Trade News

WASHINGTON -- Two U.S. officials who helped negotiate an overhaul of North American trade rules have offered their services as private-sector advisers to future clients -- making solicitations for post-government work while still on the federal payroll.

Jason Bernstein and Fred Fischer were key negotiators in U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer’s office responsible for the so-called rules-of-origin that dictate how much of a car must be made in North America to avoid tariffs under President Donald Trump’s renegotiated trade deal with Canada and Mexico.

They have reached out to companies in the auto industry to offer help implementing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement after they leave government service, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News and three people familiar with the communications who requested anonymity to discuss the private exchanges.

“As you know, Jason and I are looking to leave USTR, and we would like to assist companies…

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.

Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke says inventory shortages, fewer incentives, weaker demand and tightening auto loan standards could slow the industry's sales momentum in the second half of the year.

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Registrations of Tesla Inc. vehicles rebounded last month in China, suggesting demand is picking up for the U.S. carmaker’s electric vehicles as the world’s largest auto market recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.

In May, 11,364 China-built Teslas were registered in the country, according to data from state-backed China Automotive Information Net. That’s the highest monthly tally so far for the carmaker, which is ramping up output after starting deliveries from its first Chinese plant around the beginning of the year.

China is a crucial market for Tesla’s growth plans as the company nears eclipsing Toyota Motor Corp. as the world’s most valuable automaker. Yet risks such as Tesla getting caught in U.S.-China trade tensions remain.

The registration tally signals that Tesla is faring better than other electric-vehicle makers in China. While the country’s car market as a whole is recovering — sales expanded last month for the first time in almost a year …

A well-timed decision to shift from radio and TV ads to Facebook drove a surge in sales for Power Ford, helping the Albuquerque, N.M., dealership connect with homebound consumers as the coronavirus pandemic hit.

After a management change in mid-2017, the dealership moved thousands of advertising dollars to the social networking site. By partnering with Dealers United, a vendor that helps dealers with online data and advertising, Power Ford began paying for targeted ads showcasing its vehicles to nearby consumers who are in the market to buy. The ads pop up on their news feeds based off their recent online search history.

The results have been impressive.

In 2019, the dealership increased sales 8 percent year over year — vs. a 3.2 percent decline in its local market — and spent 21 percent less on advertising. It sold 1,576 new vehicles last year.

Once a bit player in its market, Power Ford has been the top-selling For…

Thanks to COVID-19, the era of pickup and delivery is here.

Before the pandemic, a growing number of stores selling mainstream brands were slowly rolling out pickup and delivery options for their service customers.

But now it's pedal to the metal as pickup and delivery of customers' vehicles has emerged as one of the most effective ways fixed ops directors can keep their service bays busy while reducing the risk of exposing service advisers, techs and cashiers to the virus.

An added bonus: Pickup and delivery means fewer customers hanging out in lounges waiting for their vehicles to be fixed, further helping stores remain virus-free.

In late March, Ford began subsidizing dealerships that pick up and deliver customer vehicles. Customers are not charged for pickup and delivery. Ford covers dealers' costs by paying them $50 per repair ticket on cars picked up, serviced and returned. In May, more than 2,800 Ford stores …

Some technicians at franchised dealerships have been laid off, and those lucky enough to still be turning wrenches likely aren't getting the work they did before the pandemic.

Whether they're not working or barely working, techs still have bills to pay — rent, car and tools, for starters. And now, faced with the prospect of working on vehicles that might have traces of the virus, some might not be too eager to return to their service bay.

But concern over the auto retail industry's critical need for more service technicians has temporarily taken a back seat as dealership service business recovers from a steep decline as a result of the coronavirus shutdowns. Once that recovery occurs, the focus will return to the tech shortage, experts say.

"I think the shortage is still a shortage," Mike Campbell, vice president of service and quality for Subaru of America, told Fixed Ops Journal.

Through April, Subaru's 634 U.S. d…

In the "new normal" world imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, technicians at Patriot Subaru of Saco, near Portland, Maine, now work firefighter shifts — three 11-hour days a week. Plus they work only in every other bay to maintain social distancing.

And at Hansel Auto Group in California, technicians now diligently — not occasionally — video record their multipoint walkaround inspections to better communicate virtually with customers.

As these changes show, furloughed fixed ops employees who return will likely find their jobs are quite different from the ones they left. Furthermore, the work will demand new skills and mindsets, including more technical proficiency and an ability to adapt to change.

"Yesterday's normal is never coming back," says Adam Arens, CEO of Patriot Auto Group, which operates three rooftops in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. "That's why we're diligently looking way down the road trying to figure out …

Ed Roberts added his second mobile service van on March 11. It has become an $80,000 tool for picking up recall work at Bozard Ford-Lincoln in St. Augustine, Fla.

When the first one arrived late last year, Roberts expected it to primarily serve the dealership's fleet customers. But things have tilted toward individual clients, with about half of the orders involving recall work.

Apparently, customers who have a hard time getting around to taking their vehicles to the dealership for recall fixes are more than willing to have the repairs come to them.

"It's probably the most-accepted program I've ever put together in fixed ops," says Roberts, 46, speaking of his mobile van effort.

That includes work at six dealerships in a two-decade career. The last eight have been at Bozard, where he's the parts and service director overseeing a 96-bay shop and the two mobile units.

Roberts says his team is systematic and…

When states across the country issued stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic, most service customers parked their cars and put off needed repair work even though many dealership service lanes were considered an essential service and therefore stayed open.

Now that many states are slowly reopening, will service customers begin booking appointments at their dealerships?

Customer surveys during the pandemic showed some reluctance on the part of consumers to reengage with advisers and techs on the service drive. Some worried about how clean their vehicle would be after the repair work was completed, and others expressed a desire to avoid face-to-face interactions.

In mid-May, Fixed Ops Journal asked DealerRater to poll service customers on what their most important considerations would be when they now take their vehicles in for repairs at their dealership.

Half of the nearly 12,000 respondents said price sti…

For years, the body shop has been a profitable component of the fixed operations at Westside Lexus in Houston, the first Lexus dealership to be named a certified collision center of the year by Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc.

Westside Parts and Service Director Robert Parnell says the collision shop generates profit from labor and materials, and selling replacement parts bolsters the bottom line in the parts department. The dealership also does a good business in repairing Lexus vehicles under direct-repair programs with insurance companies.

"We're very happy to be in the body shop business and always have been. I can't imagine that ever changing," he says. But collision repair business at Westside and at dealerships across the country has fallen dramatically — 50 percent or more at some shops — after stay-at-home directives during the coronavirus pandemic sharply curtailed traffic, and as a result accidents, on city streets and state highways.<…

The new High-Roof Transit van that arrived at Gus Machado Ford Hialeah, near Miami, in early March was supposed to deliver service to the dealership's fleet customers.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Big contracts, such as one with Miami-Dade County, went dormant. Parts and service director Amable Valle turned his attention to taking repairs to individual customers' driveways.

The dealership sent emails to customers, posted videos on its website and publicized its mobile service van on social media. General Manager Victor Benitez appeared on Spanish-language TV to tout the vehicle disinfection that comes with mobile repairs.

And while it's been a challenge luring some customers, especially older people wary of allowing visitors onto their property, Valle is convinced he's found a way for his service department to broaden its reach.

"We already do pickup and delivery, too," he says. "It's just another thing we can pro…