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ATLANTA — Porsche is making its vehicle subscription program more accessible with a new entry-level tier. The sports car maker will also expand the service to Los Angeles — the epicenter of luxury car sales.

"For the metropolitan area in L.A., this is a perfect way to engage certain target groups with the brand," Porsche Cars North America CEO Klaus Zellmer said last week. "If California were a country, it would be our fifth-largest market in the world."

The Porsche Drive subscription program, launched in 2017 in Atlanta, starts at $2,100 a month (before taxes and a $595 activation fee) and offers unlimited vehicle swaps. Since then, the program has been expanded to San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Toronto.

Starting Sept. 25, the new subscription level will offer access to a single Porsche model for one or three months. It starts at $1,500 per month for the Porsche Macan crossover and tops out at $2,600 for the Porsche 911 Carrera.

Adding a sing…

Vivek Chaand Sehgal has a track record of achieving the seemingly impossible. His company, a sprawling auto supplier to the world’s biggest carmakers, has exceeded its five-year target every time bar one in the past quarter century.

His latest goal is equally daunting -- Motherson Sumi Systems Ltd. is targeting to triple annual sales to $36 billion by 2025. That would rank Mothersun among the world's top five auto suppliers in terms of revenue,  based on the 2020 Automotive News list of the top 100 global suppliers.

Sehgal, 63, plans to achieve that by doing what he does best: dealing. Or more specifically, in light of the coronavirus pandemic, buying up distressed companies as they run out of money.

For Sehgal to achieve that, however, things will have to improve dramatically. Five years ago, Motherson set a target of consolidated net sales of $18 billion by 2020, and it managed less than $12 billion as the virus hit and India saw its worst-ever sl…

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. is gearing up for an intricate, two-phase overhaul of factories for its most profitable vehicle, putting to the test a pledge by incoming CEO Jim Farley for flawless execution.

Ford will temporarily shut a factory in Michigan next month to install machinery for the redesigned F-150 pickup going on sale next year.

The automaker also is constructing a new facility adjacent to its Dearborn, Michigan, truck plant to build an electric version of the F-150, people familiar with the project told Bloomberg. Prototype production is expected to start next year, said the people, who asked not to be identified revealing internal plans.

Ford also will idle and overhaul its Missouri pickup factory in October to prepare for the redesigned truck after closing its Dearborn plant for two weeks of retooling starting Sept. 7, according to the people. The complex and costly changeover of the two factories will trim output of Ford’s biggest cash cow …

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.

Brian Benstock discusses how COVID-19 has impacted his Paragon Honda and Paragon Acura stores in hard-hit New York. He also opens up about his personal battle with the virus and explains why automakers should create more uniform standards for franchised dealers around digital retailing and allow for business models that are less dependent on brick-and-mortar stores.

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Self-driving shuttle provider May Mobility is resuming service, with extensive cleaning measures, in Grand Rapids, Mich., after halting its operations for five and a half months due to the pandemic. 

Operations were suspended on March 16, with the initial anticipation of being down until at least Friday, March 27.  

“As a service that has over 500 users a day, and with current passengers who fall into the category of being at risk of severe illness, we feel it is in the best interest of our community to suspend service. This is an unprecedented event, and this is a decision we did not come to easily,” May Mobility CEO Edwin Olson said in a March statement.

The company had been operating in Detroit and Providence, R.I., as well. It temporarily halted shuttles in all of the cities due to COVID-19, but service is only resuming in Grand Rapids for now,  a spokesperson said.

The eight free shuttles, including one with wheelchair access, …

Ford Motor Co. has paid a former supplier, Mitec, about 10 million euros ($11.8 million) to settle a 13-year dispute over a canceled contract, Germany's Welt am Sonntag reported.

Ford declined to comment on the payment when contacted by Automotive News Europe. The automaker said the terms of the settlement were "confidential."

Mitec supplied Ford with a component for the Mazda6 sedan, which Ford built in the U.S. in a joint venture with the Japanese automaker in Flat Rock, Mich. Mitec sued Ford after the automaker terminated the contract in 2007.

