Trade News

BEIJING/SHANGHAI -- Chinese electrified vehicle maker BYD said on Friday it is making 5 million masks a day to fight the coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly 3,200 people in China.

The Shenzhen-based automaker, which is backed by U.S. investor Warren Buffett, said in a statement it started work on building a new mask production line in late January. BYD also produces around 300,000 bottles of hand sanitizers a day, it said.

BYD, which also produces EV batteries, said it will give masks to its workers to ensure normal production and will supply the rest to people in Hubei, the epicenter of the coronavirus, and to hospitals and the public transport sector.

More than 134,500 people have been infected globally by the coronavirus and more than 4,900 have died, according to a Reuters tally of government announcements. The total number of cases in mainland China is 80,813.

As factories in China start to resume work, a number of Chinese manufacture…

TOKYO/BEIJING -- Toyota Motor Corp. said on Friday that production at its plant in Guangzhou, China, would return to normal on Monday, after a month-long output suspension due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The Japanese automaker's plant in southeast China will resume its second shift, returning to production levels from before the outbreak accelerated last month. The plant, which produces the Camry sedan and the Yaris compact hatchback models, resumed its first shift earlier this month.

Operations at two other Toyota plants, in Changchun, Jilin Province, and Chengdu, Sichuan Province, have also returned to normal, while its plant in Tianjin is only operating a single shift, compared with double shifts at the start of the year.

Global automakers continue to grapple with production in China due to logistical delays and limited workforces as the country's manufacturing sector slowly recovers from coronavirus-related stoppages, which have disrupted the global…

DETROIT – Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Mike Manley is encouraging employees to work remotely in an effort to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Staffers in places such as China and Italy have been doing this already, but that approach is being expanded to all office employees, Manley said in a message to employees. Some staffers, depending on their duties, will still need to appear in person to work. The program is designed to be flexible to allow for a mix of remote and on-site work, according to a spokesman.

While speaking on the impact of the virus outbreak, Manley said: "Clearly we are now moving beyond regional hotspots and into planning for how this will impact every area of our business across the world."

"In our office locations, we are accelerating the deployment of working remotely, or 'Smart Working,'" Manley said in a late Thursday letter to staff that was obtained by Automotive News. "At our offices in China, Korea, Japan and Italy…

Italian supercar maker Lamborghini is halting production for nearly two weeks as parent Volkswagen Group looks to limit the impact on its operations from the coronavirus crisis that has spread across the globe.

Lamborghini will temporarily close its plant in Italy, which has been hit hard by the viral outbreak, until March 25, the company said Thursday in an emailed statement. All of the brand’s cars are manufactured at its headquarters plant on the outskirts of the northern Italian city of Bologna.

“This measure is an act of social responsibility and high sensibility toward our people, in the extraordinary situation in which we find ourselves right now,” Lamborghini CEO Stefano Domenicali said in the statement. “We continue to monitor the situation in order to react rapidly and with the right flexibility, in collaboration with our people and in order to restart with energy in the right moment.”

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Wednesday ord…

DETROIT -- The Automotive News World Congress, which had been scheduled for March 24-25 in downtown Detroit, has been postponed because of the coronavirus crisis.

Also postponed are the annual Automotive News PACE Awards ceremony and the inaugural PACEpilot event, which were due to be held March 23.

"Rising concerns about the safety of our attendees and staff, as well as events of recent days, led us to the decision," Publisher Jason Stein and Associate Publisher Karen Rentschler said in a statement. "We are currently looking at alternative timing."

Automotive News has hosted the World Congress annually since 1977. This year's event was slated to be held at the TCF Center (formerly Cobo Center) for the first time.

The PACE Awards for supplier innovation, now in their 26th year, are expected to be announced at a rescheduled event in Detroit. PACEpilot, which recognizes pre-commercialized innovations, will be rescheduled along with it.

For qu…

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has one again extended the life of the midnight shift at its minivan plant in Windsor, Ontario.

The automaker has been attempting to end production on the third shift for nearly a year, but continues to change the end date.

“FCA notified Unifor today that it is adjusting the start date of the two-shift operation at the Windsor Assembly Plant to begin on July 13,” FCA Canada spokeswoman Lou Ann Gosselin said.

She declined to provide a reason why.

About 6,500 workers build the Chrysler Pacifica and Voyager and Dodge Grand Caravan in Windsor. When the third shift ends, about 1,500 will lose their jobs.

Pacifica sales in the U.S. were down 17 percent to 97,705 in 2019, while Caravan sales fell 19 percent to 122,648 units. Canadian Pacifica sales were down 38 percent to 3,731 in 2019 while Grand Caravan sales dropped 15 per cent to 27,362.

The Voyager isn’t sold in Canada a…

The Colorado House on Thursday adopted a bill that would allow Rivian and other electric vehicle makers to sell directly to consumers, one of the last steps before it goes to Gov. Jared Polis.

The House's 42-20 vote follows approval about two weeks ago in the state Senate. Senators will need to adopt a technical change the House made to the bill language before sending it to Polis for his signature, which could happen this week.

If Polis signs the bill into law, Colorado would allow manufacturers that only build electric vehicles to own, operate or control dealerships, provided they have no franchised dealerships in the state. Notably, the legislation no longer includes a provision that would have allowed any automaker that builds electric vehicles to sell them directly to consumers, following opposition by the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association that led to a compromise in the state Senate.

"We don't think that any change was…

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…