Trade News

Rivian Automotive Inc. reduced its losses in the first quarter as the electric-vehicle maker sold more higher-priced vehicles and generated more revenue than expected.

The company on Tuesday reported a net loss of $1.35 billion for the first three months of the year, compared with a loss of $1.59 billion a year earlier.

Revenue for the quarter ended March 31 stood at $661 million, compared with Wall Street estimates of $652.1 million, according to Refinitiv data.

Shares in Rivian rose 5.2 percent to $14.58 in after-hours trading.

Rivian expects production ramp up of its in-house Enduro powertrains to help offset parts supply issues in the second half of the year, enabling it to meet its smaller-than-estimated target of manufacturing 50,000 units.

The company did not provide details of its pre-orders at the end of the quarter amid demand concerns aggravated by higher borrowing costs and industry leader Tesla's aggressive price cuts.

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ANAHEIM, Calif. — U.S. car buyers love the edge cases.

They buy seven-seat SUVs for a family of four. They get pickups in case they want to tow something. They purchase tricked-out Jeep Wranglers and Ford Broncos but never leave the pavement.

Mujeeb Ijaz, CEO of Our Next Energy EV battery company in Novi, Mich., has considered the EV edge case conundrum. Buyers want huge ranges but rarely drive those distances between battery charging sessions.

The riddle Ijaz wants to solve is how to provide giant range without massively increasing the expense and weight of an electric vehicle. He thinks the solution is two separate batteries — one that is small and reliable for everyday driving and a second with an energy-dense chemistry to power the car on extra-long trips.

"Our ambition is to have a 600-mile on a single charge range so that we can offer customers the capability to adopt electric vehicles for any use case that comes their way — temperature, sp…

By implementing a few sales strategies developed explicitly for lean inventory times, these dealers are finding creative ways to source inventory and stay profitable. Our new guide, Sales Solutions for Inventory Challenges, will give you 5 strategies to face down industry obstacles and thrive in this unique market. You’ll learn how to: Source cars from past sales and service customers Look for possible customers in your service department Find customers with favorable equity positions Accept more trade-in vehicles Ready to face down your challenges with data-driven sales solutions?

A conversation with Nikola CEO Michael Lohscheller about the company’s trajectory and steep challenges. Lucid Motors trims its outlook for the year. And GM hires a key software executive away from Apple.

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TrueCar expects that a new subsidiary focused on providing market-based valuations for used cars will entice dealers and help grow business in an ongoing, tight used-vehicle market.

The vehicle listings company rolled out TrueCar Wholesale Solutions (TCWS) nationally at the end of April, after a first quarter in which it posted a 15 percent drop in revenue and rising net losses.

TrueCar is countering this with efforts to rebuild its core business, an ongoing expansion of its TrueCar+ digital sales platform, a focus on converting more traffic into dealer sales and efforts to "lean into" the used-vehicle market, CEO Mike Darrow said May 9 during the company's earnings call.

TrueCar Wholesale Solutions is designed to help generate precise valuation data for consumer-to-dealer sales and remote trade-ins, the company said. It will rely in part on "proprietary algorithms" to produce market-based vehicle valuations and better meet dealer demand, Darrow said. Read more

Lucid Motors cut its production forecast to "over 10,000" this year from its previous estimate of 10,000 to 14,000 and posted a first-quarter net loss of $780 million as it burns through cash amid waning demand.

Despite the disappointing numbers, which sent its stock price down nearly 9 percent in extended trading, CEO Peter Rawlinson said the automaker is seeing success in raising brand awareness in an effort to find more buyers for its Air sedan, currently its only vehicle.

"We're seeing some early wins," Rawlinson said of the automaker's increased focus on marketing. "The number of test drives has nearly doubled in the first quarter from the fourth quarter of last year."

Rawlinson announced on the company's first-quarter earnings call Monday that Andrea Soriani is the new head of marketing for Lucid.

