Trade News

BEIJING -- WeRide, a Chinese autonomous vehicle startup, said on Friday it has become the first autonomous company to start fully driverless vehicle testing in China, as the world's biggest auto market accelerates development of autonomous technologies.

Three-year-old WeRide, backed by Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi, said in a statement that it started tests on Wednesday on open roads in a designated area of Guangzhou after the southern Chinese city granted permission.

In China, companies such as Toyota-backed Pony.ai, Baidu Inc., and Didi Chuxing are also testing autonomous vehicles, but all with one or two safety staff onboard. The people onboard take control in unexpected situations.

WeRide said it will use a remote center to take control of vehicles if needed.

In the United States, Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo unit is testing passenger vehicles without a safety driver. Nuro, another startup, is allowed to test driverless delivery vehicles on a small …

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. late Thursday acknowledged the Mexican state of Chihuahua's 50 percent cap on employees in manufacturing facilities, spurred by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, is unsustainable and could eventually disrupt U.S. light-vehicle production.

The U.S. ambassador to Mexico said Ford could shutter American plants as soon as next week if restrictions there don't ease, Reuters reported Thursday. In a statement, Kumar Galhotra, Ford's president of the Americas and International Markets Group, said the automaker does not anticipate a shutdown next week but did not rule out the possibility in the future.

"Due to COVID-19, the State of Chihuahua in Mexico has limited employee attendance to 50 percent, a region in which we have several suppliers," Galhotra said in the statement. "With our U.S. plants running at 100 percent, that is not sustainable. While we do not expect any impact to production next week, we are continuing to work with governm…

Ford Motor Co.’s top executive has pushed back against some employees calling for the top seller of vehicles to U.S. police departments to exit the business.

CEO Jim Hackett sent a more than 600-word letter to senior staff in response to messages he’s received both from within and outside Ford’s ranks to reconsider producing police vehicles.

Hackett, 65, said that while he and Executive Chairman Bill Ford support the Black Lives Matter movement and believe police should operate with more transparency and accountability, first responders “play an extraordinarily important role in the vitality and safety of our society.”

“Our world wouldn’t function without the bravery and dedication of the good police officers who protect and serve,” Hackett wrote. “But safety of community must be inclusive of all members and today, it is not.”

“Holding these two thoughts together in one’s mind is possible, but now there is tension,” Hackett continued. “It’s our be…

General Motors is launching sales of its second plug-in model, a hybrid version of the Buick Velite 6 sedan, later this month, expanding the automaker’s local electrified-vehicle lineup to meet government mandates. 

The Velite 6 plug-in hybrid will offer up to 780 kilometers of driving range, including 60 km powered solely by batteries, GM’s China unit said. 

The vehicle’s electric propulsion system comprises high-performance dual motors complemented by a lithium battery pack supplied by LG Chem and a 1.5-liter, four-cylinder gasoline engine. 

The car’s intelligent electronic continuously variable transmission helps cut fuel consumption to as low as 1.4 liters per 100 km, GM says.

The vehicle is the second plug-in hybrid assembled at SAIC-GM, GM’s passenger-vehicle joint venture, following the plug-in version of the Cadillac CT6 sedan. 

SAIC-GM builds and markets sedans, crossovers and light trucks for the Buick, Chevrol…

Tesla Inc.’s promotion of its driver-assistance system Autopilot is under scrutiny in Germany, where a court is scheduled to rule next week on whether the carmaker is misleading consumers.

The maker of the Model 3 sedan says on its German website that Tesla vehicles have full potential for autonomous driving. The company also has promoted its cars as having the ability to perform automatic city driving by the end of 2019.

Tesla is promising customers more than its Autopilot system actually delivers, according to the Center for Protection Against Unfair Competition, a German non-profit financed by companies and industry groups that sued the U.S. carmaker. A Munich court indicated during a hearing last month that it may side with the group.

“A legal framework for autonomous inner-city driving doesn’t even exist yet in Germany,” Andreas Ottofuelling, a lawyer for the group, said Thursday. “And other functions aren’t working yet as advertised.”

Repres…

Sales at Mercedes-Benz and BMW Group’s BMW and Mini brands surged across China last month in another sign consumer activity is resuming in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. 

Mercedes-Benz sales jumped 22 percent to 207,107 in the second quarter, Daimler AG said. 

Mercedes-Benz first-half deliveries in China edged up 0.4 percent to 346,067, reflecting a sharp decline in the first quarter, when many showrooms and assembly plants were idled because of the coronavirus. 

Combined second-quarter sales at BMW and Mini advanced 17 percent to 212,617, BMW Group said, without disclosing separate volumes for the two brands. 

Aggregate first-half deliveries of the two brands in China dropped 6 percent to 329,069.

