Trade News

SHANGHAI -- The coronavirus pandemic is upending automakers in China, where sales are on track to fall for a third-straight year, while also paving the way for consolidation in the country’s highly fragmented passenger vehicle manufacturing sector. 

Before the outbreak, many automakers -- notably Hyundai, Kia, PSA, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and most Chinese brands, except for Geely and Great Wall -- were producing well below factory capacity. 

The virus ravaged China from late January to early March, sending car and light-truck sales industrywide tumbling 45 percent in the first quarter.

With the outbreak largely contained in mid-March, new-vehicle demand rebounded strongly in April, rising 4.4 percent to 2.07 million. 

Major global automakers, supported by healthy balance sheets and a rich product mix and pipeline, have proved to be more resilient while coping with the unprecedented crisis. 

The three largest carma…

MG, the British car brand famous for the Midget sports car and now owned by SAIC Motor Corp., opened a flagship store in Paris last week, expanding into a key Europe market despite the coronavirus pandemic. 

The four-level store is in central Paris near the upmarket French department store Galeries Lafayette. 

The store initially will sell the MG EZS, a full-electric compact crossover, SAIC said, without revealing the price of the vehicle. 

The EV is 4,314 mm long, 1,809 mm wide and 1,644 mm tall, with a wheelbase of 2,585 mm. It has a range of 263 kilometers under WLTP and a maximum speed of 140 km per hour. 

The EZS, the battery-powered variant of the gasoline ZS, is the only full-electric vehicle in MG’s product lineup. It went on sale in China in March 2019 with a starting price of 119,800 yuan ($16,920) after government subsidies. 

SAIC started exporting the MG EZS from China to Europe in September 2019. France…

Uber Technologies Inc. outlined new safety procedures at a virtual event on Wednesday, a move aimed to inspire more drivers and riders to feel comfortable getting in a shared car again.

The rules will require drivers, passengers and food delivery couriers to wear face masks as cities begin to reopen across the U.S. After the COVID-19 pandemic began spreading rapidly more than two months ago in the U.S., Uber urged riders to stay home and shuttered its carpool service completely. Drivers were often conflicted about continuing to pick up the few remaining passengers or putting their health at risk.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended wearing face coverings in public since April 3 to prevent the spread of the virus. But masks have become a polarizing sign. Some people believe they aren’t necessary and that the economic effects of the lockdowns outweigh the health risks. President Donald Trump has long defended his decision to not wear a …

California is moving to open up the nation’s most populous state while its biggest cities are still facing tight restrictions -- part of an approach to reopening that’s dividing urban and rural areas across the country.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday said the state would ease guidelines to allow curbside pickup at malls, the reopening of botanical gardens and even some dine-in restaurants as the coronavirus outbreak stabilizes. Some office spaces, where employees are unable to work remotely, may also reopen in a limited capacity. Most auto dealership showrooms were allowed to open on Monday.

Yet the signs of optimism came the same day the public health director of Los Angeles County -- the state’s largest -- told county supervisors that the area’s health orders would likely extend through July, offering a reminder that life is far from returning to normal. The San Francisco Bay area has tight limitations on business in place through the end of May, with county of…

Strict shelter-in-place orders brought on by the coronavirus pandemic severely hindered profits at publicly traded U.S. megaretailers in the first quarter. But despite showroom closures, slowing vehicle sales and economic uncertainty closing out the month of March, all six public groups posted gains in finance-and-insurance profit per vehicle.

Public groups cited automaker support and robust digital processes for raising F&I figures.

Retailers have long been concerned that digital car deals, which have increased on a national scale following pandemic-related closures, corrupt F&I profits. But several public groups noted in first-quarter earnings that they are making the same amount, if not more, per vehicle in online transactions.

AutoNation Inc. and Sonic Automotive Inc. reported all-time quarterly records for average per-vehicle F&I profit in the first quarter.

Sonic showed the biggest improvement in F&…

LONDON -- Ford will restart output at its two British engine factories on Monday, which means that all of the automaker's European manufacturing sites will be in operation next week, after shutdowns due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Ford built nearly 1.1 million engines last year at two British sites, Dagenham in east London and Bridgend in south Wales. The engines are shipped to vehicle factories in countries such as Turkey and Germany.

Ford's Valencia engine plant in Spain will also resume output next week.

The automaker said anyone entering a Ford facility will need to wear a company-provided face mask and have their body temperature checked. Work areas have been redesigned to make sure social distancing rules can be adhered to.

"Our key priority is the implementation of Ford's global standards on social distancing and strengthened health and safety protocols to safeguard the well-being of our workforce," Ford of Britain Chairman Graham Hoa…

The COVID-19 outbreak dealt a major blow to large auto lenders' first-quarter earnings as banks deferred auto loan payments and shifted resources to shield themselves from future losses. As lenders tighten credit access to mitigate the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic on their auto portfolios, finance-and-insurance managers are working overtime to get these customers approved for loans.

The swift descent from one of the longest economic expansions in history to an economy now burdened with the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression is prompting F&I managers to assemble complicated car deals and figure out how to report employment status on a coronavirus-related job loss.

Employment earnings are further muddled by government stimulus, which when layered over traditional unemployment boosts income for out-of-work consumers so they temporarily qualify for larger monthly payments than they may have otherwise.

Appr…

Global auto supplier Marelli said it will open an interior unit manufacturing plant next year in Bowling Green, Ohio.

The company is hiring 75 employees to work in manufacturing, assembly and warehousing operations to support two new bulkhead programs. A bulkhead is a structural component with attachment spots for headlamps, the radiator and the hood latch.

"There are many factors that go into building a business case for a new site," Chris Bradford, regional head of interiors at Marelli, said in a Wednesday statement. "Our key considerations were affordability, proximity to customers, quality of the local work force and the opportunity to expand."

The company declined to identify which automakers the plant will supply, but said it expects the operation to make about 760,000 components per year. Plant construction is expected to be completed by early 2021. Bowling Green is about 80 miles south of Detroit on Interstate 75.

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The strength of GM Financial has been a bright spot for General Motors during the coronavirus crisis. GM's captive has enough liquidity to stand largely on its own, the ability to defer existing customers' loan payments and the power to attract new buyers with generous financing incentives.

At the end of the first quarter, GM Financial had $24.9 billion in liquidity, which would cover at least six months of net cash needs without tapping capital markets or GM, CEO Dan Berce said. Under its support agreement with GM, the lender has a $2 billion cushion before it would need any additional capital from the automaker.

GM expects 2020 credit losses to range from 2 to 2.5 percent and for used-car values to decline 7 to 10 percent industrywide.

"We could experience double that credit loss expectation and double that decline in used-car values, and it wouldn't eat up the whole $2 billion capital cushion. And GM wouldn't have to pay capital," Berce said.

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