Trade News

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump said the administration would help the U.S. auto industry manage the impact of the coronavirus amid concerns about the health of auto-parts manufacturers.

“We’re watching the auto industry very much,” Trump said Thursday on a call with state governors. “We’re going to be helping them out at least a little bit and they’ve sort of requested some help, and it wasn’t their fault what happened. So we’ll be taking care of the auto industry.”

His comment was prompted by Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who said she had concerns about the finances of some auto parts suppliers.

Earlier Thursday, the Motor Equipment Manufacturers Association asked congressional leaders to create a "Manufacturing Emergency Assistance" grant program "to keep the doors open, preserve jobs, and prevent bankruptcies in the vital manufacturing sector."

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell …

An inattentive driver relies on his Tesla Autopilot driver-assist system to do the driving. The system does not recognize or respond to a tractor trailer crossing its path along a Florida highway. A fatal crash ensues.

Sound familiar?

Those circumstances were the backdrop for a landmark collision in May 2016. They're the same ones that likely caused a nearly identical crash that killed Jeremy Banner, 50, in a crash on March 1, 2019, in Delray Beach, Fla., according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The NTSB issued its findings on the more recent crash Thursday. Among the developments: Images extracted from the vehicle's Autopilot system showed the harrowing seconds leading up to the moment the car impacted and passed underneath the trailer, which straddled U.S. 441.

A Tesla spokesman could not be reached for comment following the release of the report.

Investigators cited a truck driver's failure to yield the right of way as a p…

CarMax on Thursday expanded the number of store closures amid the coronavirus outbreak to 19 locations in California, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

Earlier this week, the nation's largest used-vehicle retailer temporarily shuttered five of the stores in California under county shelter-in-place requirements. The company now has 10 stores temporarily closed in California, four in Nevada and five in Pennsylvania.

CarMax said the majority of its 215-plus stores remain open nationwide and that it has implemented several precautions for employees, according to a statement on its website. The safety protocols include going "handshake-free" with customers, enhanced cleaning and sanitization, instructing employees to stay home if they feel ill and requiring employees to report any diagnosis of COVID-19. Attendance at large events and conferences has been prohibited.

The company has also established new policies to help keep shoppers safe, such as allowing cu…

When John Grettenberger arrived as Cadillac's general manager in 1984, the General Motors luxury division — the nation's top luxury marque for years — was still selling a lot of cars, but the brand was at death's door.

Cadillac was reeling from major technical and marketing disasters that had tarnished the brand's quality and longtime sterling image. Failed diesel engines and severe technical problems with Cadillac's V-8-6-4 engine, with cylinder deactivation to boost fuel economy — coupled with stodgy designs — prompted luxury buyers to shop elsewhere. The compact Chevrolet Cavalier-based Cimarron, introduced in 1982, hurt the brand even more when it became the butt of jokes.

German stalwarts Mercedes-Benz and BMW — with their taught suspensions, powerful and sophisticated overhead-cam engines, floor shifters and class-leading safety equipment — were poaching Cadillac customers in droves. And there was a new juggernaut, Japanese luxury brands from the likes o…

Tesla Inc. will idle production at its lone U.S. assembly plant, choking off the supply of cars to customers as the quarter comes to a close.

The decision announced in a statement Thursday followed several days of public pressure on Tesla by local police, city managers and health officials about the automaker continuing to run the factory despite a county shelter-in-place order. Tesla said the facility in Fremont, Calif., will stop production at the end of March 23.

“Despite taking all known health precautions, continued operations in certain locations has caused challenges for our employees, their families and our suppliers,” Tesla said in the statement.

Tesla's Fremont plant employs more than 10,000 workers, with annualized production of slightly more than 415,000 units by the end of December 2019.

In an email to employees on Thursday, Tesla said operations at the Fremont plant will transition to "minimum basic operations" beginning on Marc…

DETROIT -- The trade group for U.S. auto parts makers on Thursday asked the government for emergency grants "to keep the doors open," tariff relief and other assistance to cope with mounting pressures from the coronavirus crisis.

The Motor Equipment Manufacturers Association asked congressional leaders to create a "Manufacturing Emergency Assistance" grant program "to keep the doors open, preserve jobs, and prevent bankruptcies in the vital manufacturing sector."

The grants could offset the costs of medical testing, the group said. The group also called for subsidies to relocate operations to the United States.

