Trade News

SAN FRANCISCO — On a rainy December afternoon, Anthony Levandowski sat on a stool near the front of a coffee shop, engrossed in his phone.

He scrolled through pictures on a website that dares users to discern the difference between images of humans generated by artificial intelligence and actual photos of humans. For the uninitiated, it’s a crapshoot. The more time spent staring at the images, the more convincing the fakes appear. Doubt seeps in. The more unnerving the game becomes.

For Levandowski, more skilled in separating what’s real from Silicon Valley creations, spotting the telltale signs of images designed to deceive is an easier task. A small discoloration. A stray hair. He has aced six in a row, and his enthusiasm spills over as he gains momentum.

“Look, look at the freckle on the side,” he exclaims, pointing to an otherwise innocuous blemish.

While he examines images with dermatological care, he’s oblivious to the gawkers and passersby…

On March 11, an employee of Roy O'Brien Ford in St. Clair Shores, Mich., visited his pregnant sister. Three days later, she went into labor and developed a fever.

When the employee phoned the dealership to say his sister was awaiting the results of a COVID-19 test and he had potentially been exposed, leadership acted quickly.

"Our general manager — who happens to be my brother — and I sat down and talked about our plan of attack," said dealership Chairman Mark O'Brien. The employee, who had worked at the store for several days before his sister developed symptoms, was told to quarantine at home for two weeks. On March 17, O'Brien and his brother decided to split shifts across the dealership.

Sales staff divided into two teams that would work every other week while technicians halved the day; morning shift clocked in at 7:30 a.m., leaving at 12:30 p.m., while a second team of technicians worked from 1 to 6 p.m. During the break b…

TOKYO — The auto industries of Japan and South Korea have remained out of step with the pandemic-beleaguered worlds of North America and Europe in recent days.

As vehicle assembly plants and dealerships shut down in rapid succession from Madrid to Wolfsburg to Detroit, those in Japan and South Korea have been able to continue pumping out and selling cars.

Although cracks began appearing last week, along with mounting calls to lock down social activity, it has been almost business as usual for the two Asian automotive heavyweights in the face of the global health crisis. Factories stayed open, as did much of the rest of society, including bars, restaurants and shopping malls. Springtime revelers in Tokyo were still turning out to drink under the trees for the annual cherry blossom viewing.

But last week, the world's new economic worries began to prove a contagion of its own here. Soon after the governor of California issued a stat…

DETROIT — Two Ford Motor Co. workers have died from the coronavirus, the UAW said Saturday.

One worked at the automaker's Dearborn Stamping plant while the other was a skilled trades employee at the Ford Data Center in Dearborn, Mich., the union said.

The pair are the first Ford employees known to have died from the virus. Five workers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles have died, four of whom were UAW members.

"It is a tragic reminder that the coronavirus crisis is everywhere and requires the attention of all of us," Ford said in a statement confirming their deaths. "Our thoughts are with their families, friends and co-workers during this difficult time. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our work force, dealers, customers and communities. We will continue to follow the guidance from global health experts to do all we can to keep our people healthy."

It was unclear when exactly the workers died. The names of the two workers we…

DETROIT -- The 2020 North American International Auto Show has been canceled amid the worsening coronavirus pandemic. 

The TCF Center, where the Detroit show was set to take place in June, will be converted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency into a field hospital as COVID-19 cases in Michigan continue to rise.

The next Detroit auto show will be staged in June 2021, according to a memo sent to sponsors obtained by Automotive News.

"The health and welfare of the citizens of Detroit and Michigan is paramount," Rod Alberts, executive director of the show, said in the memo. "TCF Center is the ideal location for this important function at this critical and unprecedented time.” 

In a statement released later Saturday, Alberts said: “With the more than 100 convention centers and facilities around the country being considered to potentially serve as temporary hospitals, it became clear to us that TCF Center would be an inevitable op…

Editor’s note: This story is part of a package on leadership during the coronavirus crisis that will appear in the March 30 issue of Automotive News.

By the time automakers halted production across the globe in response to COVID-19 — all but forcing their parts makers to do the same — one South Korean automotive supplier, StradVision Inc., had already recognized the danger and implemented a multistep plan to tackle the virus' spread.

Before the coronavirus became a pandemic, the fledgling supplier of autonomous vehicle and advanced driver-assistance systems technology began responding to the crisis in January, taking steps to protect its staff at offices in South Korea, Germany, Japan and San Jose, Calif.

The company was determined to protect its early successes with customers, as well as its chief assets — the employees who were making it possible.

That response made the 6-year-old StradVision one of the early adopters of critical precautionary …

The lobby has been designated a handshake-free zone. Pump bottles of hand sanitizer, already a fixture, have been replaced by automatic dispensers. Cleaning crews are on site multiple times a day. No more than 10 customers are allowed inside at a given time.

As with everyone else these days, the staff at Lindsay Volkswagen of Dulles in Sterling, Va., is emphasizing hygiene practices and implementing new measures to help stave off coronavirus.

"We're doing what we can to minimize physical interactions and reduce the time in the dealership if customers do decide they want to physically visit," said Jerry Holloway, the dealership's general manager. "Customers can upload documents ahead of time. There's so much they can do ahead of time."

From car dealerships to public- transit operators, businesses and organizations that provide rides have been rethinking procedures and, perhaps more broadly, ushering in a new era of mobility in whi…

The coronavirus epidemic hasn't just slammed the brakes on the economy — it's also upending some critical new-model launches.

Automakers are having to rethink the carefully orchestrated go-to-market strategies for several key models.

Market launches will be impacted for the next 12 months, Tyson Jominy, vice president of the Power Information Network at J.D. Power, told Automotive News.

"We have this incredible mismatch of vehicle supply to demand," Jominy said. "It's going to take some time for that to balance out."

Last week, electric-vehicle startup Polestar announced the start of production in Luqiao, China, of its Polestar 2 electric fastback, a model the company has been waiting for to substantiate the young brand and take on Tesla's Model 3.

Polestar USA CEO Gregor Hembrough told Automotive News by email that the company is still planning to begin U.S. deliveries of the car in midsummer. An assoc…

Automakers might seem unlikely candidates to build ventilators for coronavirus victims. But in fact they may be quite well-suited to churn out the highly intricate medical devices that are in critically short supply.

Consider: They have vast supply chains, are staffed with skilled engineers used to building to exacting standards and sometimes use “clean rooms” in their factories. There’s even a similarity between some components of ventilators and cars, such as hoses.

While the companies face a huge challenge to show they can meet the overwhelming demand, they likely represent the best hope for President Donald Trump and other world leaders. And now the carmakers have no choice, anyway. Days after Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. said they would help produce the life-saving equipment, Trump stepped up a pressure campaign and on Friday invoked federal authority to accelerate output.

The unprecedented turn to carmakers underscores the powerful role th…

KAR Global will temporarily furlough a "significant portion" of its work force and company executives will cut their salaries as the wholesale vehicle-auction company works to counter the financial impact of the COVID-19 virus outbreak, it said Friday.

KAR also will prohibit all business travel through April 17, terminated nonessential third-party services and delayed or canceled all capital projects at physical auction locations, CEO Jim Hallett said Friday on a conference call. Those actions should lower the company's cash outflows by $10 million per week, he said.

"It goes without saying that we're facing an unprecedented situation throughout the world," Hallett said.

Hallett said he, President Peter Kelly and Eric Loughmiller, executive vice president and CFO, will work without pay through at least the second quarter. In addition, the rest of KAR Global's executive leadership team will receive half of their current salaries through the second quarter…