Trade News

Tesla Inc.’s plans to build a factory outside Berlin could be under threat if construction work doesn’t begin by mid-March, according to the economy minister for the Brandenburg region where the site is located.

Under German environmental regulations, the project in the town of Gruenheide could be delayed by nine months unless work begins before the breeding period for local wildlife this spring, Joerg Steinbach said in an interview with the Handelsblatt newspaper published Friday.

“That would be a situation in which I would be much more skeptical about whether we could get Tesla to stick with it,” Steinbach said, adding that the U.S. manufacturer needs to have a convincing proposal to meet local environmental demands and gain approval for the project.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently tried to ease local concerns about water usage for the plant, which is located in a forest bordering on a nature reserve. That’s one of the bureaucratic challenges for the…

Self-driving shuttle company May Mobility has revamped its senior management team.

COO Alisyn Malek will leave her position with the company at the end of this week, but will retain an advisory role. Her departure follows the exit of former chief technology officer Steve Vozar, who left last week. Both are co-founders of the company.

Their departures come at a time when the company plans an expansion. May Mobility closed a $50 million invement round in December that will enable it to deploy its six-passenger electric vehicles on routes in more communities. Toyota Motor Corp. was the largest investor in the latest investment round.

"After we wrapped up that fundraising, I thought about what I wanted to lean into next," Malek said. "I'm really proud of everything we accomplished, and the team we've brought in. I trust that they're going to keep killing it and continue to grow the company."

Based in Ann Arbor, Mich., May Mobility has pilot projects…

SEOUL -- Hyundai Motor said on Friday it planned to pause South Korean production of its Palisade crossover this weekend to cope with a supply disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak, its spokesperson said on Friday.

Its crosstown rival Ssangyong Motor also said it will idle its plant in the South Korean city of Pyeongtaek from Feb. 4 to Feb. 12, as China's factory suspension had disrupted parts supplies.

The suspension illustrates that China's extended factory closures ripple through supply chains across China and beyond.

A coronavirus outbreak that began in Wuhan, the capital of China's central province of Hubei, has spread to more than 9,320 people globally, killing over 200 people.

Many companies scale back operations or close for long periods around the holidays, which began on Jan. 24 this year. This year, China's government extended the Lunar New Year holidays to limit the spread of the virus.

Hyundai Motor is finding alte…

TOKYO -- Embattled Mitsubishi Motors reported a loss in the last quarter as falling revenue, foreign exchange losses and rising r&d costs broadsided earnings. The automaker swung to an operating loss of 6.6 billion yen ($60.5 million) in the fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, the company said in results published on Friday. That compared with an operating profit of 28.1 billion yen ($257.7 million) a year earlier. The company also slumped to a net loss of 14.4 billion yen ($132 million), from positive net income of 17.3 billion yen ($158.6 million), for a second-straight quarter of net losses. Revenue shrank 14 percent to 538.9 billion yen ($4.94 billion), as worldwide retail sales retreated 5.3 percent to 284,000 units, amid declining deliveries in Japan, Europe and Southeast Asia. Slackening demand in key markets such as Japan, China and Southeast Asia -- the company's biggest -- undercut quarterly returns, CFO Koji Ikeya said while announcing…

Aston Martin secured a deal to sell a minority stake in the struggling company to billionaire Lawrence Stroll, providing the luxury U.K. automaker with much needed funds to build a new SUV.

A consortium led by Stroll will pay 182 million pounds ($239 million) for a 16.7 percent stake, while a subsequent rights issue supported by major shareholders including Stroll will raise a further 318 million pounds, Aston Martin said in a statement on Friday.

Stroll's stake could rise to 20 percent upon completion of the rights issue.

The move will “immediately improve liquidity and reduce leverage,” Aston Martin said. “This follows the disappointing performance of the business through 2019.”

Stroll, a Canadian investor who owns a Formula One racing team, won the backing of Aston Martin’s board after rival suitor Geely cooled on the idea of investing in the sports-car maker. Geely, which controls Sweden's Volvo, Britain's Lotus Cars and holds a stake in Daiml…

Asbury Automotive Group has named a longtime employee who started as a management trainee as its next senior vice president of operations.

