Trade News

Used-vehicle retailer CarMax Inc. is investing $50 million to buy a minority stake in Edmunds, the automotive retail research and vehicle-listing company.

CarMax said Wednesday the move is mean to bolster its omnichannel retail strategy designed to meet and interact with shoppers wherever and however they're shopping, across multiple channels, online and in store.

"Edmunds' proprietary content, comprehensive automotive market insights and streamlined user experience across the car buying and selling journey will allow us to deepen our engagement with customers shopping online," Bill Nash, CarMax president and CEO, said in a statement.

CarMax is expected to complete its rollout of the omnichannel strategy, which it is calling a "personalized buying experience," by the end of February 2021, although most of its markets will be covered in some form by the end of February 2020.

The announcement follows Edmunds' plans to e…

Tesla Inc. reported its second-consecutive quarterly profit and said plans for the Model Y crossover launch are ahead of schedule.

The electric-vehicle maker said it earned a net profit of $105 million in the final three months of 2019, which followed a surprise third-quarter profit that kick-started a meteoric rise in the company's shares.

Net income during the latest period fell 25 percent from the fourth quarter of 2018, when Tesla reported a $139.5 million net profit. The latest profit was aided by $133 million in sales from regulatory credits, up 40 percent from the same period a year ago.

Total revenue in the quarter rose 2 percent to $7.4 billion, with automotive revenue rising 1 percent to $6.4 billion.

"2019 was a turning point for Tesla," the automaker said in a statement. "We demonstrated strong organic demand for Model 3, returned to GAAP profitability in [the second half] and generated $1.1 billion of free cash flow for the year. We …

Jeep’s Super Bowl ad is expected to star Bill Murray recreating scenes from “Groundhog Day.”

The actor last weekend was spotted shooting scenes for the ad in Woodstock, Illinois, the Chicago-area town where the 1993 movie was shot, according to a report in the Northwest Herald. A person familiar with the matter confirmed that the movie would indeed be the focus of the ad. Chicago-based ad agency High Dive is said to be handling the spot.

The Super Bowl just happens to fall on Groundhog Day, providing a timely backdrop for the ad. 

The actor’s golf brand, WIlliam Murray Golf, posted a scene of the ad shoot on its Instagram account.

Fiat Chrysler earlier this week confirmed it would be coming back to the Super Bowl with a 60-second ad for Jeep, after sitting out last year’s game. A Jeep spokeswoman in a statement Wednesday said: “No creative details will be released in advance of it airing during the broadcast on Sunday, and we won't comment …

There's no more iconic vehicle in the delivery realm than the boxy, brown trucks United Parcel Service uses to distribute packages throughout the world.

They're about to get some company in the fleet.

Waymo soon will carry packages for UPS using its self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans, the two companies said Wednesday. In a pilot project expected to begin this quarter, Waymo will use its minivans to ferry packages from multiple UPS stores in the metro Phoenix area to the logistics company’s operational hub in nearby Tempe, Ariz.

It's a small-scale start to identify operational efficiencies that can be gleaned using autonomous vehicles to carry those packages, similar to the pilot project Waymo conducts with AutoNation to deliver car parts. At least for now, human safety drivers remain in the vehicles.

What differs is the extent to which Waymo will modify the Pacificas. While they remain in standard passenger configurations for AutoNation,…

U.S. consumers aren't as enthusiastic as the rest of the world about giving up vehicle ownership in favor of robotaxi services, according to a report by AlixPartners, a global consulting company.

The Global Autonomous Vehicle survey of more than 6,500 consumers in six countries found 44 percent of U.S. respondents said they would consider giving up personal vehicles if ride-hailing robotaxis become widespread and cost about the same as ownership. Eighty-four percent of respondents in China said they would consider giving up ownership.

Italy followed with 67 percent of respondents saying they would consider giving up personal vehicle ownership.

Consumers overall are less interested in paying more for advanced driver-assistance systems (Level 2 autonomy), the report showed, than they are for hands-off-the-wheel technology (Level 4 autonomy).

U.S. respondents said they would pay just 9 percent more for hands-off-the-wheel autonomy. Chinese consumer…

STUTTGART -- Global automotive production may have peaked, Robert Bosch said on Wednesday, announcing job cuts and a review of its business to cope with a 44 percent drop in full-year operating profit and a downturn in demand for cars. Global automotive production is expected to fall for the third consecutive year, by 2.6 percent to 89 million vehicles in 2020, following a drop in demand in China, Europe and the U.S., the supplier said. "It could well be that we have passed the peak of automotive production," Bosch CEO Volkmar Denner said. He also said he assumed the low level would remain constant and did not expected an increase in global automotive production before 2025, while the market would shrink by 10 million units in 2020 compared with 2017. Bosch said its full-year earnings before interest and taxes fell to 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) in 2019, a 44 percent drop from 5.4 billion euros in the year-earlier period and its EBIT margin c…

STUTTGART -- Robert Bosch CEO Volkmar Denner warned that the coronavirus could impact the supplier's global supply chain, which is heavily dependent on China.

