Trade News

MEXICO CITY -- Volkswagen's Mexico unit on Thursday urged thousands of employees in the central state of Puebla to reconsider their demands for salary increases as the company anticipates a 24 percent drop in domestic sales due to the coronavirus.

After suspending operations in Mexico for more than three months to contain the pandemic, the automaker faces a contract negotiation in which its unionized workers in Puebla are seeking a 12 percent wage increase.

Workers could go on strike starting Aug. 18 if their demands are not met, the union told local media.

The union did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Volkswagen was one of the last automakers to resume operations in June after strict health measures put in place by Puebla's state government. Puebla's capital is a hotbed for the coronavirus, with almost 11,000 confirmed cases.

"Now that there are no (resources), we have to find more creative solutions," Volkswagen …

Light-vehicle exports from Chinese auto factories lost more ground in the first half of the year as key overseas markets remained depressed by the coronavirus pandemic. 

In the first six months, shipments of light vehicles including sedans, crossovers, SUVs and minibuses from China slipped 12 percent to some 289,000, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said this week.

In June alone, exports shrank 36 percent to around 44,000.

Two leading domestic light-vehicle makers posted steep declines last month, with exports at Geely Automobile Holdings falling 34 percent to 4,109 and shipments dropping 46 percent to 3,592 at Great Wall Motor Co. 

Other major producers haven’t released export data for June.

In 2019, some 725,000 light vehicles were shipped from China, a drop of 4.3 percent from a year earlier.

The main overseas destinations for China-made light vehicles are developing countries, including Russia, as well …

Carlos Ghosn’s son made about $500,000 in cryptocurrency payments to one of the two American men accused of helping the former Nissan Motor Co. chairman escape criminal charges in Japan, U.S. prosecutors said.

Anthony Ghosn made the payments to Peter Taylor via the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase after the auto executive escaped in a box smuggled aboard a private plane in December, prosecutors said in a court filing Wednesday. Together with an earlier wire transfer, Taylor and his father, ex-Green Beret Michael Taylor, received at least a combined $1.36 million from the Ghosn family, government records show.

Carlos Ghosn, who fled to Lebanon, has claimed his family played no part in his escape from Japan, where he faced charges of financial misconduct. But prosecutors in the U.S. and Japan have gathered evidence indicating his son and one daughter, Maya, played some role in the operation.

The Taylors were arrested by U.S. authorities in May at the reque…

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SEOUL -- Hyundai Motor Co. reported a smaller-than-expected drop in profit on high-margin domestic sales and said, while demand should pick up soon, the pace of recovery will be slow due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

South Korea's Hyundai, which together with sister company Kia Motors is the world's fifth-largest automaker, said weakness in both mature and developing economies means auto sales may recover to 2019 levels by around 2023.

"Auto demand is expected to pick up from the third quarter, but economic recession impact from COVID-19 and uncertainties around re-proliferation remain," CFO Kim Sang-hyun said. Hyundai said it will not pay interim dividends this year due to the uncertainty and need to secure capital as it unveiled its results for the second quarter on Thursday.

Net profit for the April-June period fell to 227 billion won ($189 million) from 919 billion won in the same period a year earlier. The drop was likely due in part to…

AutoNation Inc. plans to spend $200 million to $220 million to build 20 or more used-vehicle-only AutoNation USA stores over the next three years, following the launch of five stores in 2018.

The auto retail giant, which made the announcement with its second-quarter financial results Thursday that set a record for adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations, will provide more information on the AutoNation USA rollout during a third-quarter earnings call, CEO Mike Jackson said in an interview.

"When we launched the USA stores we said we'd build five as pilot stores and then pause until we had a clear path to profitability, had paid our tuition and figured out what works and what does not work," he said. "And we're now through that and the stores are solidly profitable."

Lower expenses, digital tools, higher new-vehicle gross profit per unit and a turnaround in new- and used-vehicle sales late in the second quarter from a dismal April at the beg…

SAN FRANCISCO -- Tesla Inc. accused Rivian Automotive Inc. in a lawsuit of an “alarming pattern” of poaching its employees and stealing trade secrets.

The world’s leading electric-vehicle maker alleged that four of its former workers took highly sensitive proprietary information as they left to work for the rival startup, and Tesla said it suspects there are at least two more culprits.

“Misappropriating Tesla’s competitively useful confidential information when leaving Tesla for a new employer is obviously wrong and risky,” according to the complaint filed in state court in San Jose, Calif. “One would engage in that behavior only for an important benefit -- to use it to serve the competitive interests of a new employer.”

Rivian -- which counts Amazon.com Inc., T. Rowe Price, BlackRock Inc. and Ford Motor Co. among its top-tier investors -- denied the allegations. The company said it requires all new employees to confirm “that they have not, and will not,…

Volkswagen is expanding its cloud-based software and data portal, aiming to develop it into an industry-wide marketplace where business customers can buy and sell industrial applications.

VW’s “industrial cloud” was designed in partnership with Amazon Web Services AWS and eventually will link more than 120 VW factories around the world to the automaker's 1,500 suppliers and their 30,000 plants.

The portal is intended as a place to exchange data and software to help accelerate the digitalization of factory processes from stamping to painting to machinery maintenance, according to Nihar Patel, VW’s executive vice president for strategic core projects.

VW has opened the portal to the first group of supplier partners, led by Siemens. Those partners are expected to contribute software applications to be shared with VW and among themselves, in what the automaker described as “an App Store approach.”

Among the initial wave of supplier partners are ABB, t…

FRANKFURT -- Audi expects car sales to reach pre-COVID-19 levels only by 2022 or 2023, CEO Markus Duesmann told a German business daily.

“We certainly expect the coronavirus crisis to have longer-term effects,” Duesmann told Handelsblatt’s Thursday edition.

“We have had a very difficult second quarter. Things are slowly picking up, but not as a 'sharp V’ as one would wish for,” he said, adding that countries such as China showed a strong rebound while other markets needed more time to recover.

Audi is partly banking on rising demand for electronic vehicles, benefiting from government incentives.

The automaker is targeting 2020 sales of 40,000 e-tron models after selling 17,000 in the first six months, Duesmann said.

He conceded that Tesla has a significant technological lead in several areas.

“Currently, Tesla has larger batteries because their cars are built around the batteries. Tesla is two years ahead in terms of computing and s…

FRANKFURT -- Daimler expects to generate an operating profit this year after second-quarter results signaled the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars weathered the unprecedented industry slump better than expected.

The company reported a quarterly operating loss of 1.68 billion euros ($1.91 billion) on Thursday.

Daimler anticipates earnings before interest and taxes and free cash flow to be positive in 2020 but lower than last year, it said on Thursday in a statement. It previously forecast that the company's deliveries, revenue and profit would decline in 2020.

“We are now seeing the first signs of a sales recovery,” CEO Ola Kallenius said.

The company said the outlook is based on an assumption that the economy will continue to rebound and there is no second wave of the coronavirus.

Kallenius said the Mercedes brand will seek to develop its high-end luxury vehicle segment as a way to hike profits.

"I see the strongest growth in the upper end …

MEXICO CITY, -- Ford's Mexico unit said Wednesday that a railway blockade in the Mexican border state of Sonora is affecting operations at its Hermosillo plant in the same state, as well as hitting imports and exports to and from the United States.

Over the past couple of days, members of the local the Yaqui indigenous community who are demonstrating for better land rights, have blocked railways used to move auto parts, as well as grains and steel, from Sonora to the United States.

"The recent blockade of the rail network in the municipality of Guaymas, Sonora, has affected operations at our Hermosillo plant," Ford said in an emailed statement.

"Currently, we are facing a situation unrelated to us, wherein imports and exports have been affected."

The blockade has hit both the Mexicali-California and the Nogales-Arizona border crossings, and so far prevented the passage of 15 trains carrying about 150,000 tons of cargo, according to the Mexican rai…

The all-wheel-drive, three-motor gasoline-electric 2021 Toyota Venza, expected to arrive at dealers in September, will have a starting price of $33,645, including shipping charges.

The midsize Venza, slotted between the compact RAV4 and three-row Highlander, will be available in three models: LE, XLE and Limited. All come standard with all-wheel drive and with a gasoline-electric powertrain that Toyota says will deliver an estimated 39 mpg combined city/highway EPA fuel economy.

The first-generation Venza, sold from 2009-15, did not offer a hybrid powertrain. In the new model, Toyota engineers planted one of the three electric motors in the rear axle. In certain conditions, such as when a front wheel slips or on wet or snowy roads, the rear motor powers the rear wheels to make the Venza an all-wheel-drive vehicle. In normal driving, the Venza operates as a front-wheel-drive vehicle.

The Venza XLE starts at $37,115, including shipping…