Trade News

FRANKFURT -- Tesla CEO Elon Musk sought to allay environmental concerns about the automaker's planned factory in Germany, saying the plant would use less water than was estimated originally.

The company had said in planning documents that the factory would need 372 cubic meters of water from the public drinking water network per hour, sparking protests by local residents earlier this month.

"Sounds like we need to clear up a few things! Tesla won't use this much net water on a daily basis. It's possibly a rare peak usage case, but not an everyday event," Musk said on Twitter on Saturday.

The automaker announced plans last November to build its first European car factory in Gruenheide, in the eastern state of Brandenburg in the outskirts of Berlin.

Politicians, unions and industry groups have welcomed the move, saying it will bring jobs to the region, but environmental groups have aired concerns and a Brandenburg water association warned against "e…

TOKYO — Subaru's first full- electric crossover points to a greener future for an all-wheel-drive brand long seen as an electrification laggard.

But executives aren't particularly bullish about the sales prospects of doing that in their biggest market, the United States.

"The U.S. market is really tough," Subaru CEO Tomomi Nakamura said at a technology briefing here last week where he announced big, new targets for electrifying the automaker. "I think that the market for electrified vehicles will take some more time to form in the U.S. Only Tesla's EVs are selling well."

Subaru will attempt to derive at least 40 percent of its global sales from full electrics or hybrid vehicles by 2030, with its entire lineup being electrified in the first half of the 2030s, the company said.

But electrification adds cost, and Americans don't see the value in added fuel economy, Nakamura said.

Subaru provided a glimpse of its direction last week, showing a…

The first Genesis crossover is finally on the way, and the upstart brand is using the new model not just to ignite sales after struggling to build a dealer body with three sedans. It's also leveraging the Super Bowl, celebrity couple John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, a new logo and the Young Luxury slogan to raise its profile with American consumers.

The recruitment of the "spokes- couple" goes beyond enlisting two A-list stars with nearly 40 million followers combined on Instagram. It speaks to the very aesthetic the marque wants to carve out for itself: young at heart, stylish but not snobby, accessible, fun-loving and different from the boomer brands that take themselves too seriously.

"When we think about John and Chrissy, they're approachable, they're fun, they're young luxury," Mark Del Rosso, CEO of Genesis North America, told Automotive News last week. "America and the world can relate to Chrissy and John." Del Rosso himself is part of…

Editor's note: This story is part of a special section on the 100th anniversary of Mazda to be published in the Jan. 27 print edition of Automotive News.

Mazda wasn't always Mazda, and the company it was born from didn't always make cars.

The company, which began as Toyo Cork Kogyo Corp., eventually picked the name Mazda as a way of paying homage to Jujiro Matsuda, the second president of Toyo — the pronunciation of his family name was similar.

Additionally, Mazda comes from Ahura Mazda, the god of harmony, intelligence and wisdom in Zoroastrianism.

Follow the company's journey from humble beginnings in Japan to a global producer of automobiles.

1920

Toyo Cork Kogyo Corp., a producer of cork and machine tools, is founded by Shinpachi Kaizuka in Hiroshima, Japan.

1921

Jujiro Matsuda becomes president of Toyo Cork.

1927

The company becomes Toyo Kogyo Co. Ltd.

1929

Prototype 250 cc two-stroke …

PARIS -- PSA Group said it will repatriate expatriate staff and their families from the Wuhan area in China, which is at the center of an outbreak of coronavirus.

The maker of Peugeot and Citroen cars said that 38 people would be evacuated and that the initiative will be executed in full collaboration with the Chinese authorities and the French general consulate.

The evacuees will remain in quarantine in Changsha before traveling back to their home countries, PSA said on Saturday.

PSA also said it was taking measures with Dongfeng to take care of their joint venture's Chinese employees.

French companies are big investors in Wuhan, which has historical ties with France.

PSA has three factories in Wuhan as part of a partnership with Dongfeng Motor. Renault and French suppliers Valeo and Faurecia have plants in the city.