Daniel Clara, 40, was appointed to the position effective Jan. 29, the public dealership group said late Thursday in a regulatory filing. Clara replaces John Hartman, a 30-year industry veteran who held the position for just more than two years before leaving Asbury earlier this month.

Clara joined Asbury in 2002. He worked in sales through the company's manager-in-training program at its Crown BMW dealership in Greensboro, N.C., according to his LinkedIn profile.

He has held a number of positions at the nation's seventh largest new-vehicle retailer including vice president of market operations, managing market director, general manager, general sales manager, used-car manager, new-car sales manager, finance and insurance manager and client adviser.

In his new position, Clara will earn a base salary of $600,000…

DETROIT -- Dana Inc. CEO Jim Kamsickas endorsed President Donald Trump's signing of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement at an event in Warren, Mich., at one of the supplier's plants.

"We believe this law will further reduce the chance for disruptions and allow North American vehicle production to remain competitive globally," Kamsickas said ahead of the president's speech during his visit to the plant Thursday.

Kamsickas later told Automotive News that Dana's support of the new North American trade agreement comes from a need for certainty.

"You have to have certainty to understand how you're going to do capital deployment, how you're going to align your training and M&A activities," he said.

"NAFTA was written 25 years ago. As it relates to the transactional stuff of running a business, like how to get a trailer from Mexico over the border up to Detroit, or vice versa, up into Canada, you would be amazed how much waste and unc…

DETROIT -- President Donald Trump touted the signing of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Thursday at the Warren plant of Dana Inc.

"We just ended a nightmare known as NAFTA," Trump said on stage in front of employees and a few hundred supporters. "They took our jobs for a long time. We now have the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It's a whole different ballgame. It's the greatest agreement we've ever made."

Trump signed the long-negotiated agreement Wednesday at a ceremony in Washington.

The visit to the Warren manufacturing plant is the first by a U.S. president since September 1942, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited what was formerly the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant. Trump's visit to Dana's operations was his second to Michigan in about six weeks.

"They don't use those words anymore: Made in the USA," Trump said.

The Trump administration is hoping the deal will dent imports of veh…

YOKOHAMA, Japan – The leaders of the embattled Renault, Nissan, Mitsubishi alliance put forth a unified face by unleashing a new divide-and-conquer plan to bolster their troubled business.

The strategy, unveiled Jan. 30, calls for dividing the world geographically, with partners spearheading operations in the regions where they are strongest. And it adopts a leader-follower approach to engineering, in which they will divide responsibilities for r&d among them.

Details of the plan will be fleshed out by May, when the individual companies plan to individually announce new mid-term plans that take into account their production footprints and product development needs, Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard said.

But some directions are already clear. In terms of geographic responsibilities, Renault will take the lead in Europe, Nissan will be the director in China and Mitsubishi will head Southeast Asia. They did not specify a point company for North Am…

FRANKFURT -- Germany's VDA auto industry association will move the Frankfurt auto show to another city after visitor numbers plunged last year

The next show is scheduled to be held in September 2021. It will take place in Berlin, Hamburg or Munich, three cities shortlisted by the VDA as potential locations.

The show's disappearance from Frankfurt ends almost 70 years of Germany's financial capital hosting the event, which along with the Paris auto show, is one of the two biggest European exhibitions to showcase new cars and the latest technological innovations.

The Frankfurt show is also known by its German acronym IAA (International Automobile Exhibition). It has been a crucial sales and marketing platform for automakers. Nearly one third of visitors plan to buy a new or used car in the next six months, while over a quarter are at least considering the investment.

But like most other global auto shows, it has seen fewer automakers willing to inve…

All Tesla Inc. directors except CEO Elon Musk agreed to a $60 million settlement to resolve shareholder lawsuits over the company’s purchase of SolarCity, according to people familiar with the deal.

Insurers covering Tesla’s directors and executives will foot the bill as part of a so-called derivative settlement, two people familiar with the accord said Wednesday, declining to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly about the deal.

Musk and the board were accused of duping investors in 2016 into backing the $2 billion buyout of the solar-panel installer, which was co-founded by Musk and his cousins.

Pension funds that objected to the deal are likely to press ahead with a March trial against Musk over his alleged failure to disclose SolarCity was in deep financial trouble when he urged shareholders to back the buyout.

Of Tesla’s nine directors, only four are holdovers from when the company acquired SolarCity: Musk, who was fo…