Trade News

Editor's note: Luca Ciferri, editor and associate publisher of Automotive News Europe, is living under quarantine at his Italian home in Villastellone, just south of Turin. He will be filing daily updates in this blog post.

Starting this morning, Italy is on a two-week quarantine imposed by the government to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, which health authorities here have tied to the deaths of more than 1,000 people.

In an attempt to prevent the contagion's spread without choking the economy, some businesses will be closed until March 25th. Others will operate in low gear. Still others will be unaffected.

Those include the food and health-care industries as well as newsstands. Information is crucial, particularly in dramatic, unprecedented situations like this one. Public transport will be regulated on a regional basis, as will airports. Barber shops and hairdressers are closed; perfume shops are not.

The retail auto sector is in complet…

A worker at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' transmission plant in Kokomo, Ind., has tested positive for the coronavirus, but production at the facility is continuing.

The employee is receiving medical care and those who worked near him or may have come in contact with him have been put in home quarantine, Jodi Tinson, a company spokeswoman, said in an email Thursday.

Fiat Chrysler declined to provide the worker’s name, age or other personal information such as his recent travel history for privacy reasons.

The carmaker has disinfected his work station and is sanitizing the entire plant, which employs about 4,000. Output is running at a normal pace, but the company is adjusting break times to avoid crowding and deploying social spacing to increase distances between workers.

The UAW is working closely with Fiat Chrysler on measures necessary to protect its members, vice president Cindy Estrada said in a statement.

The Italian-American co…

Photo above courtesy of CARMERA

For a driver trying to find her way to an unfamiliar address, a GPS system that's accurate to within a few meters is considered pretty good. But when you take the human out of the equation and cars are driving themselves, navigating will require much more precise, high-definition maps, with accuracy measured in centimeters.

Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development Inc., known as TRI-AD, announced this week that, working with various partners, it had completed proofs of concept that show how high-definition maps of surface roads can be created with a relative accuracy of less than 50 centimeters, about one and a half feet.

"We got a step closer to a future where automated driving becomes a safer and more accessible technology for all," Mandali Khalesi, the research institute's vice president of automated driving strategy and mapping, said in a statement.

One approach the institute explored is…

Morgan Stanley expects the coronavirus outbreak will send U.S. auto sales down 9 percent this year, it said in an investor note on Wednesday. Before the outbreak, analysts had expected a modest decline of 1-2 percent.

Separately, researcher LMC Automotive said it expects concerns over coronavirus in the United States and other countries could drive global vehicle sales this year down 4 percent to 86.4 million, from 90.3 million in 2019. LMC previously had expected relatively flat global sales of 90.1 million.

In the United States, Morgan Stanley auto analyst Adam Jonas wrote that "demand shock" triggered by the spread of the virus could cause consumers to delay large purchases such as new pickups, SUVs, crossovers and cars.

He predicted U.S. sales could drop to 15.5 million vehicles, from 17.1 million in 2019.

LMC cut its forecast for 2019 light-vehicle deliveries to 16.5 million from 16.8 million.

Automakers are due to report fir…

F&I product and reinsurance provider Portfolio Holdings has agreed to acquire competitor National Automotive Experts/NWAN. Combined, the company will rank among the top 10 largest F&I product providers in the nation, executives said.

The acquisition continues an ongoing trend of F&I product company consolidation. Portfolio CEO Brent Griggs said the company has watched an uptick in mergers and acquisitions in the F&I product space over the past five years and noted some of the pressures from the competitive environment drove the need to acquire another company.

"We see consolidation happening in a much more rapid fashion than it has in the past," Griggs said. "It's just inevitable because there are100-plus F&I administrators out there, many of them very small. And it's just a very efficient way of delivering this product to dealer customers."

Griggs cited significant acquisition activity in the past few months…

The Department of Defense reversed its guidance on the Military Lending Act last month, removing a complex process that had been a barrier for automotive dealers to sell guaranteed asset protection, or GAP, to military members and covered relatives. Yet some confusion remains as the auto finance industry catches up with the latest interpretation.

Uncertainty over how to sell F&I products without running afoul of the law had previously blocked military members from buying GAP from dealerships, which could save them from owing thousands of dollars if their vehicle is totaled. Some auto lenders refused to work with the military in the years following the Defense Department's interpretation, and according to F&I managers and trainers, many still haven't caught up with the program.

F&I managers should stay on top of which lenders are now ready to fund GAP contracts, finance experts say, and be cognizant that while the Pentagon's view on…

MEXICO CITY -- Some of Mexico's auto factories may have to suspend production in the coming weeks as the coronavirus disrupts shipments of key parts from China, according to local officials, in what would be another blow to the stagnant Mexican economy.

Manuel Gonzalez, economic development minister of Aguascalientes, one of a dozen Mexican states that have car factories, said some manufacturers had already told him they were running low on parts.

"I've been in contact with some important companies: They tell me that they have inventory through the second or third week of March," Gonzalez told Reuters. "If that supply is not normalized, we will probably see firms suspending production."

The fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak has rippled through the global economy and upended supply chains. More than 119,100 people have been infected by disease and 4,298 have died, the vast majority in China, according to a Reuters tally.

If Mexican automakers wer…

TOKYO -- Honda Motor Co. on Wednesday said that limited operations had resumed at its production site in Wuhan, the epicenter of China's coronavirus outbreak where some workers returned to their jobs after a month-long shut down of offices, schools and factories.

The Japanese automaker said that it would gradually resume vehicle production at the plant, which produces popular models including the CR-V crossover for the world's biggest auto market.

Earlier in the day, government authorities in Wuhan, a major manufacturing center in the country, lifted restrictions on a limited number of key industries in the city, allowing some people to return to work.

Rival Nissan Motor Co., which also operates a vehicle manufacturing plant in Hubei province, plans to partially resume production at the site along with another plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, sometime this week, a company spokeswoman in China told Reuters.

DETROIT -- Three U.S. senators pressed Japan's government to assure a fair trial for Greg Kelly, an American citizen and former Nissan director, who is being held for alleged financial crimes, saying his case highlights issues that could put the countries' relationship at risk.

In a commentary published by Real Clear Politics, Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Lamar Alexander and Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee criticized the treatment by Japanese authorities of the former Nissan executive, who was temporarily jailed in solitary confinement and has been unable to leave the country while awaiting trial.

"His predicament is a cautionary tale for Americans thinking about working in Japan, raising serious questions about whether non-Japanese executives can comfortably work in Japan under its legal system," the three Republicans wrote Tuesday. "If Americans and other non-Japanese executives question their ability to be treated fairly in Japan, then that most imp…

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said Wednesday it will start implementing temporary closures at some of its Italian plants, and Italy's largest dealer group said it will shut its doors until April 3 to help combat Europe's worst outbreak of the coronavirus.

A FCA spokesman said affected plants were in Pomigliano d'Arco, Melfi, Atessa and Cassino. Each factory will be halted for two or three days between Wednesday and Saturday. Production is scheduled to restart on Monday.

FCA's move affects plants that account for 600,000 units a year and 4 percent of European vehicle production, Evercore ISI estimates.

FCA said in a statement it was taking additional steps to minimize the risk of spreading the virus among employees, including intensive sanitization of all work and rest areas, to support the government's directives to curb the spread of the infectious disease.

"As a result of taking these actions the company will, where necessary, make temporary closur…