Ford rejected the part because of quality issues but the supplier then discovered the same part being built for Ford by the supplier Linamar in Mexico, Mitec said. The supplier accuses Ford of having passed on technical information with the aim of being able to purchase the parts more cheaply from Mexico.

Mitec's former owner, Michael Militzer, said the settlement was too little and too late.

The l…

NEW YORK/DETROIT -- Driverless car technology company Luminar Technologies Inc., backed by investors including billionaire Peter Thiel, has agreed to go public through a $3.4 billion merger with blank-check company Gores Metropoulos Inc., people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

A deal for Luminar, one of the industry leaders in lidar technology that tracks a vehicle’s external environment, could be announced as soon as Monday, the people said, asking not to be named because the matter is private.

Luminar is the latest private entity to merge with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, as these investment vehicles have gone mainstream this year, offering a faster route for companies seeking to go public without the scrutiny or risks of an initial public offering.

Luminar is led by 25-year-old CEO Austin Russell, who founded the company in 2012 in Palo Alto, Calif. The startup’s technology, which uses lasers to create real-time imagery of …

Hyundai's shift to an expanding crossover lineup continues next year with the reveal of a midsize battery-electric vehicle under the newly created Ioniq brand. The Ioniq 5 crossover will be based on the retro 45 EV concept from the 2019 Frankfurt auto show.

Also in 2021, a new utility vehicle will mark the Korean brand's entrance into the "lifestyle pickup" market. The Santa Cruz, soon to be presented in production trim, will go on sale in the second half of next year as a 2022 model. The four-door pickup is based on the next generation of the compact Tucson crossover, which also will go on sale as a 2022 model.

Hyundai also has some intriguing new and redesigned sedans to show off, starting with the next-generation 2021 Elantra on sale in the fall. That will be followed in 2022 by the new Ioniq 6 EV sedan based on the Prophecy concept from this year.

For existing models, Hyundai is adding new powertrain options. There will be new hybrid models for great…

A stray dog that a Hyundai dealership in Brazil adopted as its showroom mascot has become so popular that the automaker plans to use him in a national advertising campaign.

Staff at Prime Hyundai originally intended to just give the dog some food and a warm place to sleep on a rainy night, according to reports in various Brazilian media. But as the dog continued to stick around, they named him Tucson Prime, appointed him a "pawfessional consultant" and even made him a staff ID badge. (They also took him to a veterinarian for treatment and vaccinations.)

Manager Emerson Mariano told Top Motors Brazil that the dog's "very caring and docile nature" has helped customers and employees feel at home. Some buyers return to the showroom to see him, give him gifts and take pictures with him.

The dealership created an Instagram account for Tucson that has gained more than 150,000 followers. Hyundai Brazil has promoted the dog on its own soci…

SHANGHAI — When Huang Ximing, a former senior engineer at Ford Motor Co., established Bordrin Motor Corp. in Shanghai in 2016 to build electric vehicles, he was confident that the strength of his technology would ensure his new company could easily beat out other EV startups in China.

But Huang has been proved woefully wrong.

According to documents now coming into public view, Huang far underestimated the expense of launching an EV startup.

In June, the onetime Detroit resident who had also worked at General Motors, admitted in an open letter in China that Bordrin had run into a severe cash crunch.

Last month, an internal document leaked to the Internet by employees at Bordrin's operations in Shanghai revealed that the business was awaiting liquidation.

Numerous EV startups have sprouted across China in recent years.

In 2017, Huang confidently assured Automotive News China that if "90 percent" of China's EV startups vanished amid th…

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"Thank you Brandenburg & Grünheide," Elon Musk tweeted last week, in German, calling out the state and small town in Germany where Tesla is quickly moving to clear a site and construct its new European factory outside Berlin.

It is a telling tweet for this moment in the auto industry.

Germans are not used to corporations fast-tracking billion-dollar projects in their much-beloved countryside. Permits get lengthy consideration. Engineers take their time studying water table impact. And assuredly, all that is being done in Germany.

But at a moment when the global industry really needs all of its players a…