"We need to wait to see how things develop. If this situation continues, supply chains will be disrupted. There are forecasts that predict the peak for infections will drag on until February or March," Denner told journalists on Tuesday.

"In Wuhan, Bosch has two plants making steering systems and thermotechnologies, with around 800 employees. There have been no reports of infections," Denner said.

The CEO said the supplier was concerned but had not yet seen disruption to its business or supply chain.

Bosch is relying on China as a global manufacturing base for exporting electric motors, transmissions and power electronics for electric cars.

Bosch's China plants have been shut for Chinese New Year and the holiday has been extended to Feb. 3, an extension which will not disrupt Bosch's …

Ford and Renault said they will resume production at their China factories after extended breaks for the Chinese New Year holiday.

Renault will resume production at the factory it runs with Dongfeng Group in Wuhan, a spokeswoman for the automaker said.

Wuhan is the epicenter of the outbreak of coronavirus.

Ford also said plans to resume production on Feb. 10 at its manufacturing facilities in China with joint venture partner Chongqing Changan Automobile.

Ford's production plan for its factories in Chongqing and Hangzhou comes as local governments have extended Lunar New year holidays to rein in a coronavirus that has killed more than 130 people in China.

The reopening of the Ford and Renault plants will be eight days after the end of the extended Lunar New Year holiday in China.

On Monday, Beijing added three days to the week-long holiday, which will now last until Feb. 2 as it seeks to limit the spread of the coronavirus, which has …

BERLIN -- Four people who work at supplier Webasto in southern Germany have been infected with the coronavirus, and one of them contracted it from a colleague visiting their workplace in China, officials said.

In one of the first cases of person-to-person transmission outside China, a 33-year-old man apparently contracted the virus on Jan. 21 during a training session with a Chinese colleague, Bavaria's health ministry said.

"A total of around 40 employees at the company have been identified as potential close contacts. As a precaution, the people concerned are to be tested on Wednesday," Bavaria's Health Minister Melanie Huml said in a statement.

Webasto said in a statement that it is closing its headquarters in Stockdorf, Bavaria, until Sunday due to the virus outbreak. Employees have been offered the choice of working from home and the company has suspended employee travel from its headquarters to national and international locations until Sunday. For…

Jeep is returning to the Super Bowl this year after sitting out the 2019 game.

The brand will showcase one 60-second spot, but Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is being mum on when the ad will air. The automaker said "viewers will have to watch closely," and added that the timing of the spot will not be announced beforehand.

After running five ads in 2018, FCA skipped the 2019 game in favor of an all-digital strategy that saw it unveil seven online spots in the week leading up to the game for Dodge, Jeep and Ram.

FCA marketing chief Olivier Francois said in September that the digital strategy worked. Nevertheless, the automaker will be back for 2020.

"We tried to explore the possibility of not doing TV at all on Super Bowl, but doing this super, crazy, powerful national anthem made by [rock band One Republic]," Francois told Automotive News in September. "We wanted to see if there was a way to have a Super Bowl audience without paying for TV."

A S…

MIAMI — After rolling out three sedans and struggling to establish a U.S. dealer network, Genesis finally debuted its first crossover in the U.S., with high hopes for the midsize GV80 to conquest traditional luxury brands.

For the U.S. market, the GV80 has a choice of two engines, Genesis said Tuesday at its North American debut here. A 2.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine is the more economical option, while the 3.5-liter turbocharged six-cylinder engine will offer better performance. In the future, Genesis is expected to offer a hybrid powertrain in the crossover.

Prices were not announced.

Genesis offers a 2.0-liter turbocharged engine in the compact G70 sedan and a turbocharged 3.3-liter six- cylinder engine in the G70, the midsize G80 and the flagship G90. Parent company Hyundai Motor Co. recently gave an early look at a 2.5-liter turbo motor that it's putting in a performance N-Line version of the Sonata sedan later this year.

O…

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will pause production at a Jeep sport utility vehicle factory for the third time in six months, adding to signs automakers are expecting sales to slow this year.

The Jeep Cherokee assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill., will shut down the week of Feb. 17, according to Jodi Tinson, a Fiat Chrysler spokeswoman. The company idled the facility for two weeks this month and one week in August after cutting a production shift at the plant in May.

Five of the six largest North American automakers are expected to dial back production in the first quarter, researcher LMC automotive said earlier this month. Most analysts are projecting industry sales to dip below 17 million units for the first time in six years as consumers struggle to afford new vehicles. The average price paid for a new car or truck is approaching $35,000.

The fate of the Belvidere plant was the subject of speculation during Fiat Chrysler’s labor negotiations last y…