Trade News

A woman has been charged with felony embezzlement for allegedly stealing about $250,000 from a Toyota dealership when it was in Louisville, Miss., local station WTOK reported.

Louisville is in eastern Mississippi, northeast of Jackson.

Latisha Jones Smith, 50, was formerly the comptroller for Doc's Toyota, according to WTOK. She had been let go by Doc's Toyota on Jan. 5 for matters unrelated to the charges, the local station reported.

The store had been auditing its books in the intervening months, according to WTOK.

Smith is also facing additional charges of felony embezzlement in Neshoba County, Miss., where Doc's Toyota is now located. She is accused of stealing about $71,000, WTOK reported in April. The store is in Philadelphia in central Mississippi.

Doc's Toyota declined to comment. Smith was not able to be contacted for comment.

Smith's bond was set at $25,000, which she met last week, WTOK reported.

Taking the auto industry into the future means making the jump to a new way of thinking about car buying.

While historically, the car buying process primarily started at the front doors of a dealership, consumers are increasingly turning to digital “doors” to initiate steps like researching vehicles, calculating their monthly payment and exploring financing options.

In this shifting world of car buying, dealers must meet consumers at multiple entry points to the process—both online and in person.

Buyers are demanding more information, transparency and choices through digital tools. They also value the in-person experience of visiting a showroom, meeting with a dealer face to face, discussing pricing and test driving the vehicle before they complete the purchase.

Addressing both the online and in-person aspects of car buying is the most important challenge dealers face today. The ones to succeed will make the jump to give car buyers the best of bo…

It's a brutal time to be introducing an electric vehicle brand from scratch in the U.S. Beyond the reservations some Americans still have with EVs, the increasingly crowded market has been roiled by surging raw material outlays, software bugs, and more recently vehicle price cuts and hikes, giving some consumers more pause and whiplash.

VinFast, the startup EV maker from Vietnam, is having a go at it and has begun leasing a electric crossover in the U.S.

The company's initial crossover is a limited version — the VF 8 City Edition — and available only as part of a $399-per-month lease, cut from $599 per month in February.

The VF 8, imported from Vietnam, is only eligible for a federal tax credit as a lease vehicle because of new incentive rules, and VinFast said the promotion was conceived "to stay competitive with other brands."

The VF 8 City Edition has a starting price of $50,200 with shipping.

Every VF 8 …

Tesla Inc.'s price cuts in the first quarter led to significant volume gains, according to U.S. new-vehicle registration data from Experian. But the benefits came mostly from the relatively fresh Model Y crossover and not the older Model 3 sedan, Model X crossover or Model S hatchback.

Analysts are closely watching Tesla's numbers after CEO Elon Musk said last month he was willing to sacrifice profits to maintain a global growth target of 50 percent a year for the foreseeable future. Tesla is targeting between 1.8 million and 2 million vehicles in total global production this year.

After deep price cuts in January and several adjustments after that, Musk said, "the overall thing we can say is that orders are in excess of production."

Tesla opened two new factories last year, in Texas and Germany, boosting Model Y annual capacity by about half a million vehicles, the company said.

In the first quarter, Tesla's U.S. registrations rose 37 percent co…

Toyota Research Institute said its partnership with top U.S. universities has resulted in developments in advanced robotic capabilities, fuel cell catalyst durability and computational governance.

The program has funded $100 million of R&D and yielded more than 1,200 research papers, including several winners of academic awards, Toyota said in a statement Monday. It began in 2016 and expanded last year to include 21 university partners and 61 projects.

Each university partner teams up with a Toyota researcher on a specific line of inquiry, working on solutions specific to parent company Toyota Motor Corp. and for the industry.

Columbia University's Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Lab has developed new robotic capabilities designed to handle nonrigid objects that can fold, bend and change shape. These robots can fold laundry and manipulate flexible bags, dynamic tasks with implications for vehicle development.

"The partnership has allowed …

An Ohio court issued a restraining order that restricts UAW picketing at a Toledo area battery plant the union struck last week.

More than 400 UAW workers went on strike a week ago at Clarios' battery plant in Holland, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo. The strike began in response to failed negotiations about overtime pay and other concerns.

The plant supplies batteries to automotive assembly lines at Ford Motor Co. and General Motors. So far, there have been no reports of production disruptions.

The Lucas County Court of Common Pleas issued the restraining order Friday to prevent pickets from disrupting business operations and creating unsafe conditions on the picket line, a spokesperson for Clarios said. A temporary restraining order was first issued Thursday evening, then extended after a Friday morning hearing.

“Using the courts as a weapon against working people standing up for their rights is extremely disrespectful,” David Green, UAW Region 2B dire…

A federal appeals court on Monday rejected Elon Musk's bid to modify or end his 2018 securities fraud settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that required a Tesla Inc. lawyer to approve some of his tweets in advance.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected