Trade News

General Motors has reversed its plan to temporarily cut the third shift at its midsize pickup plant in Wentzville, Mo., possibly opting to transfer laid-off workers from other states to the plant instead.

GM confirmed plans to cut the third shift on July 11 because of worker absenteeism as cases of COVID-19 in Missouri increased.

GM told Automotive News at the time that there was enough demand for three shifts. The automaker was working on a staffing plan to resume a three-shift schedule as soon as possible.

More than two weeks later, cases of the coronavirus in Missouri continue to climb, reaching 37,375 as of July 26, according to Johns Hopkins.

"Transfers from other GM locations along with the strategic use of temporary employees could be part of the Wentzville staff plan," spokesman Dan Flores told Automotive News on Tuesday.

CNBC on Thursday reported GM's decision to keep the third shift.

The decision to lay off about 1,250 wor…

SEOUL -- Hyundai, an early backer of fuel cell cars, has watched the electric rise of Tesla, including on its home turf. Now's it's going on the offensive in the battery-powered market led by its U.S. rival.

The South Korean company plans to introduce two production lines dedicated to electrics vehicles, one next year and another in 2024, according to an internal union newsletter seen by Reuters.

Euisun Chung, leader of the Hyundai Motor Group that also includes Kia, has also held a series of meetings since May with his counterparts at Samsung, LG and SK Group, which make batteries and electronic parts.

The purpose of the talks, which were publicly announced, was for Hyundai to try to secure batteries at a time of tight supply as the race for EVs intensifies, according to several industry sources.

Those manufacturers also supply automakers including Tesla Inc., Volkswagen Group and General Motors.

Hyundai told Reuters it was collaborating w…

Lucid Motors plans to equip its new Air luxury electric sedan with a driver assistance system when the first cars roll off an Arizona assembly line in early 2021, Lucid said on Tuesday.

The Lucid Air, which will compete with the Tesla Model S, will come standard with such features as adaptive cruise control, lane centering, automatic emergency brakes and automated parking.

It will also be one of the first production vehicles to be equipped with standard lidar, a laser-based sensor that detects obstacles and objects, including pedestrians, as part of the vehicle's collision avoidance system.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said Teslas do not need lidar because their other sensors -- mainly camera and radar -- provide sufficient object detection when the vehicle is in semi-automated Autopilot mode. He has derided the use of lidar, which is far more costly than other sensors, as "a fool's errand."

Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson is the former chief engineer of the…

With drivers staying home during the coronavirus pandemic, the average age of U.S. light vehicles is expected to accelerate an upward trend.

IHS Markit said in a report Tuesday that the average age of vehicles this year rose to 11.9 years, up about a month from an average age of 11.8 years in 2019. The study was based on a snapshot of vehicles in operation on Jan. 1.

The number of light vehicles in operation in the U.S. exceeded 280 million this year. That's an increase of 2 million, or roughly 1 percent, from last year. The number of vehicles 6 to 11 years old is expected to increase, while the number of vehicles 12 to 15 years old is expected to decrease as a result of lower volumes during the Great Recession.

IHS Markit began tracking vehicle age in 2002, when the average age was 9.6 years.

New-vehicle sales were already decreasing before the pandemic, representing 6.1 percent of vehicles in operation in 2019 from the record-setting 6.7 percen…

TOKYO – Toyota Motor Corp., aiming to transform itself into a software company as much as it is a hardware one, is creating a new holding company that will spearhead development of self-driving cars, new automotive computer operating systems and advanced mapping.

The entity, called Woven Planet Holdings, will oversee two other companies, Woven Core Inc. and Woven Alpha Inc. Woven Core will focus on automated driving. Woven Alpha will pioneer news businesses in such fields as connectivity, onboard software and high-definition mapping.

Woven Core will subsume the company that currently handles Toyota’s automated driving development, Toyota Research Institute – Advanced Development, or TRI-AD.

Toyota announced the initiative on Tuesday, saying the new companies will begin operations in January.  James Kuffner, the American computer whiz who is currently the CEO of TRI-AD, will lead all three companies, which will be based in TRI-AD’s current office spa…

Jaguar Land Rover parent Tata Motors has named Thierry Bollore to be the next CEO of the U.K. luxury automaker.

