Trade News

BEIJING -- A little-known U.S.-based engineering and design company said it plans to invest 10 billion yuan ($1.41 billion) to make sports cars with FAW Group under the brand of choice of late revolutionary leader Chairman Mao Zedong, Hongqi.

Silk EV on Monday told Reuters it has signed a memorandum of understanding with FAW to launch a joint venture in the state-owned automaker's hometown, Changchun in northern China, to make cars it has dubbed the S-series.

The plan was first reported on Friday by state media CCTV and Xinhua. FAW confirmed the CCTV report to Reuters.

Silk EV is an automotive solutions provider focused on the China auto market, its website shows.

It launched a company in Shanghai's free trade zone in April 2019 with registered capital of 1 million yuan ($141,281), according to a filing with the official National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System.

Hongqi, meaning Red Flag, was launched by FAW in 1958 and is wid…

General Motors said Monday it has suspended its quarterly cash dividend on its common stock and its share buybacks to save cash in the face of the coronavirus crisis.

The company has also expanded its cash options by extending a three-year revolving credit agreement for $3.6 billion to April 2022. Earlier this month GM and GM Financial, its captive finance company, also extended a $2 billion 364-day revolving credit agreement to April 2021. In March, GM pulled $16 billion from existing credit lines, doubling its cash reserve.

Last month Ford Motor Co. suspended its dividend and tapped credit lines to raise additional cash.

GM last paid a quarterly dividend on March 5 of 38 cents a share.

“We continue to enhance our liquidity to help navigate the uncertainties in the global market created by this pandemic,” GM CFO Dhivya Suryadevara said in a statement. “Fortifying our cash position and strengthening our balance sheet …

TOKYO -- Japan's Nissan Motor Co. will slash its Japan auto production plans by 70 percent in May and 43 percent in June, documents seen by Reuters show, as the impact of the coronavirus shakes the troubled automaker.

Manufacturers around the globe are reeling from consumer demand shrunk by the spread of the coronavirus.

Nissan prior to the pandemic had already been grappling with the turmoil that followed the ousting of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn.

This month Nissan said that 15,000 employees at its headquarters in Yokohama and main R&D center in nearby Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture, would be required to take leave for 16 days from Monday through Japan's "Golden Week" holiday that starts on May 4.

Nissan stopped production at its Tochigi vehicle plant, which produces the Skyline sedan and Infiniti models, for much of this month, and plans to keep it closed for most of May.

Its plant in Kyushu, southern Japan, will operate only…

MUNICH -- BMW and Volkswagen are among European automakers rebooting their car factories to take advantage of easing coronavirus lockdown rules.

VW restarted production at its home plant in Wolfsburg on Monday, while BMW is cranking up engine manufacturing, also starting Monday.

BMW, VW and Daimler, are banking on Germany's ability to trace and contain the coronavirus, and a healthcare system capable of extensive testing to identify possible carriers of the disease.

Production capacity in the Wolfsburg plant will be at around 10 per cent to 15 percent to begin with, and reach around 40 percent of pre-crisis levels in the week after, said Andreas Tostmann, VW brand's board member responsible for production.

"The restart of Europe's biggest car factory after weeks of standstill is an important symbol for our employees, our dealers, suppliers, the German economy and for Europe," Tostmann said.

VW builds the Golf compact hatchback in Wolfsburg…

Europe's five largest automotive markets edged past China in electric vehicle registrations in the first quarter of 2020, as China battled the outbreak of the coronavirus and imposed shutdowns countrywide, according to a study by PwC and its strategy consulting subsidiary Strategy&.

Germany, France, the UK Italy and Spain collectively registered 79,300 full-electric vehicles between January and March, narrowly edging past the 77,256 in China, the study found.

Unit sales more than doubled in Europe in that period, compared with the first quarter of 2019. In China, sales fell by more than half in the quarter because of the lockdown.

The trend could see a reversal, as sheltering and lockdown requirements are expected to remain in place in most of Europe throughout the spring and restrictions in China are gradually lifted.

More than 80 percent of China's almost 84,000 confirmed coronavirus cases have been in Hubei Province, of which Wuhan is the…

The head of the nation's largest U.S. dealership group says "retail has changed forever" because of the coronavirus and that robust safety processes for AutoNation Inc.'s employees and customers will be necessary.

AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson told shareholders last week that the company has implemented numerous safety measures in its stores from spacing markers for social distancing to hand-washing reminders and bulletins for employees and customers. The auto retailer in recent weeks also implemented a nationwide "store-to-door" vehicle delivery service.

"We've taken significant steps already to ensure the safety of our customers and our employees," Jackson said during AutoNation's virtual annual meeting. "That includes providing masks, gloves, hand sanitizers, single-use pens, sprays, wipes [and] much-heightened level of cleaning throughout the stores, including all the high-touch areas such as keyboards, telephones [and] guest common areas."

