COLUMBIA, S.C. — Longtime auto dealer Dick Dyer Sr. died June 27 at age . In the mid-1950s, he started as a salesman at Courtesy Ford in Charlotte, N.C. In 1969, he opened Dyer & Beck Mercedes-Benz-Toyota in Columbia, S.C., which became Dick Dyer Toyota. That store and Dick Dyer Mercedes-Benz-Volvo remain family operated. Sonic Automotive Inc. acquired Dyer & Dyer Volvo near Atlanta in 1998.
Driver-assist tech savings should benefit all
After spending billions of dollars and years of time chasing the dream of autonomous vehicles, the auto industry is beginning to realize that — while there have been some excellent technological developments along the way — true Level 5 and even unsupervised Level 4 autonomy are still well into the future. Some executives in the industry are beginning to question the potential return on their already-sizable investments.
But here's the thing: While Level 5 autonomy is still years if not decades away, returns have been won in increased automotive safety. But those returns have gone largely to insurers, whose claims have been reduced as a result of increased standard safety equipment, instead of to the industry that developed the technology. That should change.
Last month, Consumer Reports analyzed crash data and determined 16,800 to 20,500 lives in the U.S. could be spared annually if widely available driver-assist technologies were standard acro…
Desperate dealers see vehicles trickling in
The pickups that dealers have been clamoring for are at last arriving on their lots — at least in small numbers. But the dealers' sigh of relief is followed by a jolt of fear: How will such small shipments get them through the rest of the summer?
Bert Ogden Auto Group typically carries about three months' worth of inventory, which helped it boost sales in May and June while many stores had scarce inventory and lost sales. Last week, the 18-store dealership group in Texas was down to about one month of inventory.
"July worries me," said Jorge Gutierrez, corporate strategist for Bert Ogden. "July will be an atypical month because of the inventory pinch we're in."
Nationwide plant shutdowns from mid-March to mid-May wiped out many dealers' inventories. Rebounding de- mand, combined with that loss of production, has reduced inventory levels to the lowest the industry has seen in nearly nine years, according to Cox Automotive. Six weeks a…
Mercedes dealer unmasks solutions to save jobs
Car dealers are a resourceful bunch. None more so than Joe Agresti.
The 48-year-old CEO of the multistore Dream Motor Group in suburban Houston has turned a health crisis into a business opportunity.
With the U.S. economy in a pandemic-induced coma by mid-April, Agresti had a problem. Revenue at the six-store group had plummeted 40 percent. And about 480 employees were depending on him for their next paycheck. Instead of jettisoning jobs, Agresti went scouting for new business to keep the main one afloat.
"We made a decision that we were going to do what we had to do to make sure that we didn't fire people," Agresti told Automotive News in June.
The entrepreneur pivoted to an improbable side line — selling personal protective equipment to the public and private sector. The venture, which is profitable, has helped Agresti keep all of Dream Motor's employees on the payroll, while also keeping them protected from the coronavirus.
Since launc…
Time to think again about China
China has changed the global auto industry over the past couple of decades. But China itself has changed, too.
During the previous recession — the Great one — while the U.S. was stumbling and shepherding two automakers through a bankruptcy reorganization, China was growing like mad. It became the largest market in the world — by far — for motorized vehicles.
But if it seemed that China's rise was going to be inexorable and all-encompassing, well, it hasn't turned out exactly that way. But neither has China swollen up and collapsed under its own weight.
It's complicated.
In this week's print edition of Automotive News, we begin a five-part series that explores what is working in China and what isn't — and what it means to the North American auto industry. This idea didn't appear to me fully formed. Reporters kept suggesting enterprising stories about Chinese companies adapting to the economic contraction triggered by COVID-19. It didn't take a…
Nissan CEO defends revival plan
TOKYO — Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida tried selling the automaker's new revival plan to skeptical shareholders last week amid an angry showdown over everything from his management style and corporate vision to board member pay and the company's plunging share price.
Some attendees at the June 29 annual shareholders meeting even harked back wistfully to the Carlos Ghosn era: One praised the indicted former chairman's strong leadership, another blamed his downfall on a conspiracy among Japanese prosecutors and government bureaucrats.
It was Uchida's second faceoff with shareholders since taking office Dec. 1. An equally contentious exchange erupted in February at an extraordinary shareholders meeting called to appoint him, as the newly minted CEO, and other executives to the board of directors.
In his latest appeal, Uchida pledged that the midterm plan unveiled in May would restore the embattled carmaker to a growth trajectory, but he warned a full rebound sti…
The British are coming — with familiar-looking 4X4
Britain's Ineos Group, one of the world's largest chemical companies you've likely never heard of, is preparing to enter the auto industry with a new-from-the-wheels-up utilitarian SUV.
