Trade News

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk qualified on Tuesday for a payout worth an unprecedented $2.1 billion, his second jackpot since May from the electric car maker following its massive stock surge.

Tesla's closed Tuesday's trading down 4.5 percent, eroding a recent rally that has elevated the company's market capitalization to almost $300 billion, larger than any other carmaker.

Despite Tuesday's stock dip, and importantly for Musk's personal finances, Tesla’s six-month average market capitalization for the first time has reached $150 billion. That triggers the vesting of the second of 12 levels of options granted to the billionaire in his 2018 pay package to buy Tesla stock at a discount. Musk, who is also majority owner and CEO of the SpaceX rocket maker, receives no salary.

Even with Tuesday's decline in Tesla's stock, its six-month average market capitalization rose, thanks to the stock's strong rally in recent months.

In early May, Musk’s first level v…

When Tesla Inc. reports second-quarter results after the bell on Wednesday, investors will be keen to see whether the electric carmaker has delivered a profit during the global pandemic that has sunk most of its internal combustion rivals deep in red ink.

Analysts' estimates for Tesla's second quarter range from an adjusted loss as steep as $2.53 a share to a $1.41 per share profit. On average, they expect an adjusted 11 cents loss per share and a net loss of $240 million, according to Refinitiv data. More bullish investors have sent Tesla's shares soaring in recent weeks and made it the world's most valuable automaker.

Tesla's April-June results also have wider ramifications. A profit would mark the company's first cumulative four-quarter net income, a goal it must accomplish to be added to the S&P 500 index, where it would be among the most valuable companies.

Some analysts have said that failing to reach that goal could send Tesla shares plummetin…

WILMINGTON, Del. -- Hertz Global Holdings Inc. agreed to pay lenders who indirectly control the company’s fleet of rental cars $650 million as part of a deal to suspend a bankruptcy court fight over the vehicles, according to court documents.

Under the accord, Hertz will for the rest of the year halt its effort to cancel some of the nearly 500,000 leases on the cars the company rents out to consumers. A separate Hertz entity owns the vehicles, which the company leases back.

The company will ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath to approve the settlement at a court hearing scheduled for July 24. It filed its proposed resolution in Wilmington, Del., just before midnight on Monday.

Since filing for bankruptcy in May, Hertz has been fighting with lenders who funded the purchase of its vehicle fleet and are repaid through the lease deal. The two sides have been at a standoff over how best to shrink the Hertz fleet and still maintain regular payments to the l…

DETROIT — While Tesla Inc. helped popularize the notion that electric vehicles can be fun to drive, Ford Motor Co. is trying to take that idea a step further.

The automaker unwrapped a one-off racing prototype called the Mustang Mach-E 1400, featuring seven motors and 1,400 peak horsepower. The vehicle, not intended for production, comes on the heels of a Cobra Jet 1400 electric prototype released this year.

Ford plans to use the Mach-E 1400 as an example of what an electric vehicle can do on the track as it tries to build excitement for the launch of the Mach-E crossover this year. The company said it will introduce the Mach-E 1400 prototype at a NASCAR race "soon" and equipped the vehicle with passenger seats that hint at the ability to offer test rides.

The prototype comes with three motors attached to the front differential and four attached to the rear. Ford says the design lends itself to drifting or high-speed racing.

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.

Francois de Bodinat, chief product officer at ZeroLight, explains how the 3D visualization company is using a cloud-based platform to help dealers create an interactive digital experience for car shoppers.

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Volkswagen ends production of the Karmann Ghia on July 21,1974, at a plant in Osnabruck, West Germany.

First sold as a 2+2 coupe, built from 1955–74, and later a convertible, 1957–74, the Karmann Ghia combined the chassis and mechanicals of the Beetle. It was styled by Luigi Segre of the Italian design house Ghia and hand built by German coach builder Karmann.

Noted American industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague called the Karmann Ghia one of the world's most beautifully designed products.

More recently, Hagerty, in a 2019 assessment of the car, was more succinct: "While most classic VWs are charming in their ugliness, the Karmann Ghia is straight-up gorgeous. Never mind that it's essentially just a Beetle in an expensive suit."

The Karmann Ghia, known internally as the Type 14, was introduced at the Kasino Hotel in Westfalia, Germany, on July 14, 1955.

The car, positioned above the Beetle, was created t…

Joining the Kia lineup this summer is the fifth iteration of the Optima sedan, now known as the K5. The 2021 K5 shares much with the 2020 Hyundai Sonata from Kia's corporate sibling. But the K5 distinguishes itself through exterior design cues from the Stinger sports sedan, along with more subtle front and rear treatments. The standard engine is a 1.6-liter, four-cylinder turbo with 180 hp routed through an eight-speed automatic shifter. Here's a roundup of snippets of K5 reviews from the automotive media.

"The tires — always a compromise — were engineered for quiet, all-weather and a long life, so they tended to slide away a little earlier than you'd like in GT-Line trim level. And the soft suspension that had been so comfortable down in the city leaned, dove and squatted a little more up here than I had hoped it would. But the 1.6-liter's eight-speed tranny had a manual mode and with that you could stay in the wide-ish power and torque bands afforded by that engine…

STOCKHOLM -- Volvo Cars expects business to recover in the second half of the year after reporting on Tuesday an operating loss for the first six months as coronavirus lockdowns strained supply chains and forced plant closures.

The Swedish-based carmaker also said that its planned merger with sister company Geely Automobile Holdings had been temporarily put on hold due to Geely Auto's plans to list in China. The companies will resume talks in the autumn.

Volvo returned to solid growth in China during the second quarter and expects a similar upturn in the United States and Europe.

"If the market recovers as we expect, we anticipate sales volumes to return to the levels we saw in the second half of 2019 and it is also our ambition to return to similar profit levels and cash flow," CEO Hakan Samuelsson said in a statement.

Market recovery has allowed the company to resume production in all factories, except the Charleston plant in Ridgeville, S,C., V…

TOKYO -- Toyota Motor Corp. will make 2 percent fewer vehicles globally in August than originally planned, the Japanese automaker said Tuesday, as output recovers gradually from a steep drop because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The company said it aimed to make 15,000 fewer vehicles than its initial plan, which was around 750,000, according to Reuters' calculations. August's reduction is smaller than the cut of 10 percent seen in July, and June's 40 percent reduction.

Toyota said it would produce 6,000 fewer vehicles at home, and 9,000 less overseas.

As Japan fears a second wave of infections spreading from the capital, one Toyota employee working at its headquarters has tested positive for coronavirus since developing symptoms earlier this month, the company said Tuesday. Toyota added it disinfected the affected work sites on July 17 and restarted operation shortly afterwards.

In the midst of the pandemic, the company also plans to skip media bri…

Robert Bosch is combining its automotive software and electronics activities into a new division in an effort to reduce complexity and speed up development and time to market.

The unit, Cross-Domain Computing Solutions, will have 17,000 employees, drawn from Bosch's existing Multimedia, Powertrain Solutions, Chassis Systems Control and Automotive Electronics divisions. It will be operative at the start of next year.

Harald Kroeger, a member of Bosch's management board who now oversees those divisions, among others, will be responsible for the new division, which will fall under Bosch's Mobility Solutions business sector.

A typical new car now has 100 million lines of software code, Kroeger said in an interview with Automotive News Europe, because of the growing number of safety, performance and comfort features offered by automakers -- and expected by buyers.

By comparison, he said, a computer operating system such as Microsoft Word has up to 50 m…