Trade News

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…

Ally Financial Inc., one of the largest U.S. auto lenders, is navigating the coronavirus pandemic in a much tighter ship than during the 2008 financial crisis.

A perfect storm of rising unemployment, uncertainty over consumer credit metrics and spiking infection rates in many areas of the country point to rougher waters ahead.

Jenn LaClair, CFO at Ally, spoke with Staff Reporter Jackie Charniga about the current state of the company's portfolio, how automotive loans and leases are performing during the pandemic and her No. 1 fraud concern. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: How many auto accounts at Ally are in forbearance status right now (July 17)?

A: It's 1.3 million accounts, which reflects approximately 30 percent of our retail auto accounts. Thirty percent of those were scheduled to expire this quarter. We have another 70 percent scheduled to expire next quarter. The next couple of quarters are going to be really telli…

A new generation of Mitsubishi's flagship Outlander crossover will debut in early 2021 on a platform shared with the redesigned Nissan Rogue.

In a flurry of fresh product news, Mitsubishi also said Wednesday it will freshen the Eclipse Cross small crossover and Mirage economy car early next year. And it will give the Outlander plug-in hybrid updated mechanicals this year.

The plans are going public as Mitsubishi North America struggles with falling sales as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and a lack of fresh product. Only last month, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. CEO Takao Kato indicated to shareholders in Japan that the automaker may be preparing to scale back growth efforts in bigger markets such as North America.

Mitsubishi's U.S. sales fell 58 percent to 12,197 in the second quarter, the automaker reported, and deliveries declined 33 percent to 47,760 vehicles in the first half.

But the latest product updates suggest Mitsubishi intends to keep …

FRANKFURT -- German prosecutors on Wednesday said they were searching offices as part of an international fraud investigation into potentially illegal emissions cheating defeat devices found in engines used in Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Jeep and Iveco vehicles.

A Fiat Chrysler spokesman said a number of the group's offices in Europe were visited by investigators in the context of a request for assistance by magistrates in Germany, adding it was cooperating fully with authorities.

The searches in Germany, Italy and Switzerland focus on individuals at an international automotive company and an international commercial vehicle manufacturer, the Frankfurt prosecutor's office said in a statement, without naming the companies.

In a similar emailed statement, CNH Industrial confirmed that a number of its offices in Europe have been visited by investigators after a request by German magistrates and that it was cooperating fully with authorities.

FCA and CNH Indust…

LONDON -- The U.K. government has granted a 500 million pound ($634 million) loan guarantee to Ford Motor Co. to support the automaker’s substantial exports of engines and transmissions from Britain.

The guarantee will help Ford to increase investment in electrification and protect jobs at its sites in Essex and Dagenham, the UK's Department for International Trade said in a statement on Tuesday.

The guarantee covers 80 percent of a 625 million pound ($793 million) loan from commercial banks.

"This financing will help to maintain Ford as a key U.K. exporter," said Graham Hoare, chairman of Ford in Britain, in a statement.

About 85 percent of the engines and 100 percent of the transmissions the company builds in the U.K. are shipped overseas. The value of Ford's U.K. exports, including machined engine components, is around 2.5 billion pounds annually, Hoare said.

Ford and its automotive peers in the U.K. face an uncertain future, with the pr…

BRUSSELS -- European Union antitrust regulators have suspended their investigation into Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Peugeot maker PSA Group's proposed merger because they are waiting for the automakers to provide requested data.

The European Commission launched a probe into the merger plan in June amid concerns that the deal to create the world's fourth-biggest automaker may hurt competition in small vans in Europe.

The Commission said Wednesday that the probe has been suspended because the parties failed to provide, in a timely fashion, an important piece of information requested from them.

The suspension will delay the EU's decision on the merger. Its previous deadline for a decision was Nov. 13.

"Once the missing information is supplied by the parties, the clock is re-started and the deadline for the Commission's decision is then adjusted accordingly," the EU competition enforcer said.

Waymo and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles first partnered on building autonomous vehicles four years ago, and the result was the self-driving minivan, now a fairly common sight in parts of California and Arizona, where they are used as robotaxis.

Now the companies intend to spread the technology beyond the Chrysler Pacificas and throughout the FCA fleet. They're also thinking beyond cars and embarking on a project involving delivery vehicles.

Waymo and FCA said Wednesday they will deepen their relationship and build commercial vehicles for transporting cargo. They initially will integrate Waymo's self-driving system onto the Ram ProMaster van, which the companies say is a "highly configurable platform that will enable access to a broad range of global commercial customers."

The news comes amid a frenetic series of industry developments related to self-driving delivery vehicles. Complications in deploying passenger-carrying autonomous taxis, combined with a COV…