Last week a Renault spokesman told Automotive News Europe that its Wuhan factory was closed for the Chinese New Year …

Editor's note: This story is part of a special section on the 100th anniversary of Mazda to be published in the Jan. 27 print edition of Automotive News.

In the mid-1960s, Japanese goods such as motorcycles, cameras, watches and consumer electronics were starting to shed their post-World War II era image for shoddy quality. American consumers were finding many Japanese products to be innovative, cleverly designed, attractive, reliable and affordable. But it would take longer for Japanese automobiles to gain traction outside of Japan.

In 1961, Toyota suffered the public embarrassment of having to withdraw its Toyopet brand of cars from the Unites States after the Crown and Tiara sedans failed. Nissan barely had a toehold in the United States, selling a few hundred Datsun-brand pickups and sports cars a year. Tsuneji Matsuda, president of Toyo Kogyo — Mazda's original corporate name — knew his tiny company stood a better chance of competing in global markets if …

Fears surrounding the fast-spreading coronavirus prompted automakers and suppliers last week to restrict business travel in and out of China, where the key auto-industry city of Wuhan was identified as the illness' epicenter.

In an effort to contain the outbreak, which had been blamed for 41 deaths as of late Friday, Jan. 24, Chinese officials have restricted travel for 35 million people — including a complete quarantine of Wuhan, a city of 11 million, 400 miles west of Shanghai.

Separately, auto companies began limiting employee movement in and out of China.

SAIC GM, General Motors' joint venture with SAIC Motor Corp. that builds and markets Cadillac, Buick and Chevrolet cars and light trucks, has a large manufacturing plant in Wuhan that employs just less than 6,000 people.

Jim Cain, spokesman for GM, told Automotive News that the automaker has restricted all business travel to China and has asked employees in the country to follow all nec…

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles filed a motion Friday to dismiss General Motors' racketeering lawsuit against the company.

In a sweeping suit filed in November, GM claims that its smaller rival secured an unfair advantage in labor costs by bribing UAW officials during key contract negotiations covering wages and benefits. The suit alleges that Sergio Marchionne, the late FCA CEO, wanted to hurt GM in an effort to force a merger between the two companies.

Marchionne, the suit says, "formally solicited GM for a merger" in the spring of 2015, an offer that was rejected. From there, the suit alleges that Marchionne orchestrated and negotiated a collective bargaining agreement that was "designed, through the power of pattern bargaining, to cost GM billions."

GM's suit also names three former FCA executives who have pleaded guilty in an ongoing federal corruption probe of top UAW officials. Federal officials say UAW leaders received payoffs from FCA officials start…

Porsche emphasizes speed — and its German heritage — in its first Super Bowl ad appearance since 1997. The sports car brand released on Friday an extended cut of the spot, which will run in the game as a 60-second ad in the first quarter.The ad, called “The Heist” by Cramer-Krasselt, features a racing scene in which nearly a dozen Porsche models zip through Germany beginning at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart. That is where a masked man is shown stealing the brand’s new electric Taycan from an exhibit floor.

Museum workers hop in various Porsche models from the museum’s collection — including a tractor — and chase after the Taycan. It turns out they are all just having fun, with a woman shown taking her turn as the “bad guy” in the final scene.

It was filmed in the river town of Heidelberg, Black Forest and the Zuffenhausen district of Stuttgart where Porsche is headquartered. Models shown in the ad include the 917 K race car, the 918 Spyder hybrid and the Pors…

DETROIT — General Motors will build the Cruise Origin at its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant starting in late 2022, AutoForecast Solutions told Automotive News.

The self-driving, ride-hailing shuttle revealed in San Francisco this week joins a roster of electric vehicles slated for production at the plant.

GM declined to comment, but the automaker released a media advisory for a major announcement by President Mark Reuss at the plant Monday morning.

Origin production will be in addition to the four EVs already slated for the plant, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global forecasting for AutoForecast Solutions, a well-known provider of automotive forecasting databases and business planning programs.

In October, GM made the plant once destined for closure the center of its EV plan, pledging a $3 billion investment to build EVs and battery modules there. Production of an electric pickup and SUV is scheduled to begin in 2021. According to various …