Trade News

Volvo Car’s China sales slipped 16 percent to 11,413 in March after nosediving 82 percent to just 1,205 in February. 

With the viral outbreak under control in China, all four of Volvo’s China assembly plants reopened in early March after an extended closure the previous month, the company said. 

“In March, showroom traffic in the region started to pick up pace,” it added. 

Because of a plunge in February volume, year-to-date sales at Volvo through March slumped 31 percent to 29,885.

Volvo Car builds vehicles in China for the Volvo brand and its electrified performance-vehicle Polestar marque. 

On March 24, the Swedish carmaker officially launched output of the second Polestar product, the Polestar 2 full-electric midsize sedan. 

Production of the Polestar brand’s first model, the Polestar1 hybrid coupe, started in China in August 2019.  

While the overall market declined for a second straight year…

BYD Co., China’s largest electrified-vehicle maker, is set to launch a significantly upgraded Han flagship electric sedan in June.

The electric compact car, equipped with BYD’s latest redesigned lithium iron phosphate batteries, will have a cruising range of 605 kilometers and can accelerate to 100 km in 3.9 seconds, the company said.

The new design allows singular battery cells to be arranged in an array shaped like a blade and inserted into a pack. 

With the optimized layout, the battery pack can increase space utilization by more than 50 percent compared with conventional block-shaped lithium iron phosphate batteries.  

BYD also released a video using so-called nail penetration tests to demonstrate that the redesigned batteries, dubbed Blade Batteries, are much safer to use than conventional lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries.

BYD, based in Shenzhen, is listed in Hong Kong and Shanghai. It is partly …

BMW Group delivered 116,452 vehicles under the BMW and Mini brands in the first quarter, a decline of 31 percent from the same period last year. 

The German group blamed the drop on the coronavirus outbreak. The pandemic “led to a significant decrease in sales in China”, it said. 

But China sales improved last month, the Germany automaker noted. 

Around 95 percent of BMW’s retail outlets in China are now open for business, the company said.

“In a welcome development, this trend was reversed in March, pointing to a sustainable recovery in this market,” Pieter Nota, BMW’s management board member responsible for customers, brands and sales, said in a statement.

BMW didn’t disclose separate China sales for March. 

In China, BMW builds and markets vehicles for the BMW brand with Brilliance China Automotive in the northeast China city of Shenyang.

In November, its newly formed joint venture with Great Wall Motor …

BEIJING – Car and light-truck production will drop 12 percent this year to around 21.6 million units and will rebound by 7.5 percent next year, research firm IHS Markit predicted on Monday.

Production and demand for vehicles have been hammered across the world by lockdowns aimed at curtailing the coronavirus outbreak, which has spread from China to Europe, the United States and elsewhere.

"The latest forecast takes the extended shutdown of auto plants in March and the supply chain disruption caused by the extended shutdown of the plants in Hubei province into consideration," IHS Markit said in a post on its social media wechat account.

"For Chinese automakers which purchase auto parts from Europe, the disruption of production in Europe may be a risk factor. But at this stage, we have not seen the European coronavirus epidemic directly affect Chinese auto production," IHS Markit added.

Last week, IHS Markit estimated China's light vehicle sales thi…

One of the most nonconventional automakers is taking a nonconventional approach to building desperately needed medical equipment to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Tesla posted a video Sunday describing how engineers were working on a prototype ventilator using a number of vehicle parts, including the display screen and infotainment computer from the Model 3 sedan. The computer is used to control sensors on an airflow manifold, and the display screen is used to monitor patient breathing patterns.

The design utilizes a suspension air tank as an oxygen mixing chamber, as well as a number of other sensors, compressors and tubes.

An unidentified employee said on the video that Tesla was attempting its own design instead of traditional methods to avoid putting additional strain on medical equipment suppliers. It was unclear when the prototype would be complete, whether the automaker intended to manufacture the device in bulk, or if the designs could pass r…

TOKYO — Keiko Ihara was a part-time fashion model in college when a chance assignment at a Formula 1 event inspired her to switch gears and race cars.

But there were two strikes against her. First, she was a woman in ultra-patriarchal Japan. And second, she didn't even have a driver's license.

