Trade News

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…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. is testing out a pair of four-legged robots at a transmission plant in suburban Detroit in hopes the technology can help it more quickly change over manufacturing facilities to build new products.

The automaker earlier this year leased two robots from Boston Dynamics named Fluffy and Spot. The doglike creatures come equipped with five cameras that Ford plans to use at its Van Dyke Transmission Plant next month to virtually scan the entire facility.

Ford uses the scans when it updates its manufacturing sites with new vehicles, engines or other parts to determine what machinery is there and what items need to be updated or moved.

The automaker typically uses tripods with lasers that workers would manually walk around to different locations. Ford said the normal process takes roughly two weeks and costs $300,000 per facility. Officials say using the robot takes half the time and is a fraction of the cost, although they did not …

Last fall, city officials in the nation's car capital embarked on an experiment. They wanted to see whether micromobility solutions — things such as e-bikes and e-scooters — could provide transportation for Detroit residents who needed better ways to get to work.

It was short-lived.

"It seemed like we were creating a solution before there was a need," said Hind Ourahou, senior mobility strategist in Detroit's Office of Mobility Innovation. "So we struggled a little bit with this, because we always try to understand, 'OK, what is the need first,' and then, 'Is this is the best solution for it?' "

That changed when the coronavirus arrived. Public-transportation schedules were reduced. Many drivers for ride-hailing services idled their vehicles. Essential workers suddenly had fewer transportation options.

In June, the Mobility Innovation office, along with a group of public and private partners that include General Motors and Ford Motor Co., recast…

Sonic Automotive Inc. plans to open at least three more standalone used-only EchoPark stores before year's end and an additional four to six in 2021 as part of an expansion strategy that includes increasing e-commerce offerings.

The nation's sixth-largest new-vehicle retailer has been adding to its EchoPark footprint and is accelerating planned store rollouts from just a few months ago.

EchoPark locations set to open this year are Nashville, Houston and Phoenix, plus possibly Dallas, a Sonic spokesman confirmed, while 2021 openings include Atlanta, Orlando and California.

The retailer in April opened its 10th EchoPark location — in Tampa, Fla. — and said that month that it planned to open two more in 2020 and three or four in 2021.

In a mid-June update, Sonic said EchoPark same-store sales were up 18 percent month to date following declines in April and May. Total EchoPark sales jumped 34 percent through the first half of June. The company said …