Trade News

Toyota Motor Corp. invested $400 million in Pony.ai to strengthen its ties with the Chinese provider of driverless-car systems.

The investment extends the companies’ partnership formed last year and pushes Pony.ai’s valuation to more than $3 billion, the startup said in a statement. The pact enables a “deeper integration” of Pony.ai’s technology with Toyota’s vehicles.

“It will enable us to make the commercialization of autonomous-driving vehicles faster,” Pony.ai CEO James Peng said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “We will put more money into building up the fleet.”

Automakers are striking pacts with driverless-system providers to gain expertise and fend off competition from technology companies seeking to enter the transport business. For Pony.ai, a relationship with Toyota is a vote of confidence as it seeks to take on U.S. rivals such as Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo.

Pony.ai has two testing sites in California and it runs a pilot service with…

Credit ratings agency Moody's Investor Service on Wednesday cut its 2020 outlook for global auto sales, with China taking the biggest hit as the coronavirus outbreak worsens.

The agency, in a Wednesday statement, said it expects global auto sales to fall 2.5 percent in 2020, lower than its previous estimate of about 0.9 percent drop.

Moody's retained a "negative" outlook on the sector and said it expects global sales to rebound only modestly in 2021 with growth of 1.5 percent.

The agency now expects auto sales in China, the world’s largest market, to fall 2.9 percent in 2020 from previous estimates of 1 percent growth.

A report last week from the China Passenger Car Association said car sales plunged 92 percent during the first two weeks of February.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers on Wednesday warned it expects significant declines in China’s automotive production and sales levels in February due …

Volkswagen is still struggling with "massive" software problems with its ID3 compact electric car, according to a German business magazine.

The software glitches may force it to abandon the EV's planned sales launch in Europe this summer, Manager Magazin reported. 

The problems stem from the basic architecture of the ID3's software, which was developed "too hastily," the magazine said, citing VW's own experts. Many of the system's elements do not understand each other, leading to dropouts and other difficulties, the report said.

Hundreds of test drivers of the car are reporting up to 300 errors a day, the magazine said.

More than 10,000 technicians are trying to solve the problems, which could delay the ID3's launch by up to a year, the report said.

The ID3 will be a rival to the Tesla Model 3 and base models will cost less than 30,000 euros in Germany. It is the first electric car based on the automaker's MEB electric architecture dev…

PARIS -- PSA Group said its profitability reached a record high in 2019 but the automaker forecast falling industry sales in Europe this year as it pursues its merger with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

Operating margin was a record 8.5 percent as the company lowered costs and sold more expensive models such as utility vehicles including the Citroen C5 Aircross.

Group revenue increased 1 percent to 74.7 billion euros ($81.2 billion) despite falling vehicle sales, PSA said in a statement on Wednesday.

Adjusted operating income rose 11 percent to 6.32 billion euros ($6.87 billion) and net profit increased 13.2 percent to 3.2 billion euros ($3.5 billion)

PSA increased its 2019 dividend to 1.23 euros per share, up 58 percent from 2018 levels.

PSA's global vehicle sales fell 10 percent last year to 3.49 million units.

The carmaker was "once again very solid," analysts at brokerage Oddo-BHF said in a note, adding the results confirmed th…

TOKYO -- Toyota Motor Corp. on Wednesday said that operations at its plants in Japan may be affected by supply chain issues linked to the new coronavirus outbreak in the coming weeks, as the global outbreak gathers pace.

The automaker, which operates 16 vehicle and components sites in Japan, said that it would decide on how to continue operations at its domestic plants from the week of March 9, after keeping output normal through the week of March 2.

Plants may be affected by potential supply disruptions in China as some plants in the epicenter of the virus outbreak remain are unable to produce and transport goods, while some plants remain closed under orders by regional authorities.

"We are receiving parts from China as normal for the moment, but we will assess the situation after the week of March 2," a Toyota spokeswoman told Reuters.