Ihara not only overcame those challenges to become one of the world's top female racers, she is now an influential director on the board of Nissan Motor Co.

And the race at Nissan at this moment is white-knuckled.

As one of Nissan's independent outsider directors, the motorhead turned corporate bigwig has been a key mover in many of the changes during a turbulent post-Carlos Ghosn era.

Ihara chairs the newly created compensation committee, a flashpoint of reform for the automaker, and was widely reported to be a driving force in pushing out former CEO Hiroto Saikawa.

Ihara also sits on the nomination …

Jun Kim is spending $1.6 billion to build a battery factory in Georgia — and it's not enough. Not even close.

His company, SK Innovation of South Korea, needs to spend twice that. And frankly, that won't be enough either. By mid-decade, Kim aims to have five times the Georgia project's capacity scattered around the world.

"When I became CEO in 2017," he said, "I had to ask the question: Is this the right time for us to invest in batteries, and do we have the financial resources and technology to do what it will take?

"We felt that the market was very ripe and we did have a competitive advantage. This could be one of the biggest opportunities for us if we invest now. So I made the decision to enter the market aggressively."

"Aggressively" is almost an understatement.

Since that decision in 2017, SK has launched construction of the plant in Commerce, Ga., which by 2022 will yield 10 gigawatt-hours of batt…

Most everyone agrees that a shortage of technicians ranks among the biggest challenges facing dealership service departments.

Over the decades, recruiting strategies have largely been aimed at high school and college-age students. Now, the latest in a long line of industry efforts is trying to lure them at an even younger age.

"We decided we would target as young as middle school," said Harry Hollenberg, a managing director at Carlisle & Co., a Concord, Mass., consulting firm that has been working for the better part of a year with nine automakers (Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo) on the Auto Technician Collaborative.

The signature recruiting part of the program is called Project Shift. Its website attempts to hit all the right pre-teen and teenage angst buttons — or at least the buttons of parents.

Worried about the future? There will always be demand for service technicians.

As showrooms are ordered to close and new-vehicle sales come to a crawl, a number of dealers need help navigating the massive $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package signed into law March 27 by President Donald Trump.

With demand for forgivable loans expected to be high, the key question is how long will it take for their cash-flow dependent businesses to secure aid?

The CARES Act — or Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act — expands existing loan programs and creates programs intended to help companies maintain employment and, ultimately, save their businesses. The nearly 900-page bill offers several potential benefits, including new payroll and tax provisions to provide a short-term lifeline to companies such as dealerships as they navigate the best way forward financially.

A lack of clarity on the scope, requirements and timeline of the lending process — particularly within a new program from the Small Business …

By setting a lower price point than competitors and making a more affordable V-Series line, Cadillac says it has positioned the 2020 CT5 to stand up against German luxury sedans.

Cadillac says a two-tiered approach to the V-Series and a handful of segment-first or exclusive features — such as a rear camera mirror, safety alert seat and ZF passive dampers — will help the car, which effectively replaced the CTS, gain traction.

The high-performance CT5-V starts at $48,690 including shipping. That's about $2,000 less than the Audi S4, $6,000 less than the BMW M340i and $8,000 less than the Mercedes-Benz AMG C 43. The standard CT5 starts at $37,890, in line with the Audi A4 and a few thousand less than the BMW 3 Series and the Mercedes-Benz C-Class.

For about the same price some rivals charge, Cadillac customers can upgrade to a premium luxury or sport trim.

Last year was the 15th anniversary of the V-Series, and it marked a shift in Cadillac's perform…

Asbury Automotive Group is furloughing 2,300 employees and slashing executive pay as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a regulatory filing.

The retailer cited a "sudden and significant decline" in U.S. vehicle sales and service operations for the cutbacks, the company said Friday.

Asbury, the nation's seventh-largest dealership group, said it also implemented temporary pay cuts for all employees. CEO David Hult will see his salary reduced by 50 percent, while base salaries for senior vice presidents, regional and field vice presidents and national directors will be reduced 20 percent. All other vice presidents will receive a 10 percent salary cut.

The company said it was acting "decisively in an effort to right-size its business, reduce expenses and mitigate the financial impact" of the virus.

In addition to the furloughs, hours are being reduced across the retailer's 88 stores and the company will suspend a 401(k) match for emplo…