Trade News

NEW DELHI -- Days after a border clash with China this month in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed, New Delhi told companies to find ways to cut imports from China. But two big industries, automobiles and pharmaceuticals, say it is easier said than done.

Like many countries, India relies on China for products such as electronic components and drug ingredients because it cannot make them or source them elsewhere as cheaply, company and industry figures say.

Thus any moves to curb imports or make them costlier without developing alternatives will hurt local businesses.

"We don't import because we like to, but because we have no choice," said R.C. Bhargava, chairman of Maruti Suzuki India, the country's biggest automaker.

"To attract companies to produce locally, we need to be more competitive and lower our costs compared with other countries."

India imported around $70.3 billion of goods from China in the fiscal year to March 2019, and expo…

BMW Group and Great Wall Motor Co. started construction on a joint venture plant in the east China city of Zhangjiagang. 

Despite lingering coronavirus infections in China, the project is “progressing smoothly,” Great Wall said in a statement. 

The 5.1 billion-yuan ($721 million) joint venture, Spotlight Automotive, was incorporated in November 2019 as a 50-50 partnership between BMW and Great Wall.

The new company will pool R&D resources from the two shareholders to develop gasoline and electric vehicles for BMW’s Mini and Great Wall’s proprietary brands, according to the statement.

The plant can produce up to 160,000 vehicles annually, and vehicles will be distributed via separate dealerships under the two automakers’ respective brands, Great Wall noted.

Great Wall didn’t disclose a construction timetable for the plant.

BMW also operates a Chinese joint venture with Brilliance China Automotive in the northeast city o…

Nissan Motor Co. plans to tap Chinese battery maker Sunwoda Electric Vehicle Battery Co. to jointly develop and produce batteries for hybrid vehicles.

The Japanese automaker “will begin studying joint development of next-generation vehicle batteries” for its e-Power vehicles to be sold in and outside China, Nissan said last week. 

“The two companies will also discuss the development of an efficient production system to ensure stable supply capacity for jointly developed batteries,” it added.  

Nissan expects to reach a final agreement with Sunwoda on the deal before the end of this year.

Nissan’s e-Power hybrids use an electric motor to directly drive the wheels and a gasoline engine to generate electricity for the motor.

The automaker plans to sell more than 1 million all-electric cars and e-Power models annually by 2023.

Nissan produces only one electrified model in China – the battery-powered Nissan Sylphy compact s…

New-vehicle sales at foreign automakers and 11 major domestic auto manufacturers kept advancing in the first 20 days of June, as the market continued to recover from the coronavirus outbreak, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said. 

Aggregate sales during the period jumped nearly 16 percent to top 1.08 million, the trade group said this week. 

The companies account for nearly all vehicle sales in China, so the data suggest that China’s car and light-truck market is on track to rebound for the third straight month in June. 

The 11 Chinese automakers include eight state-owned companies – SAIC Motor Corp., Dongfeng Motor Group, China FAW Group, Changan Automobile Co., GAC Motor Co., Brilliance China Automotive, Jianghuai Automobile Co. and Chery Automobile Co.

Privately held Geely Automobile Holdings, Great Wall Motor Co. and BYD Co. also are included in the tally.

After plunging 42 percent in the first quarter …

India plans to impose stringent quality control measures and higher tariffs on imports from China, people with the knowledge of the matter said, as a military standoff between the neighbors threaten economic ties.

The state-run Bureau of Indian Standards is finalizing tougher standards for at least 370 products to ensure items that can be locally produced aren’t imported, the people said, asking not to be identified citing rules. 

The products include chemicals, steel, electronics, heavy machinery, furniture, paper, industrial machinery, rubber articles, glass, metal articles, pharma, fertilizer and plastic toys.

Discussions are also underway to raise import duty on products including furniture, compressors for air conditioners and auto components, they said. The proposal is being evaluated by the Finance Ministry amid the government’s push for local manufacturing.

The Trade Ministry is separately evaluating non-tariff measures to check Chine…

Renault Group opened an R&D center at its light commercial-vehicle joint venture with Brilliance China Automotive to help the partnership improve products. 

With design, development and validation capabilities, the center will introduce advanced technologies for Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi vehicles engineered and built under the joint venture, Brilliance China said. 

The center employs 350 people, including more than 10 experts from the United Kingdom, France, South Korea and India. 

The joint venture, Renault Brilliance Jinbei, was incorporated in the northeast China city of Shenyang in 2017 as a 51-49 partnership between Brilliance China and Renault. 

