Trade News

Richard Hollingshead, owner of a chemical company, opens the world's first drive-in movie theater in Camden, N.J., on June 6, 1933.

Hollingshead, who died in 1975, came up with the idea for Park-in Theaters when he set up a screen on his driveway and a home projector on top of a car so his family could enjoy a movie outdoors. He received a patent in May 1933.

The first movie played at the drive-in — Wife Beware — had been released three years earlier. The admission price: 25 cents a person or $1 a carload.

The drive-in move theater, following the Great Depression so closely, took time to perfect. Over time theaters grew in size, accommodating as many as 1,000 or more cars at once. One of the largest was the All-Weather Drive-In of Copiague, N.Y., with room for 2,500 cars, a playground and a full-service restaurant, all nestled within a 28-acre lot on Long Island's south shore.

The postwar 1950s were the golden age of …

While General Motors has decided to cancel some or all of the usual summer break for many of its U.S. assembly plants to make up for production lost during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, GM Canada says its plans remain in flux.

Most GM plants in the United States will stay open the weeks of June 29 and July 6, a period when they normally would be closed, spokesman Jim Cain said.

"Thanks to excellent teamwork, the restart of vehicle production at GM's manufacturing facilities continues to go safely and smoothly," Cain said.

Plans in Canada, where the automaker assembles the Chevrolet Equinox in Ingersoll, stamps some of the vehicle’s parts in Oshawa, and operates a powertrain plant in St. Catharines, are still being determined.

“GM Canada is not planning a standard time frame for a manufacturing summer shut down period,” spokeswoman Jennifer Wright said. “We anticipate continuing to run portions of the St. Catharines plant to meet stren…

A Russian tech company with an extensive self-driving car test program will continue to make the Motor City its North American hub.

Yandex said Tuesday it will maintain a presence in Detroit and expand its fleet in the city once testing resumes after its coronavirus-related pause.

The company had been among those contracted to provide autonomous taxi services during the now-canceled North American International Auto Show this month. Michigan's business-friendly laws made it an attractive location for a longer-term commitment, the company said.

"There are definitely more opportunities to test our technology in more of an autonomous mode there," said Yandex spokesperson Yulia Shveyko. "I cannot tell you the concrete timing of when we will do what, but we plan to relaunch active testing, continue testing, and move to more and more autonomous driving."

Starting in February, 10 of the company's Toyota Prius V test mules ro…

The 4 Series coupe, a pillar of BMW's U.S. car lineup and a key entry point for the brand, is undergoing a major makeover that delivers fresh styling and more power, performance and safety gear for 2021.

The second-generation 4 Series will launch globally in October and retail in the U.S. starting at $46,595, including shipping.

The coupe, renamed when it was carved out from the 3 Series family in 2015, is BMW's third bestselling car in the U.S., drawing mostly younger, affluent buyers, though demand fell 41 percent in 2019 to 18,621.

The new 4 Series coupe, 5.2 inches longer and an inch wider than its predecessor, sports a new BMW kidney grille design to cool the vehicle's beefier engines. The grille is angled forward and extends to the bottom of the front bumper cover. It is framed by surfaces with a three-dimensional mesh structure.

The standard LED headlights are slimmer in design and taper toward the kidney gril…

Online used-car retailer Vroom Inc. announced Tuesday it has begun an initial public offering of 18.75 million shares of common stock.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the retailer pointed to opportunity in the highly fragmented used-car space and sought to paint itself as a company in growth mode as it reports losses.

Vroom expects the offering price to be $15 to $17 per share. That range would yield $281 million to $319 million.

The company has applied to list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the VRM ticker symbol.

Much like Carvana, Vroom has sought to exploit the fragmented used-vehicle space by offering an easy online alternative for shopping for and buying cars and trucks. In its SEC filing, the company called the used-vehicle space a "massive market ripe for disruption." It highlighted $814 billion in used-vehicle sales last year in the U.S., with 40 million vehicles sold. Within that, there w…

Just one model year after the Supra was revived, Toyota is adding a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine to the sports car's lineup. The new entry-level Supra's engine is rated at 255 hp, the model's first turbo four. Toyota says the new engine reduces the car's weight by nearly 200 pounds. The only gearbox available will be an eight-speed automatic. Here's a roundup of select Supra four-cylinder reviews from the automotive media.

