times said, citing a source with knowledge of the discussions.

The bailout plan, titled "Project Birch," had been authorized by U.K. Finance Minister Rishi Sunak in May to rescue companies that are seen as strategically important, with the Treasury saying it may step in to support crucial businesses on a "last resort" basis after other options run out.

The report, ci…

As Bentley prepares to launch its freshened 2021 Bentayga, the automaker knows the ultraluxury and exotic SUV segment it helped create five years ago looks much different — and bigger — in 2020.

But getting to the market first has its perks. Case in point, the updated Bentayga will arrive as or before competitors launch their initial SUV offerings.

Bentley plans to put its head start to use, especially in the U.S., one of the automaker's largest markets and one of the biggest markets for the Bentayga worldwide. The nameplate accounted for 45 percent of the brand's 11,006 global sales in 2019.

The SUV went on sale in the U.S. in 2016, two years before the launches of the Rolls-Royce Cullinan cross- over and Lamborghini Urus SUV. U.S. deliveries of Aston Martin's DBX SUV are set to begin this summer, and the Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 is also scheduled for this year. Ferrari's Purosangue SUV is set to arrive around 2022.

C…

Most of his counterparts in the self-driving industry chase a moonshot, making enormous efforts to develop systems capable of handling complicated traffic scenarios in an almost-limitless number of areas.

Gautam Narang has no such ambitions.

Instead of building an automated driving system that operates in all conceivable situations, the co-founder and CEO of Gatik, a short-haul autonomous trucking company, aims to build one that works extremely well for a specific use case. The most vexing challenges in the broad AV realm? Leave those for others.

"We don't care about solving hard problems in the autonomy space," Narang said. "We don't care about that. What we care about is introducing all the constraints that we can. Whatever helps us constrain the problem, we do that."

Since Gatik's inception in 2017, the Palo Alto, Calif., company has defined that problem as the "middle mile." Somewhere between long-haul trucking o…

Electric vehicle batteries require cobalt.

Most cobalt comes from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Congo is a nation plagued by instability and a lack of rule of law that allows some mining companies to exploit their workers.

Welcome to the challenge of auto industry supply chain ethics.

Supplier disruptions caused by the pandemic are being amplified by concerns about how to ethically source critical automotive materials.

The drive has given a new urgency to supply chain transparency. But the work is both labor-intensive and unreliable. Automakers and many Tier 1 parts makers have been trying to peel back the layers of their parts and material sourcing for nearly a decade, especially since a combined earthquake and tsunami in Japan made getting some key materials impossible.

"We have gone through every step of the supply chain to the cobalt mine to make sure it's ethically correct," V…

Former Tesla Inc. technician Martin Tripp acknowledged that he intentionally violated a protective order when he announced on Twitter that he’d fired his attorneys and posted court documents and depositions online.

Not long after an online hearing Friday, Tripp posted a thread of contrition on Twitter, apologizing to the judge for publicly maligning her and saying he would “tone it down a bit for a while.”

Tripp, embroiled in a legal battle with Tesla over the alleged theft of trade secrets, agreed he wouldn’t re-upload or re-post the prohibited information and would owe Tesla $500 per day if he discloses anything covered by the protective order.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Carla Baldwin in Reno, Nev., also ordered Tripp to remove links, postings and “any other means or mechanisms” by which the documents can be accessed.

Tripp also must pay the automaker $25,000 in attorneys’ fees within 60 days, file a note of compliance with the court within a week,…

DETROIT — The UAW said Friday that its International Executive Board voted unanimously to stop paying legal fees for ex-President Dennis Williams related to the federal government's corruption probe.

As part of a longstanding practice, the union had been paying for Williams' attorney fees "under the express condition and representation by Mr. Williams that he had not engaged in any illegal conduct."

While Williams has not been charged with a crime, the union board voted Tuesday "to terminate any and all further payment of his attorney's fees related to the government's investigation, effective immediately." The union did not say what led the board to take such action.

Williams this year paid back more than $50,000 in travel expenses deemed to be inappropriately charged to the UAW.

He reportedly has been implicated in a yearslong corruption probe that so far has resulted in 14 guilty pleas from former union officials as…

Ford Motor Co. is donating 1.5 million face masks to a state government initiative to combat spread of the coronavirus by distributing 4 million free masks to low-income communities, senior centers, schools and homeless shelters.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced the Mask Up Michigan initiative on Friday alongside Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II and retiring Ford CEO Jim Hackett at a news conference in Lansing.

"This is a moment when our country needs us — and we're stepping up," Hackett said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is supplying the state with 2.5 million of the masks.

Ford, which has pivoted into production of personal protection equipment during the coronavirus pandemic, is donating 1.5 million masks.

The automaker has produced 72 million pieces of PPE, which have included ventilators, respirators and face shields that are assembled at Ford's Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti, Mich.

Hackett said Ford would use i…

The CEO of Canadian auto retailer Steele Auto Group has purchased a 10 percent stake in publicly traded rival AutoCanada Inc.

Rob Steele on Thursday acquired 24,000 common shares of AutoCanada through his company Steele Auto Investments Ltd. The cost of the acquisition wasn't immediately disclosed.

“These shares were acquired for investment purposes,” Steele said in a statement.

Steele Auto Group operates 41 dealerships selling 27 brands and has an employee base of more than 2,000 in Atlantic Canada.

In February 2020 it added Luling Chevrolet Buick GMC of in Luling, Texas, to its stable of stores.

AutoCanada operates 50 franchised dealerships in Canada comprised of 21brands in eight provinces. It also has 13 franchises comprised of 11 brands in Illinois.

AutoCanada this week reported a net loss of CDN$20.1 million in the second quarter as the COVID-19 pandemic sent the dealer group’s retail sales plummeting early in the health crisis.