Trade News

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. is expanding its unexpected foray into medical-supply manufacturing to include production of respirators, face masks and reusable gowns made from airbag material. It also is helping to increase production of collection kits used to test patients for COVID-19.

The automaker said it has started making face masks at a transmission plant in Sterling Heights, Mich., and will begin assembling respirators Tuesday near its Mustang plant in Flat Rock, Mich. Ford initially will pay about 120 UAW-represented workers who have volunteered for the assignments and expects to add 50 more workers as production of the face masks increases.

Ford also is working with airbag supplier Joyson Safety Systems to make reusable gowns for health care workers and helping Thermo Fisher Scientific increase production of COVID-19 test collection kits. Joyson expects to cut and sew 100,000 gowns a week starting next week, for a total of 1.3 million gowns by July 4. Read more

SAIC Motor Corp., the biggest automaker in China, reported a 29 percent drop in 2019 earnings as an industry-wide sales slump undermined manufacturers’ profitability in the world’s largest market.

Net income at the company, a partner of Volkswagen Group and General Motors Co., fell to 25.6 billion yuan ($3.6 billion) for 2019, it said in a statement Monday. Analysts predicted 27 billion yuan on average. Revenue fell 7 percent.

Trade tensions and slowing economic growth weighed on light-vehicle demand in China in the past two years, causing a slump that’s been since exacerbated by the coronavirus outbreak.

Automakers are betting on new models to lure potential shoppers back to showrooms as the government loosens stay-at-home orders aimed at fighting the spread of the virus.

DETROIT — The forecasts seem impossibly wretched.

Economists at JPMorgan Chase project a 40 percent decline in gross domestic product in the second quarter. Trillions of dollars in economic activity abandoned in the wake of COVID-19. April's unemployment rate is expected to hit 20 percent or more. That's 25 million people without work. More than 817,000 filed for unemployment in Michigan in the last three weeks — and that's only those who could access the online system here in the epicenter of the U.S. auto industry.

The numbers are all far, far worse than we saw in the Great Recession. But there is reason to think the bounce back might also dwarf the long, slow recovery from the 2008 crisis.

The National Automobile Dealers Association's first-quarter sales analysis reported a 38 percent fall in new-vehicle sales last month compared with March 2019.

Second-quarter new-vehicle retail sales are expected to fall 80 percent in April and 40 to 70 perc…

DETROIT -- The Center for Automotive Research is moving its annual summer conference in Traverse City, Mich., to a virtual event in the wake of the deadly COVID-19 outbreak.

The Management Briefing Seminars, originally scheduled Aug. 4-6 at the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa, will now take place online on Aug. 4-5.

"While planning for the conference, we have been monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic very closely and following the decisions being made about national and international events," CAR CEO Carla Bailo said in a Monday press release. "We have decided to make CAR MBS 2020 a virtual event for the health and safety of everyone involved."

The event typically gathers hundreds of automotive executives, students and economic development officials from across the U.S. to lead keynotes and panels on trends in the industry and responses to current events.

CAR is currently restructuring the agenda and developing content, which will include conferenc…

CATL, China’s largest electric vehicle battery maker, warned first-quarter profits will fall sharply because of a drop in EV production across the country. 

Net profit for the period is estimated to range from 733 million yuan ($104 million) to 838 million yuan, CATL said last week in a filing on the Shenzhen stock exchange, where it is listed. 

The forecast represents a drop of 20 to 30 percent from the same period last year. 

CATL blamed the slump on the severe contraction in domestic EV output during the first quarter. 

EV production, disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak, tumbled 62 percent to about 77,000 in the period, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. 

The company plans to cut manufacturing costs and operating expenses to mitigate the downturn’s impact on its financials, CATL said. 

In 2019, the company’s net profit rose 29 percent to approach 4.4 billion yuan while r…

Mercedes-Benz outperformed its main German rival BMW in the Chinese market in the first quarter.

Light-vehicle sales at Mercedes-Benz dropped 20 percent to 139,960 in the first three months, Daimler AG said last week. 

“In China and South Korea, our dealerships are fully open and we see a significant increase in demand there,” Britta Seeger, Daimler’s management board member responsible for marketing and sales, said last week of the two markets where the coronavirus outbreak has been brought under control.

China deliveries for the BMW and Mini brands combined fell 31 percent to 116,452 in the period, BMW Group said, without divulging separate sales for the two brands. 

Daimler and BMW no longer release monthly sales results. Another major German luxury brand, Audi, hasn’t disclosed sales for the latest period.

Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi maintained growth in China last year despite the ongoing contraction in the overall new-vehicl…

China’s used-vehicle market has yet to recover from the lingering impact of the coronavirus outbreak that started in late January. 