AutoNation…

BEIJING -- Prices for Tesla Inc.'s two China-made model 3 variants rose after government authorities cut subsidies in the world's biggest auto market.

China cut subsidies on electric vehicles by 10 percent this year, effective April 23, but there will be a three-month transition period.

After the adjustment, the starting price for the company's Shanghai-made Standard Range Model 3 sedans will rise to 303,550 yuan ($42,900) from 299,050 yuan, while Long Range Model 3 cars, which Tesla plans to roll out starting in June, will be priced at 344,050 yuan versus 339,050 yuan, a company website showed.

Prices for those models before subsidies remain unchanged.

Tesla, which started delivering cars from its $2 billion Shanghai factory last year, saw China registrations rise to 12,709 in March from 2,314 in February.

The subsidies will apply only to passenger cars costing less than 300,000 yuan ($42,376) after the transition period. China will also i…

BEIJING -- Great Wall Motor Co. swung to a net loss in the first quarter after profits dropped 14 percent last year, as the coronavirus epidemic hit the world's biggest auto market.

The Baoding company, which has a joint venture with German luxury automaker BMW, said in a stock exchange filing Friday it reported a 650 million yuan ($92 million) net loss in the first three months of the year, down 184 percent from a 773.3 million yuan profit a year earlier.

Hit by the coronavirus epidemic, China's overall car sales fell 42 percent in the first three months compared with a year earlier. Sales of Great Wall, which is known for its popular SUVs, dropped 47 percent.

Great Wall said the epidemic's impact on auto sales and devaluation of the Russian ruble were the reasons for the profit drop in the first three months this year. Great Wall also builds vehicles in Russia.

It has agreed to buy two assembly plants in India and Thailand from General Motors an…

SAN FRANCISCO -- Tesla Inc. is calling some workers back to its lone U.S. vehicle-assembly plant starting this week, before San Francisco Bay area stay-home orders are scheduled to expire.

Supervisors told some staff in the paint and stamping operations of the factory in Fremont, California, to report to the facility on April 29. In messages seen by Bloomberg News, plant leaders ask workers to reply and say whether they plan to show up.

Tesla representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tesla had previously communicated to workers that it expected to resume normal production at its U.S. facilities on May 4, the day after Bay area health measures are slated to end. The EV manufacturer clashed with Fremont officials last month over whether its factory was an essential business or otherwise needed to shut down to comply with an Alameda County order issued in mid-March.

The Fremont plant builds every vehicle currently in Tesl…

As automakers and suppliers prepare to restart North American production over the coming weeks, they'll have more to worry about than just how to keep their parts supplies coming and how to keep their factories sanitized.

Among them: When the nation and the world are flying by the seat of their pants trying to deal with a deadly new virus, what is an employer's liability exposure if something goes wrong?

Attorney Chris Reynolds — who also happens to be head of manufacturing for Toyota Motor North America — says the industry as well as other employers are about to discover the answer to that question.

"What is the liability standard for a situation that is unprecedented? We will surely find out," Reynolds said as he laid out plans Thursday, April 23, for Toyota's plants in the United States and Canada to return to limited production beginning May 4.

"Nobody has a good fix on it, if I put my legal hat on. But what our…

CarMax CEO Bill Nash once shared an anecdote he said perfectly illustrated the company's personalized retail strategy. A customer who had had a baby didn't want to trek 60 miles to a CarMax location, so the company delivered a car to her.

Less than a year later, millions of Americans are barred from going to dealerships because of stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic. And while some traditional dealers have been forced to adopt an arm's-length sales strategy basically overnight, the crisis also led used-vehicle industry leaders such as CarMax and Carvana to tweak their approaches.

CarMax launched contactless curbside pickup at most of its stores that are open nationwide. At press time, about a third of the company's 217 stores were open for curbside pickup and by appointment only, and about 35 were closed for retail operations. Most of CarMax's service departments remain open, deemed an essential service by states.

Nash alluded to…

Marta Hall’s long-simmering frustrations over intellectual property disputes with Chinese rivals reached a breaking point in February.

In a torrent of tweets, the chief marketing officer and former president of Velodyne Lidar Inc. decried the “blatant theft” of the intellectual property behind lidar, the high-tech laser sensors that help self-driving vehicles detect obstacles and perceive the road ahead. She castigated automakers for purchasing knockoffs of this pivotal technology and implored the federal government to better protect U.S. tech companies from patent infringement by international rivals.

“We’ve gone to Washington, D.C., to explain this, but Washington is very busy these days,” Hall told Automotive News. “What do they do about it? What can they do about it? Not much right now. Whereas the  Chinese government has given their companies a lifeline. They fund the Chinese lidar. There’s a lot of money being put into that. It’s almost like the Chi…