"Not only is there less weight, there is also less complexity. A sizeable chunk of the missing mass is chalked up to the removal of active hardware present on the 3.0 that is now mechanical on the 2.0. Compared to the six-cylinder, for example, the Supra 2.0 does away with the active suspension and active rear differential, though the electric power steering remains. According to Toyota, every aspect of the suspension and chassis is reworked compared to the more aggressive six-cylinder big brother.

"The result of this devoluti…

I've heard from numerous dealers over the last several weeks who quickly spun up digital services and don't expect to drop them once business returns to pre-pandemic levels. The commitment to digital sales is holding even as dealerships across the country begin to reopen to in-person transactions.

"We're going to see this continue, even as we come out to having more of a traditional [sales] opportunity," John Bergstrom, chairman of Bergstrom Automotive in Wisconsin, told Automotive News Publisher Jason Stein on the "Daily Drive" podcast last week. "More and more, people are going to shop from home."

To a large degree, that's because many consumers want to shop from home. Even before the virus moved a lot of shopping online, customer surveys have shown greater interest in remote transactions for convenience and efficiency. The pandemic added contactless purchasing for safety's sake to that list.

Yet not everyone is ready to buy a car over the Internet. A …

Nearly 6,000 Michigan automotive customers will be eligible for relief and possible loan forgiveness from Santander Consumer USA as part of the settlement agreed to between the subprime lender and a coalition of state attorneys general.

Santander allegedly violated consumer protection laws by placing borrowers with subprime credit into auto loans it knew carried a high probability of default, according to the settlement announced last month with attorneys general in 33 states and the District of Columbia.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement Monday that the 5,925 consumers have been identified and will each receive a $225 relief payment. A portion of those consumers will qualify for loan forgiveness, Nessel's office said.

"Many individuals who enter into subprime lending agreements are working to build their credit and have few other options to obtain financing for a vehicle. For a business to take advantage of those consumers by exp…

DETROIT — A UAW employee last week filed a lawsuit alleging multiple union leaders, including the current and former vice presidents of the Ford department, sexually harassed her numerous times, according to court records.

Patricia Morris-Gibson, a 56-year-old UAW international service representative, said in the lawsuit that she was "subjected to discrimination and sexual harassment including but not limited to unwelcome sexual advances, comments, and offensive conduct of a sexual nature."

Gerald Kariem, vice president of the Ford department and a member of the union's international executive board, is among three named defendants. The other two are Miguel Foster, an assistant director of technical office professionals, and George Hardy, an assistant director of independent parts suppliers.

It's the second allegation of sexual misconduct against a current board member in roughly two months. After allegations surfaced in March against former Region 2B Di…

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Monday that Volkswagen Group cannot escape potential financial penalties from two counties in Florida and Utah that may amount to a "staggering" additional liability arising from the German automaker's diesel emissions scandal.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in Anchorage, Alaska, was a victory for Utah's Salt Lake County and Florida's Hillsborough County in their litigation against VW. The counties sued VW for causing excess diesel emissions harmful to the environment and could in theory seek billions of dollars in damages.

Volkswagen settled U.S. criminal and civil actions prompted by the scandal for more than $20 billion, but that did not shield it from liability from local and state governments, the 9th Circuit noted.

The 9th Circuit found that nothing in the Clean Air Act "raises the inference that Congress intended to place manufacturers beyond the reach of …

MEXICO CITY -- The Mexican unit of Volkswagen Group said Monday the automaker was ready to restart operations in the states of Puebla and Guanajuato on June 15 after activity was idled in late March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Volkswagen has had to wait to restart the plant in Puebla, one of its biggest worldwide, due to a decree from the state government, which said conditions were not yet right for a restart because of the pandemic's ongoing spread.