Trade News

If the merger between PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to create the world’s fourth-largest automaker had a certain logic when it was announced last Oct. 31, the case for a tie-up is even stronger now, with the auto industry on the verge of recession from the coronavirus pandemic.

The idea is that increased economies of scale would reduce unit costs and better amortize huge investments in future technologies, ensuring profits for the merged entity in years to come. Now, such synergies are becoming a basic tool to survive a shock that many experts say will be deeper, if not longer, than the 2008-09 financial crisis.

One positive effect of the coronavirus crisis, if there is one, is that some future FCA products are being put on hold or delayed. This will not only preserve cash in the short term, but also offer the possibility after the merger of more quickly aligning two product cycles that were locked into a set cadence. The virus is zeroing the clock t…

MILAN -- Fiat aims to restart operations at three Italian sites as soon as the government lifts coronavirus restrictions on manufacturing, a union representative said.

Unions will monitor health precautions, said Gianluca Ficco, a representative of the UILM metal workers' union.

Despite Italy's lowest death toll from coronavirus in six days on Wednesday, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said a national lockdown in place since March 9, and due to expire on Friday, would be extended until at least April 13. The lockdown measures include a freeze on all non-essential economic activity, including car production.

Ficco said unions had started talks with the automaker to make sure all health and security requirements were met in factories, with a view to resuming operations after the lockdown.

"At the moment the date we are looking at is April 14," he said.

The sites are the Melfi operation in southern Italy that produces Jeep's Compass and new…

BEIJING — Organizers of the Beijing auto show, which was scheduled to be held in late April, said the event would be held between Sept. 26 and Oct. 5 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Several other auto shows globally have been canceled or postponed due to the outbreak, including those in Detroit, Geneva, New York and Sao Paulo. The Beijing show was to be held April 21-30. Organizers had said in February that it would be postponed but no new date was given.

In light of the "serious challenges" from the coronavirus outbreak the show is being postponed "to effectively protect the health and safety of exhibitors and spectators," organizers said in a statement Friday.

The epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak was in Hubei province, China, where the city of Wuhan is home to many automotive factories. Plants there were closed for around two months starting in January after the area was placed on a near-total lockdown. The Chinese auto market is s…

General Motors on Thursday rolled out a series of safety measures for workers in Indiana who will make ventilators, outlining what could be a blueprint for opening U.S. auto plants in the coming weeks.

More than 1,000 GM workers will make the ventilators at GM's Kokomo, Ind., plant. The automaker aims to begin mass production by mid-April and to make 10,000 ventilators a month by summer.

The measures include checking workers' temperature as they arrive for work, and each work station will be placed at least 6 feet apart, GM said.

There will be a 30-minute interval between shifts so workers can clean work stations when they arrive and before they leave. Cleaning crews will sanitize common areas and "touch areas" such as door handles, at least three times per shift.

A spokeswoman for GM said the measures may form a blueprint for safety protocols at the rest of GM's plants once the automaker decides to restart production when the pandemic crisis rece…

Tesla Inc.’s first-quarter deliveries fell less than expected from record levels reached late last year.

Tesla handed over 88,400 vehicles worldwide in the first quarter, a record for the period, but down 21 percent from the last three months of 2019. But the total beat analysts’ average estimate for about 78,100.

In the first quarter of 2019, Telsa racked up sales of 63,000 worldwide when Model 3 deliveries were ramping up overseas.

“I’m shocked they did so well,” said Gene Munster, managing partner of venture capital firm Loup Ventures. “I don’t know how they did it. They had every excuse in the world to put out a bad number.”

Sequential slowdown

Tesla tried to salvage as much business as possible last month by introducing “touchless” deliveries at a time when authorities around the globe are urging would-be car buyers to shelter in place.

While Tesla managed to deliver more vehicles than the year-ago quarter, the improvement was s…

STOCKHOLM -- Sweden's Autoliv , the world's biggest airbag maker, withdrew its 2020 forecast due to the coronavirus crisis on Wednesday, suspended its dividend and said it had drawn the remaining $600 million from an existing credit line.

The pandemic has forced shutdowns at automakers across the world and Autoliv only two weeks ago announced a raft of cost cuts to cushion the blow from the disruption.

"Today we announce a number of additional actions taken by the company to continue to manage the effects brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic," CEO Mikael Bratt said in a statement.

"We will continue to evaluate the changing environment and are prepared to do what is necessary to get us through this humanitarian and economic crisis," he added.

Autoliv said it believed its position was robust in terms of both capital and liquidity. "But cancelling the dividend is in the best interests of the company to preserve cash and maintain flexibility given the …

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. would like the U.S. government to sponsor an automotive stimulus program to help the industry get back on its feet after the coronavirus crisis abates.