Japan is a major site of production for the company, accounting for nearly half of the 10.7 million cars i…

DETROIT -- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Mike Manley received compensation of 13.28 million euros ($14.45 million) for 2019, in line with a target set by the company, the automaker said in a filing on Tuesday.

Compensation for Manley, who took over as head of FCA in July 2018 after the death of his predecessor Sergio Marchionne, included a base salary of 1.43 million euros ($1.56 million) for 2019, a bonus of 1.2 million euros and long-term incentives totaling 8.8 million euros, according to the regulatory filing.

FCA had set a compensation target for Manley of $14 million.

FCA and PSA Group agreed in December to combine forces in a $50 billion deal to create the world's No. 4 automaker, in response to slower global demand and mounting costs of making cleaner cars amid tighter emissions rules.

The companies have not said what position Manley might hold in the newly combined automaker.

Manley said in January that talks with PSA were progress…

The National Transportation Safety Board urged government regulators and manufacturers to implement safeguards for automated vehicle technology, delivering strong words to both Tesla and NHTSA to act.

The board held a public hearing Tuesday to determine the probable cause of the March 23, 2018, fatal crash of a Tesla Model X in Mountain View, Calif.

The crash on U.S. 101 killed its driver, Walter Huang, who was using Tesla Inc.'s advanced driver-assistance system known as Autopilot. According to performance data downloaded from the crash vehicle, Huang was using traffic-aware cruise control and autosteer lane-keeping assist, both ADAS features that are part of Tesla's system.

Huang, a 38-year-old Apple Inc. software engineer, had Autopilot engaged continuously in the last 18 minutes and 55 seconds before his car struck a highway barrier at approximately 71 mph. The vehicle provided two visual and one auditory alerts for the driver to place his hands on …

A passenger falling aboard a self-driving shuttle as part of a pilot program in Columbus has put the project on hold less than three weeks after it began.

The daily shuttle service in the Linden neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, was halted after one of the pilot's vehicles from French manufacturer EasyMile made a sudden stop around noon Thursday, Feb. 20. One passenger fell from her seat to the floor of the shuttle as a result.

NHTSA on Tuesday ordered a suspension of passenger operations for 16 autonomous shuttles operated by EasyMile in 10 U.S. states including Utah, Texas, Colorado, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio, California and Virginia pending an examination of "safety issues related to both vehicle technology and operations."

The safety agency said it "will continue to work with all affected parties, including EasyMile and local authorities, to evaluate potential future vehicle operations, consistent with applicable legal requirements and public…

DETROIT -- Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order Tuesday creating a new Michigan Office of Future Mobility led by a chief mobility officer for the state focused on strategies to build up the automotive mobility tech sector.

Whitmer signed the directive on the hood of a Ford Motor Co. autonomous vehicle at a MICHAuto Summit in Detroit with auto industry leaders.

The Democratic governor also signed a second executive order establishing a Michigan Council on Future Mobility and Electrification.

The Office of Future Mobility will be housed within the state's Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.

The chief mobility officer, their office and the new council will be focused on developing a talented workforce for developing artificial intelligence technologies for self-driving vehicles and "placing a greater emphasis on the importance of electrification and electric vehicle infrastructure and overall state strategy around mobility," Whit…

The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday will convene its second hearing on a fatal crash involving Tesla Inc.’s automated driver-assist technology even though the automaker hasn’t filed formal responses to recommendations stemming from the first one more than two years ago.

The NTSB in 2017 recommended that automakers including Tesla make their driver-assist systems more resilient to misuse by inattentive drivers and limit the operation of those systems to only the driving for which they were designed.

Automakers -- including Volkswagen Group, Nissan Motor Co. and BMW  -- have told the NTSB how their systems ensured driver engagement, which the agency deemed acceptable responses. Tesla has had no formal correspondence with NTSB officials responsible for monitoring how safety recommendations are implemented, NTSB spokesman Chris O’Neil said.

“It’s not the norm,” O’Neil said. “Most recommendation recipients respond in the prescri…