Trade News

BEIJING - Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing aims to operate more than 1 million self-driving vehicles through its platform by 2030, an executive said on Tuesday.

Didi is developing autonomous driving technologies and plans to deploy so-called robotaxis in areas where there is a shortage of ride-hailing vehicle supply, said Meng Xing, COO of the company's autonomous driving unit, at an online conference hosted by South China Morning Post.

The company last month completed a more than $500 million fundraising round for the autonomous driving unit, led by SoftBank Group's Vision Fund 2.

Didi said last year it would start using autonomous vehicles to pick up passengers in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen this year before expanding the program outside of China in 2021.

Automakers and tech companies in China are investing billions in autonomous driving to compete with the likes of Tesla Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo and Uber Technologies.

While some ind…

Unifor is urging Canada's government to implement a national auto strategy built around the adoption and manufacturing of zero-emissions electric vehicles.

“The government must accelerate the conversion of passenger and commercial vehicles to ZEVs by providing financial support and tax credits to firms engaged in the manufacture of EVs, for instance, including final assembly and the production of EV component parts in Canada,” the union wrote in a report released Wednesday.

Its proposals, Unifor says, would lead to a “fair, inclusive and resilient” economic recovery.

Unifor, Canada's largest private-sector union, representing about 315,000 workers in every major area of the economy, also urged Ottawa to boost skills training and raise the federal minimum wage to at least C$15 per hour ($11 USD). It said any corporate rescue packages should come with “strong, enforceable conditions,” including job protection guarantees, executive compensation limits and t…

During the coronavirus pandemic, federal, state and local governments have introduced measures designed to prevent the spread of the deadly virus, preserve economic stability and provide for Americans hardest hit by the crisis. Measures at every level have been criticized as being too harsh, too lax, overreaching and incomplete, depending on regional variances.

A failed consumer protection law in California exemplifies contentious legislation in the time of the coronavirus. The American Financial Services Association believed the rule, AB 2501, which the California Assembly declined to approve before it adjourned last week, would have caused more harm to auto lenders and borrowers in the long run.

The COVID-19 Homeowner, Tenant and Consumer Relief Law of 2020 — first introduced in February — would have required creditors to provide up to nine months of vehicle payment relief, suspend repossessions for two years with some exceptions and offer o…

Volkswagen's refreshed 2021 Arteon sedan will get a much-improved interior and infotainment system along with styling changes that will put it on par with the more expensive A5 sedan from sibling brand Audi.

The Arteon, which replaced the CC in Volkswagen's lineup and debuted in Germany in 2017, didn't go on sale in the U.S. until April 2019 because of delays over the implementation of a new global emissions testing regimen, known as WLTP.

The late launch, including delayed marketing, left an impact on sales in the U.S.: In the first quarter, Volkswagen sold just 788 Arteons in the U.S. In 2019, sales tallied 2,449 nationwide.

Hein Schafer, senior vice president for product marketing and strategy with Volkswagen of America, said the freshening gives the German brand a chance to reset some of its missteps with the Arteon when it launched last year, including a marketing plan for a new nameplate that may have gotten lost in a crowd…

DETROIT -- Rivian, the startup electric vehicle manufacturer that is less than a year from launching its first two vehicles, is planning to transfer most of its engineering and product development staff from suburban Detroit to its battery systems and vehicle dynamics operation in Irvine, Calif.

Also, some of Rivian's 750-strong Michigan work force will transfer to the company's Normal, Ill., plant as the company gears up for production.

It's unclear how many employees are moving out of Rivian's offices in Plymouth, Mich.

Rivian spokeswoman Amy Mast confirmed some product development staff will be moving out of Michigan, but she said the company plans to keep some functions in its suburban Detroit facility. Rivian has eight facilities -- six in the United States, one in Canada and one in the United Kingdom.

"Of Rivian's 2,300 employees, approximately 1,000 are based in California and 750 in Michigan," Mast told Automotive News in an e-mail. "We a…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. will use a familiar name to help reveal the next-generation F-150 pickup this week in an unfamiliar way.

The automaker is tapping actor and Ford trucks pitchman Denis Leary to show off the redesigned pickup during a livestream slated for Thursday night. The automaker originally planned to show the vehicle earlier this year but had to postpone the reveal until now because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Leary, who has worked with Ford since 2008, will serve as the host for the online reveal. He prerecorded some pieces of the program last week, featuring interviews with current truck customers. He said he fell in love with the 14th-generation F-150 as soon as he saw it on set and thinks buyers will be wowed by the pickup's new technology.

"People aren't just using the truck for work anymore," he told Automotive News. "Trucks have evolved along with customer needs. You want all the luxury and the technology that your car has, and we've…

Executives from Tesla Inc. will use an unassuming job-type description in their pitch to a Texas county on the merits of the carmaker’s Cybertruck plant project.

The factory would bring 5,000 “middle-skill” jobs to Travis County, according to the presentation Tesla officials will deliver during an online meeting Tuesday. The company says it will create positions that pay solid wages without requiring substantial levels of higher education.

The pitch is an early indication of how companies may tout economic-development projects to localities that have sustained significant job losses following the coronavirus outbreak. The unemployment rate for Travis County, which is home to Texas’s capital city of Austin, soared to 12.4 percent in April from 2.2 percent a year earlier, according to Federal Reserve data Tesla cites in its presentation.

CEO Elon Musk first announced plans in March to build Tesla’s second U.S. auto assembly plant that w…