China is the only regional market where Mercedes-Benz and BMW have recorded sales gains during the pandemic. Daimler and BMW have stopped releasing monthly sales in China because of disruptions the outbreak had on …

Nissan extended a sales rebound in June as the negative impact of the coronavirus outbreak wanes, while demand for Honda cars and light trucks remains sluggish.

The Nissan brand’s sales rose for a third straight month, with June volume rising 4.5 percent to 136,929, the company said. 

Driving the growth were the Sylphy and Altima sedans. Sylphy sales surged 37 percent to approach 49,000 while Altima deliveries advanced 28 percent to 10,254, according to Nissan’s China office. 

In the first six months, Nissan’s China sales dropped 17 percent to 596,342. 

At Honda, June deliveries dipped 4.1 percent to 142,363. 

Hybrid products accounted for sales of 18,534, or 13 percent of all volume last month, according to Honda’s China office. 

Through June, Honda delivered 612,007 vehicles in China, a drop of 18 percent from a year earlier. 

Another major Japanese brand, Toyota, hasn’t disclosed June sales res…

A U.S. judge said she is unlikely to quickly release a Massachusetts father and son being held on charges they helped smuggle former Nissan Motor Co. chairman Carlos Ghosn out of Japan.

At a Wednesday hearing in Boston, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said she was "anticipating" denying expedited bail to Michael Taylor and Peter Taylor, who are being housed at the suburban Norfolk County Correctional Center, but would revisit the matter in late July.

The Taylors, who were arrested May 20, have argued they should be freed because of defects in their arrest warrants and requests they be extradited to Japan.

They have also said 36 inmates and staff have tested positive for COVID-19 at their jail, and Michael Taylor, a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran, faced an elevated risk because part of his left lung had been removed.

Ghosn had been under house arrest in Japan on financial crimes charges until late December, when he was smuggled in a large blac…

Lucid Motors said Wednesday it plans to have 20 retail and service locations in North America by the end of 2021. The electric vehicle startup, which plans to start output of its first production vehicle late this year, already has one store at its headquarters in Newark, Calif.

The company plans to open six more retail locations and a service location this year, a spokesman said. The locations will be in California, Florida, New York and near Washington, D.C. He added that all stores will be equipped with either a service center or mobile service team. The Newark store is currently closed except by appointment due to a stay-at-home order but will reopen later this month.

The retail locations, called Lucid Studios, will "offer a digitally enhanced luxury experience tailored to each customer's purchase and ownership preferences," the company said in a press release. The service locations will display "a commitment to anticipating customer needs, offering time-sa…

DETROIT -- U.S. District Judge Paul Borman on Wednesday dismissed General Motors’ wide-ranging racketeering lawsuit against Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles which accuses FCA of coordinating a years-long bribery scheme with UAW leaders to gain an unfair labor-cost advantage.

Last month, Borman called the lawsuit a distraction for the companies and a "waste of time and resources for the years to come."GM said it strongly disagrees with the court order and will “pursue our legal remedies."

"There is more than enough evidence from the guilty pleas of former FCA executives to conclude that the company engaged in racketeering, our complaint was timely and showed in detail how their multi-million dollar bribes caused direct harm to GM," spokesman Jim Cain said in a statement. "The district court’s opinion is contrary to well-settled RICO case law and would let wrong-doers off the hook for the massive harm caused by their criminal conspiracy.”

FCA said in a statemen…

Propelled by strong demand for its core crossovers, Mercedes-Benz is maintaining a wide lead over rival BMW in the 2020 U.S. luxury sales race.

But it was a bloody quarter — and first half — for the luxury segment as the pandemic depressed activity across the U.S. economy.

Every luxury brand except Jaguar Land Rover, which is yet to report quarterly sales, has sustained double-digit percentage sales declines in the second quarter as demand evaporated and showrooms shuttered for weeks.

Halfway through 2020, Mercedes is making sure to avoid a repeat of last year, when BMW ended Mercedes' three-year streak at the top of the luxury sales chart.

For the year so far, Mercedes has a nearly 16,800-vehicle lead over its rival.

Mercedes delivered 59,461 vehicles, excluding commercial vans, in the second quarter, down 22 percent from a year ago. The GLE crossover led totals with 9,500 sales, followed by the flagship GLC SUV with sales of 9,461.

Used-vehicle down payments are the highest they have been since Edmunds started collecting data in 2007.

Unique market conditions have led to lower interest rates, bigger down payments, less negative equity and increased cross-shopping of used vehicles, according to a statement from the company.

The data shows that the average down payment reached $3,167 in June, up nearly 19 percent from June 2019 and up 42 percent from June 2015.

The higher down-payment average is a result of buyers having better credit scores and the ability to afford a higher payment, said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at Edmunds. The pandemic made it more difficult for some people to spend money, plus many people were getting stimulus checks, making it likely they had more money in their pockets.

Additionally, Edmunds research shows interest rates on used vehicles fell to 7.8 percent in June, a drop of 0.8 percent from a year ag…