Used-vehicle sales across the country slipped 24 percent to roughly 950,000 in March, with year-to-date volume slumping 38 percent to some 2 million, according to the China Automobile Dealers Association. 

With the epidemic largely brought under control in early March, more than 97 percent of used-vehicle dealerships had resumed operations by the end of the month, up from 44 percent at the beginning of March, the dealers association said. 

To stimulate consumer demand, Beijing announced this month it will slash the value-added tax on used vehicles to 0.5 percent from 2 percent on May 1. The tax cut will remain in effect until the end of 2023. 

Used-vehicle sales across China have grown steadily over the past two decades. Last year, volume rose 8 percent to top 14.9 million, following an 11 percent …

The average backlog at new-vehicle dealerships dropped to an 80-day supply last month from a record high of 444 days in February, with most dealerships reopened and showroom traffic steadily recovering. 

Average March stockpiles at stores marketing luxury brands and imported foreign brands declined to a 76-day supply, from 389 days a month earlier, according to the China Automobiles Dealers Association. 

Inventories at dealerships stocking Chinese brands fell to a 78-day supply from 401 days the previous month. 

The average backlog at stores marketing domestically built, foreign mass-market brands also slipped to an 83-day supply from 486 days in February.

To slow the spread of the coronavirus epidemic that broke out in the central China city of Wuhan, Beijing extended the Chinese New Year holiday by an extra week to Feb. 9. 

Most car dealerships remained closed for the rest of the month as consumers avoided shopping for…

A contract worker died at a BorgWarner plant in Seneca, S.C., early Monday after a tornado hit the area.

A local news report, quoting the county coroner, said a 77-year-old security guard was killed. Four employees also were at the plant at the time the tornado hit, around 3:35 a.m., but they suffered only minor injuries, a BorgWarner spokeswoman told Automotive News.

The plant sustained severe damage from the tornado, as first reported by local news station WYFF News 4.

"Local authorities in Seneca responded quickly and are working with us to ensure that what remains of the building has been secured so we can complete an assessment," the spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said that its Seneca location produces transfer cases, components that are used on four-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive vehicles. BorgWarner did not release information about which customers the plant supplies.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also confirmed the da…

Standing in a lengthy line at a grocery store or sitting in a crowd at a sporting event once seemed like the most ordinary of activities. Amid the coronavirus outbreak, they're unfathomable.

For the world to reopen, governments and businesses must find ways to ensure gatherings of people don't threaten the health of workers or consumers. Adasky, an Israeli auto-tech startup, thinks it has found a way to accelerate a return to something resembling a normal way of life.

In regular times, Adasky develops thermal-imaging camera technology for use in driver-assist systems and autonomous vehicles. But two weeks ago, company leaders and software engineers met for a brainstorming session on how they could help thwart COVID-19.

Within a matter of days, they cobbled together prototypes that relied on their camera technology's ability to measure heat. Instead of detecting objects on a road, that capability can now be used to measure the pr…

Pennsylvania dealer Scott Brewer has lost vehicle sales to Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia — nearby states where sales are continuing during the coronavirus outbreak.Brewer, president of Brewer Airport Toyota in Moon Township, near Pittsburgh, isn't allowed to sell any vehicles — even online — under Gov. Tom Wolf's public safety orders.Brewer's store is a half-hour drive from the Ohio state line and 40 minutes from West Virginia. And dealerships in those states are advertising to Pennsylvanians, Brewer said."Forcing somebody to either drive out of state or have a car delivered to them — how that's safer for another state to do it than a Pennsylvania dealership is beyond me," Brewer said.

Dealers across the country, already feeling the huge falloff in vehicle sales in the coronavirus outbreak, say they are disheartened to have their customers drive into neighboring states to buy or lease a vehicle. And many like Brewer are frustrated.

Dealers…

Unless the North American auto industry begins now to plan and coordinate the restart of factory production in the weeks or months ahead, it could find broken supply lines and a frustrating series of shortages.

The real-world worries now being expressed by some executives and consultants include suppliers with too little cash to pay for manufacturing restarts, a tussle over limited raw materials, the absence of smaller Tier 2 and Tier 3 companies because of insolvencies and even the disappearance of myriad regional trucking companies relied on to keep industry manufacturing chains linked together.

"You're talking about starting up 50 or so major auto plants at the same time," said Dietmar Ostermann, U.S. automotive advisory leader at PwC, who is working with auto companies across the continent. "Going from zero back to 100 [percent], all at once. That's never been done.

"Consider what happens just in the normal course of a model launc…