Soriani previously held marketing roles at TAG Heuer and Maserati of North America.

Rawlinson also explained why Lucid's production and deliver…

First-quarter net income at Magna International fell 43 percent from a year earlier. Bosche reorganizes its mobility unit. Volkswagen announces some big executive moves. Plus, Automotive Ventures founder and CEO Steve Greenfield joins the show to talk about the ever-evolving state of automotive venture capital.

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Qualcomm Inc. said on Monday that it would acquire Israel's Autotalks Ltd., a maker of chips used in crash-prevention technology in vehicles, as the U.S. firm looks to expand its automotive-related business.

The company did not disclose the terms of the deal but said Autotalk's technology would be incorporated into its assisted and autonomous driving product, called Snapdragon Digital Chassis.

Qualcomm said in September last year that its automotive business "pipeline," or potential future orders,rose by more than $10 billion to $30 billion since its third-quarter results were announced in late July, as automakers increasingly equip their cars with driver-assistance systems.

The company, which has credited the jump to its Snapdragon Digital Chassis product, competes with Intel's Mobileye Global and Nvidia Corp. for that slice of the market.

Revenue from Qualcomm's automotive business rose 20 percent to $447 million in the second quarter ended Marc…

It’s a familiar story: A business mogul parlaying much of his fortune into a massive bet on electric vehicles, only to fall on hard times.

Pham Nhat Vuong is among the latest to take after Elon Musk, the PayPal mafia member who made it through what he famously described as Tesla Inc.’s “production hell.” Other examples include James Dyson, the household-appliance billionaire; Jia Yueting, founder of the Netflix of China; and Hui Ka Yan, the embattled property tycoon behind China Evergrande Group.

The odds that any of these players ride out the inferno as Tesla did are looking increasingly long. Dyson pulled the plug on his EV venture in 2019. Jia’s Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc. is staring down a potential Nasdaq delisting. And Hui’s China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Ltd. is struggling to survive.

Vuong’s difficulties are proving costly. VinFast, his automaker that filed for a initial public offering a year ago, has delayed plans to li…

Toyota said Friday it planned to reveal the redesigned 2024 Tacoma on May 19. A day later, the midsize pickup's enthusiast base apparently decided that was too long to wait, found a back door into the automaker's website and posted an image of the upcoming vehicle for all to see.

The leaked image was first posted on tacoma4g.com and shows a white 2024 Tacoma 4x4 with black trim traversing through sand.

Doug Liu, a co-owner of tacoma4g.com, said he verified the image "by sleuthing on the Toyota website and matching up the hosting domain."

One of tacoma4g.com's users "found the image by taking the URL from previous Toyota images and changing the path and file names before landing on this image of the next-gen Taco in all its glory," Liu said.

The image shows the pickup will adopt many styling cues from the larger Tundra, including the styling lines on its hood, lighting elements and the front fascia.

In a brief statement emailed to Automotiv…

Never mind the auto industry’s relentless push toward electrification, Chery Automobile Co. is the latest Chinese carmaker trying to win over Australians with gasoline-powered SUVs pitched at the lower end of the market.

Chery’s midsize Omoda 5 is selling across Australia for as little as A$32,000 ($22,000) for the base model. A colleague and I drove a high-end version around Sydney for four days. It’s stuffed with extras you’d normally find in luxury cars — think heated steering wheel and exterior puddle lights — and costs not much more than A$35,000.

Australia’s best-selling car, Ford Motor Co.’s Ranger pickup, can go for more than double that price.

Wuhu-based Chery joins Chinese rivals Great Wall Motor Co. and SAIC Motor Corp. — owner of the MG brand — in pouring relatively affordable cars into an Australian market that’s been slow to turn to electric vehicles. Chery was China’s second-biggest car exporter worldwide last year.

With inflation i…

Lordstown Motors said its first-quarter net loss widened to $171 million from $89 million during the same quarter last  year.