Relief from the Trump administration's tariffs on Chinese products and imported steel rank first among the list of requests MEMA made in a letter to top Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, who are considering different packages of aid that could affect a broad swath of the U.S. economy.

Auto suppliers are getting hit as automak…

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread throughout the United States, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation has shifted priorities to focus "first and foremost on the health and safety" of its employees, member companies and their customers, CEO John Bozzella said.

The lobbying group, which represents automakers, suppliers and tech companies, formed in January before the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus was reported in the U.S.

"When we formed the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, what we really wanted to do was make sure that we had a clear, singular voice to represent the industry broadly," Bozzella told Automotive News. "There couldn't be a more important time to do it than now."

As part of the health-and-safety effort, as of last Friday, the alliance instituted a mandatory telework policy that it is reviewing on a weekly basis to ensure employees and their families are protected during the outbreak.

On a larger scale, t…

Toyota, Volkswagen and Subaru on Thursday joined the parade of U.S. automakers suspending their production operations -- at least temporarily -- because of the coronavirus and the impact it's having on new auto sales.

Toyota Motor North America announced on Thursday afternoon that it will suspend production at all of its North American assembly and component plants beginning Monday, March 23, though at least April 5, with production tentatively scheduled to resume Monday, April 6. 

Canadian radio station 570 NEWS reported a worker at Toyota's Cambridge, Ontario, plant tested positive for COVID-19. The employee last worked there March 12.

Earlier in the day, Volkswagen of America said it is halting production at the plant from Saturday until at least the evening of March 29. The Chattanooga plant builds the Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport crossovers as well as the Volkswagen Passat sedan. The two-row Atlas Cross Sport is just beginning to arrive in U…

Audi said that its Q5 crossover plant in Mexico would suspend production beginning Monday due to a lack of parts caused by the global coronavirus outbreak.

It plans to resume output on April 13, Audi Mexico said in a press release Wednesday.

In addition to shortages in its global supply chain, the company also said it is having “diverse difficulties” transporting its finished vehicles to destination countries in a timely manner from the Mexico plant. Some plant  operations would continue, it said, under strict coronavirus protocols.

Audi Mexico said the plant employs 5,200 people and produces 150,000 units per year. 

DETROIT — General Motors is exploring the possibility of putting its manufacturing muscle toward medical equipment to help treat the novel coronavirus.

CEO Mary Barra spoke with officials from the Trump administration on Wednesday about the company's plans to halt North American production until March 30.

"GM is working to help find solutions for the nation during this difficult time and has offered to help, and we are already studying how we can potentially support production of medical equipment like ventilators," spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan told Automotive News.

Ginivan said the possibility of medical equipment production is still only being analyzed at this point and there are no details yet on how the process would work.

In an interview Wednesday on Fox News, Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, said he had spoken with executives from two of the Detroit 3, without saying which companies.

"One of them told me that, …

Nio Inc warned there is substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern on Wednesday, prompting the cash-strapped electric vehicle maker's shares to slump.

The EV startup, which is backed by Chinese internet giant Tencent and had been seen as a rival to Tesla Inc., has been hit by dwindling demand and reduced government subsidies in China, the world's largest light-vehicle market.

Auto sales in China tumbled 42 percent in the first two months of the year compared to a year earlier, while sales of NEV, which include battery electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, sank 60 percent.

Nio's shares fell sharply on Wednesday, closing down 49 cents, or 17 percent, at $2.41 in New York trading, as Wall Street's main indexes slumped in the wake of the spreading coronavirus epidemic.

The deadly viral outbreak has exacerbated Nio's troubles, disrupting production and delivery of vehicles.

Nio delivered 2,305 vehicles…

The Automotive News family had, unfortunately, a front-row seat to a pandemic.

It was just three weeks ago in a small town in northern Italy where our Luca Ciferri, associate publisher and editor of Automotive News Europe, first wrote about an expanding presence of COVID-19.

There was a theme to what Ciferri was hearing in Italy, the second-hardest-hit region of the globe after China.

The virus was "coming from Milan," Ciferri wrote to me on WhatsApp, and Milan "is the common origin of infections in Switzerland and Germany."

It was Wednesday, Feb. 26.

Ciferri, who is now quarantined, was one of the first to caution us on the spread of the new coronavirus beyond China. It was moving quickly.

Automotive News was there then; we remain everywhere for the news, every moment.

This is the time when journalism shines and our partnerships with our readers and clients endure. Within the Automotive News family of brands, we are deeply co…