Trade News

Japan’s three biggest automakers are poised to add almost 32,000 people to the unprecedented ranks of North American workers seeking unemployment benefits.

While Toyota Motor Corp. isn’t furloughing any of its direct employees in the U.S., Canada or Mexico, the carmaker said Wednesday that it will no longer pay the roughly 5,000 people that temp agencies employ to help staff its idled plants in the region. The company will continue to provide benefits for the time being.

Toyota’s North American unit announced the cost-cutting move a day after Japanese peers Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. said they would temporarily stop paying all staff at their idled U.S. plants and ask them to file for states’ unemployment benefits. Honda’s decision affects 16,900 employees, while Nissan said it will furlough roughly 10,000 workers.

Companies across the auto industry are taking measures to conserve cash as they face uncertainty both with regard to how soon they…

During the coronavirus, remote vehicle deliveries are essential. But as dealerships become accustomed to remote e-signing tools and customers stay away for fear of endangering themselves or their families, will contact-free car sales become more normalized?

Among the software companies offering free or reduced-price services during the COVID-19 closures, finance-and-insurance software provider RouteOne is offering remote e-sign at no cost through May.

The product has been available since 2017, but the jump in interest over the past few weeks has been significant.

Dealer enrollment for RouteOne's remote e-sign service rose more than 400 percent from February through March, the company said, up to about 1,900 dealerships. Also, contract volume rose 59 percent in that same time frame. Though large increases, the software company notes remote e-sign deals remain a small portion of the transactions it supports.

Lenders, to…

ATLANTA — Mercedes-Benz got off to an early lead over rival BMW in the 2020 U.S. luxury sales race.

Mercedes delivered 67,746 vehicles, excluding commercial vans, in the first quarter, down 4.8 percent from a year ago.

BMW sold 59,455 vehicles in the U.S. in the first quarter, down 15 percent from the same period a year ago.

While the overall auto industry took it on the chin in the first quarter as sales cratered since mid-March, premium brands were especially hard hit.

U.S. luxury sales, excluding Jaguar Land Rover, tumbled 13 percent in the first quarter as the segment's biggest markets are among the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, major U.S. luxury sales hubs, have been in lockdown for weeks.

With showrooms shuttered, premium nameplates have ceded 2.7 percentage points of market share in recent weeks, according to J.D. Power.

But amid the gloom lurks hope.

Leasing a…

DETROIT -- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is recalling more than 365,000 vehicles because the rearview camera image is staying on the display screen longer than the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards allow.

The recalled vehicles are mostly in North America.

The vehicles are certain 2020 Jeep Gladiator and Jeep Cherokee models, 2019-20 Ram 1500 and 3500 pickups, Chrysler Pacifica, Dodge Durango, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Jeep Wrangler and Jeep Renegade vehicles and Dodge Challenger sedans, according to a NHTSA document.

The recalled vehicles have 8.4- or 12-inch displays.

For the Ram pickup, the 12-inch screens have been a significant selling point. Sales of the pickup improved 7 percent to 128,805 vehicles during the first quarter, even amid the plunge in March sales caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Associated Press reported that the software error causes the rearview image to stay on the screen more than 10 seconds after the vehicle has b…

Under normal circumstances, seven-year car loans at 0 percent interest would result in a boon in the new-vehicle market. But these aren't normal circumstances.

Because of the economic havoc being wreaked on the U.S. auto retail market by the coronavirus outbreak, industry analysts say the usually reliable incentives likely will fail to ignite sales this spring.

Not only are showrooms closed, with customers eyeing thinner wallets, vehicle values are on a slippery slope. Maryann Keller, automotive industry analyst and principal at Maryann Keller & Associates, said dropping used-car values put dealerships, auto lenders and customers in a bind. That means, on the new-car side, things are "going to get uglier before it gets better," she said.

Automakers using extended loan terms to rejuvenate a rapidly decaying market face many challenges, including convincing customers to enter the vehicle market at a perilous time and asking dea…

Companies seeking relief funding through the Small Business Administration's new loan program will receive their loans within the next week or so, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday.

Lenders began processing loan applications for the Paycheck Protection Program on Friday, April 3. The $349 billion program within the $2.2 trillion stimulus package provides forgivable loans to small businesses that keep their workers on payroll. The forgivable loans are a top priority for dealers trying to keep their businesses afloat as showrooms are ordered to close throughout the United States because of the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 17,500 loans valued at $5.4 billion were approved on the first day, according to Jovita Carranza, administrator for the small-business agency.

President Donald Trump said the Small Business Administration has processed more than $70 billion in guaranteed loans as of Tuesday, April 7. The White House has asked Congress to…

Self-driving startup Zoox has laid off its human safety drivers, at least for a while. With its test vehicles in California and Nevada idled by the coronavirus health crisis, the company sent an email Friday to contract workers, notifying them they would not be paid beyond Tuesday if they could not remotely work.

"The decision was not made lightly and is an unfortunate reflection of the difficult situation faced by many organizations in an uncertain economic climate," a Zoox spokesperson said.

The company did not say how many drivers are affected. Tech site The Verge, which first reported the developments, says approximately 120 contract workers are impacted.

Zoox has 58 autonomous vehicles registered to test on California roads, according to the state's DMV records. That's the fourth most of any company testing in California, behind Waymo, Cruise and Apple. The company expects its self-driving fleet will be grounded at least through May 3, by virtue of …

Editor's note: A previous version of this story included an incorrect plant schedule for BMW.

Auto workers at Honda Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and BMW's U.S. assembly plants are finding themselves in an unfamiliar situation as their employers furlough thousands of them with no pay because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those and other nonunion automakers in North America have rarely resorted to layoffs in the past few decades, except during the 2007-09 economic crisis. To avoid sending workers home with no pay, international auto companies have relied on plant expansions, new-model additions and even make-work activities to keep work forces on the clock. Many also rely on pools of temp workers that can be increased or decreased as the market warrants, without cutting into regular employee rosters.

But the new health crisis is starkly different, as the industry halts operations worldwide.

A Nissan spokeswoman said about 10,000 workers at plants in Ten…

PARIS -- Renault and its alliance partner Nissan have the resources to weather the coronavirus crisis and will roll out strategic plans as scheduled in mid-May, the automakers’ top executives said.

Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard and Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the three-year strategic plans for the automakers and alliance member Mitsubishi were needed to restore investors’ confidence.

Renault and Nissan have seen their sales fall and profits evaporate in the 18 months since the November 2018 arrest of Carlos Ghosn, who had led the alliance as chairman and was also serving as chairman and CEO at Renault.

"If the plan is not well explained and understood, then the share price is not going to recover and people will not believe that Nissan can get back on its feet," Uchida said in the interview.

Since the beginning of the year, Renault's share price has fallen by 58 percent while Nissan's h…