Bollore, who was fired from his post as Renault CEO in October, will replace Ralf Speth as JLR boss starting Sept. 10, the company said in a stock exchange filing. Speth, 64, is scheduled to retire in September and will become non-executive vice-chairman of JLR.

"It will be my privilege to lead this fantastic company through what continues to be the most testing time of our generation," Bollore said in the filing.

JLR was hit this year first by disruption to sales in China, the world's biggest car market, and then by lockdowns in key markets across Europe and North America.

In 2019, JLR cut costs to address tumbling diesel sales which helped it return to profit before being hit by the pandemic, which contributed to a pretax loss of 422 million pounds ($530 million) for the financial year to March 31.

Bloomberg contributed to this …

DETROIT -- General Motors has tapped Alan Wexler, former CEO of Publicis Sapient, a global digital business consulting firm, as its first senior vice president of innovation and growth.

Wexler, 56, starts Aug. 17 and will report to CEO Mary Barra, GM said in a statement Monday.

Wexler will be charged with creating, executing and sustaining corporate strategies and identifying growth and innovation opportunities throughout GM.

Wexler worked for entities of Sapient from 1998 until 2019. Since 2014, Wexler has been CEO and chairman of Publicis Sapient, CEO of SapientRazorfish and CEO of SapientNitro.

The most recent company he led, Publicis Sapient, has 20,000 employees and advises blue-chip companies on digital strategy and innovation, for both company operations and customer service.

"Alan brings a proven track record and decades of experience leading a culture of innovation and customer-driven technology solutions," said Barra. "With Alan's…

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.

Otonomo CEO Ben Volkow discusses the Israeli startup's data-services platform and explains why connected car data is becoming more attractive to automakers seeking to generate new revenue streams.

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FRANKFURT — BMW said it will offer full-electric variants of its 5 Series and X1 models as part of sweeping product overhaul unveiled on Monday as the automaker seeks to lower vehicle emissions on the road and during production.

"In 10 years, the goal is to have a total of more than seven million electrified BMW Group vehicles on the roads — around two thirds of them with a fully-electric drive train," the company said on Monday.

Automakers have been pushing EVs ever since European lawmakers in December 2018 ordered a cut in carbon dioxide emissions from cars by 37.5 percent by 2030 compared with 2021 levels. This will come after a 40 percent emissions cut between 2007 and 2021.

Starting next year, BMW Group said it will offer five full-electric cars: the BMW i3, the Mini Cooper SE, the BMW iX3, the BMW iNext and the BMW i4. The iX3 will launch the company's EV offensive.

In total, BMW will have 25 electrified models on the roads by 2023…

PARIS – The French component maker Faurecia said it expects to return to profit and cash generation in the second half of the year helped by cost controls after reporting a first-half operating loss due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Faurecia targets sales of around 7.6 billion euros ($8.89 billion), an operating margin of around 4.5 percent of sales and net cash flow of around 600 million euros for the second half of the year, the company said in a statement.

CEO Patrick Koller also told BFM business radio that the company had good visibility over the third quarter but that there were more uncertainties regarding the fourth quarter.

The company reported a first-half operating loss of 114 million euros ($134 million), which included a 20 million euro one-off charge related to the coronavirus crisis. Like-for-like sales fell 35 percent.

"In the medium term, our focus on key priorities in the new post-COVID-19 market environment gives us confidence in…

TOKYO -- Mitsubishi Motors on Monday forecast its second straight year of losses, hurt by a plunge in sales due in part to the coronavirus pandemic.

The automaker anticipates an operating loss of 140 billion yen ($1.33 billion) for the year ending March 2021 just as it embarks on a plan to shrink its workforce and production, and close unprofitable dealerships to cut 20 percent of fixed costs in two years.

This would be Mitsubishi's biggest loss in at least 18 years according to company financial records dating back to 2002.

"To pave the way to recovery, the top priority of all executives is to share a sense of crisis with employees to execute cost reductions," CEO Takeo Kato told reporters.

Mitsubishi reported a 53.3-billion-yen operating loss in the first quarter ended June 30, its second operating loss in three quarters after vehicle sales more than halved to 127,000 units from a year earlier.

The company booked extraordinary losses of 1…