“We think some level of stimulus somewhere on the other side of this would help not only the auto industry and our dealers, which are a huge part of our overall economy, but will help the customers as well,” Mark LaNeve, Ford’s vice president of U.S. marketing, sales and service, said in a phone interview. “We’re in discussions about what would be the most appropriate.”

Those discussions are internal at Ford for now, but are eventually expected to involve the government, LaNeve said. One model being considered is the government’s “cash for clunkers” program of more than a decade ago, which helped stimulate auto sales following the global financial crisis by encouraging drivers to turn in older cars in exchange for money toward buying new ones.

“Cash for clunkers was very eff…

Daimler CEO Ola Kallenius and members of the automaker's management board will reduce their fixed compensation by 20 percent until the end of the year in response to the effects of the coronavirus crisis.

Other senior executives will see their pay drop by 10 percent for the next three months, Daimler said in a statement on Thursday.

The cuts started April 1.

Kallenius's fixed salary in 2019, the year he took over from longtime Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche, was 1.34 million euros ($1.47 million).  He also earned 3.5 million euros ($3.8 million) in variable compensation, including shares and performance bonuses.

In addition to Kallenius, there are seven members of Daimler's management board. Other management board members' base salary ranged from around 400,000 euros to 800,000 euros ($434,400 to $868,900), according to Daimler's annual report

With production halted in Europe and North America and many dealership showrooms c…

CarMax reported record sales and earnings in its fiscal fourth quarter and full year that ended Feb. 29.

Operations for the largest used-vehicle retailer in the U.S. were not impacted until March by the coronavirus pandemic that now is crippling the country's economy.

In its fourth quarter, CarMax's net sales and operating revenue rose 15 percent to $4.96 billion on total used-vehicle sales that increased 15 percent to 206,718. Net earnings grew 12 percent to $214.9 million. The company's comparable store sales were up 11 percent in the period.

For its fiscal year, CarMax's net sales and operating revenue increased 12 percent to $20.32 billion on total used-vehicle sales that were up 11 percent to 832,640. Comparable store sales rose 7.7 percent. Net earnings grew 5.5 percent to $888.4 million.

"We are very pleased to report record used vehicle sales and earnings per share for both our fourth quarter and the full year," CEO Bill Nash said in a sta…

Tesla Inc.’s new Model Y has what people have come to expect from Elon Musk’s cars: It’s lightning quick, handles nicely and has better electronic gadgetry than its competitors.

Unlike past Tesla offerings, early versions are rolling off the assembly line looking more like what you would expect from a company with a handle on the finer points of car building, according to Sandy Munro. The manufacturing consultant who’s been tearing cars apart piece-by-piece for three decades offered his initial impressions before digging into the Model Y that his shop took delivery of this week.

“I don’t have much negative to say,” Munro said in an interview with Bloomberg. “It’s much better than the Model 3 when we got it. We found problems, but the average car buyer won’t even see these things.”

Munro and his eponymous firm have been well known for years among Detroit’s automotive engineers for their in-depth analysis of hundreds of cars from virtually every manufact…

BEIJING -- GAC's joint ventures with Toyota and Honda are aiming for a big boost in annual China sales to a million vehicles each by 2025, according to a recording of a GAC call with investors.

At a joint venture with Toyota, that would represent a jump of 47 percent from 2019 levels while at a venture with Honda that would be a 30 percent surge.

Vehicles made by the JVs are mostly sold under the Japanese brands.

The state-owned automaker will also aim to sell 1 million units annually under its own brand by 2025, Feng Xingya, GAC's general manager told investors and analysts on the call Wednesday.

It was not clear when the plans were formed. For the current year, it expects industry-wide China auto sales to tumble 10 percent due to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak although it expects its sales, which include sales of its JV partners, to climb 3 percent.

The long-term plans come as the state-owned automaker expands manufacturing c…

BEIJING -- Dongfeng Motor Group is reviewing a deal with PSA to cut its stake in the French automaker after a fall in share prices sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

PSA agreed to merge with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in December to create the world's fourth-biggest automaker by sales volume.

Dongfeng had agreed to lower its 12.2 percent stake in PSA by selling 30.7 million shares to the French company to help smooth the merger. The stake being was worth around 680 million euros ($744 million) and the sale will leave Dongfeng holding around 4.5 percent of the merged PSA-FCA group.

But, during an earnings call with investors, a Dongfeng official said that the Chinese company was reviewing the matter.

"There are possibilities that the stake sale plan will change. We are evaluating the issue," the official said during the call on Tuesday, a recording reviewed by Reuters showed.

"This is closely related to their [PSA's] merger talks with …