It's a boxy, rugged-looking, midsize four-by-four whose size and shape makes it a near doppelganger for the classic Land Rover Defender 110 wagon that ended production in 2016. And it could land in the U.S. in 2022.
The Grenadier's perhaps-too-strong resemblance to the iconic Land Rover could be a risky bet.
Jim Ratcliffe, the Richard Branson-esque chairman of Ineos Group, tried to buy the classic Defender's production tooling from Jaguar Land Rover in 2016 and continue production. When JLR declined, Ratcliffe, one of Britain's richest men, decided his company would build its own utilitarian SUV aimed it at the same market — adventurers, sportsmen, builders and farmers, a segment Ratcliffe believes Land Rover left in the dust with the 2020 Defender…
Dodge cuts to its performance core
Dodge is killing two nameplates that account for nearly half of its U.S. sales in the coming months to complete its transformation from a collection of pleasant people haulers into an army of asphalt-eating muscle machines.
A limited-run Hellcat version of the Durango and an 807-hp Challenger are on the way as the brand loses the last of the relics from its former life: the Journey crossover and the venerable Grand Caravan minivan.
With the demise of those vehicles, which accounted for 47 percent of the brand's U.S. sales in 2019 and helped it become the first domestic brand to top J.D. Power's annual initial-quality survey last month, Dodge will be carried by what it calls the "Brotherhood of Muscle."
"We've been saying for the last couple of years that we want to distill the Dodge brand to our core performance vehicles," said Tim Kuniskis, head of passenger cars in North America for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, during a media briefing last month. "I've …
GM lags industry rebound as Q2 sales fall
BEIJING -- General Motors Co.'s vehicle sales in China dropped 5.3 percent between April and June, underperforming the industry average amid a recovery from the coronavirus fallout in the world's biggest auto market.
China's light-vehicle sales, which include passenger and commercial vehicles, rose 4.4 percent in April and 15 percent in May, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said, adding that it expects auto sales to grow 11 percent in June.
GM, China's second-biggest foreign automaker after Volkswagen Group, delivered 713,600 vehicles in the country in the second quarter, the company said in a statement, after reporting a drop of 43 percent in sales in the first quarter, because of the pandemic.
GM operates a Shanghai-based joint venture with SAIC Motor Corp. which makes Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac vehicles. It has another venture, SGMW, with SAIC and Guangxi Automobile Group that produces no-frills minivans and has started making high…
Daimler secures stake in Farasis as part of battery cell pact
FRANKFURT -- Daimler on Friday said it will deepen a strategic partnership with Farasis Energy, a pact which includes taking an equity stake of about 3 percent in the Chinese battery cell manufacturer.
The alliance aims to develop highly advanced cell technologies to increase vehicle range and cut charging times.
Farasis will build a plant for battery cells in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany, and Daimler Greater China will invest a multi-million-euro amount as part of Farasis' IPO, Daimler said.
This will give Daimler the option of nominating a representative for a seat on the supervisory board of the battery cell manufacturer, the automaker said in a statement.
Fiat Chrysler sticks by terms of PSA deal after report of dividend cut
MILAN -- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said the terms of its merger with PSA Group had not changed after a newspaper reported that it was looking to spin off assets to reduce a planned 5.5 billion euro ($6.2 billion) cash pay-out to its shareholders.
Italian business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore said that FCA could conserve cash by reducing the special dividend, possibly by handing shareholders assets as compensation.
Talks were at a very early stage and no decision had been taken, the paper said, adding the that aim was to keep the 5.5 billion euro value of the special dividend but to turn its "nature" from cash to assets.
FCA, has just agreed a 6.3 billion euro state-backed loan to help its Italian unit and the whole country's automotive industry to weather the crisis. Although this does not bar FCA from paying the dividend, as it is not due until 2021 and would be paid by Dutch parent company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, Italian politicians have called into…
Automakers withstand downgrade storms – for now
Moody's Investors Service has been downgrading auto debt in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the industry has strengthened its balance sheets since the previous recession, and less than half of companies saw their ratings cut.
The agency cut ratings on nine of the 22 companies it covers, citing the production and demand effects of the coronavirus on top of the industry's existing profit challenges.
Moody's projects that global light- vehicle sales will slump at least 20 percent in 2020 and take several years to return to 2019 levels. Over the past three months, total debt downgraded was about $130 billion, excluding the debt issued by captive finance arms.
Automakers that were downgraded included highly rated companies as well as those that are restructruring.
Ford's rating was cut to Ba2 in March as a result of the pandemic. That followed a cut in September as the company struggled in China and continued a massiv…