Renault Brilliance Jinbei produces light buses for Brilliance China’s Jinbei and Huasong brands. 

In April, Renault announced it would exit a passenger vehicle JV established with Dongfeng Motor Group in 2013 to focus on developing and producing light com…

Toyota Motor Corp. is recalling about 752,000 vehicles globally — 267,000 in the U.S. — because of a faulty hybrid system that may not enter a fail-safe driving mode.

The recall involves 2013-15 Prius vehicles and 2014-17 Prius v vehicles.

According to a Wednesday press release from Toyota, if a vehicle does not enter fail-safe driving mode, it could "lose power and stall," which could increase the risk of a crash at high speeds.

Toyota declined to disclose whether any accidents or injuries occurred because of the faulty system.

Owners of affected vehicles will be able to get the hybrid system software updated at Toyota dealerships. If the inverter fails because of "hybrid system faults related to this condition," owners will be able to get the inverter fixed or replaced as well.

Toyota said it will notify owners by late August.

Jaguar Land Rover is teaming up with Oslo, Norway, Momentum Dynamics, an America company in Malvern, Pa., and others to test a wireless electric vehicle charging system that could eventually cut the cord out of the plug-in battery chargers in wide use today.

The system uses inductive charging, which relies on magnetic forces to transmit electricity from pads in or on pavement. An EV parks over a transmitter pad that sends electricity to receiver pads mounted on the undercarriage. Electricity flows from the receiver pad to the vehicle's battery pack. It works much like wireless charging for mobile phones and other small electric devices.

Twenty-five Jaguar I-Pace electric crossovers are being modified by Jaguar and Momentum Dynamics engineers to accept wireless charging. The vehicles will then be shipped to Norway, where they will be placed in a taxi fleet operated by Cabonline, one of the largest taxi companies in the Nordic region. The test i…

WASHINGTON -- House Democrats criticized the Justice Department Wednesday after one of its career attorneys testified an antitrust investigation was launched into automakers that agreed to meet California’s strict tailpipe emissions rules the day after President Donald Trump fumed about the arrangement on Twitter.

John Elias, a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, told the House Judiciary Committee that he reported the circumstances around the investigation to DOJ’s inspector general as an example of how competition laws have been misused under Attorney General William Barr.

“It is unacceptable that he would order the Antitrust Division to initiate pre-textual investigations into industries he and the president do not like simply because they do not like them,” House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler said of Barr in his opening remarks.

The department has said it had a legitimate legal basis to review whether the automakers had …

Thirty percent of drivers turn off adaptive cruise control, according to a survey released Wednesday by Erie Insurance, making it the top safety feature that drivers disable.

The survey identifies 11 safety features that are disabled the most. Lane-keeping assist and driver-attention monitoring round out the top three.

"Drivers said their most common reasons for turning off or disabling features is that they find them annoying or distracting," Jon Bloom, vice president of personal auto at Erie Insurance, said in a press release.

The survey listed several other reasons drivers disable these features, including lack of control, limited helpfulness, false alarms, lack of trust and bad experiences.

Drivers are paying a significant amount of money for these safety features. According to Car and Driver, adaptive cruise control systems can cost $1,000 to $4,500, depending on the vehicle.

"Today's cars are safer …

General Motors has eliminated the third shift at its Spring Hill, Tenn., assembly plant due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the company and UAW local said Wednesday.

"We believe the best way to react to this unforeseen change in our market is to reduce output and operate on two shifts effective immediately," said GM spokesman David Barnas.

"This adjustment allows the plant to maintain stable production, protect the value of our brands in any sales environment, and to provide the smallest impact to plant employment going forward."

About 680 full-time and temporary employees will be permanently laid off, Barnas said.

The layoffs won't all come from the third shift, Mike Herron, shop chair for UAW Local 1853, which represents workers at Spring Hill, told Automotive News.

Employees with the highest seniority can move to either the first or second shift, while lower-level workers on those shifts may…

California plans to ask a state court judge to force Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. to classify their ride-hail drivers as employees rather than contractors, ratcheting up the tension over a new gig worker law.

A hearing for the matter was set for Aug. 6.

In a filing in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco on Wednesday, lawyers for California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said their office will file a request for a preliminary injunction.

Uber in a statement said most drivers preferred the independence afforded by working as contractors and that it calculated more than 158,000 Uber drivers in California would lose work if the reclassification happened.

Lyft and the office for the state's attorney general did not immediately respond to a request for comment.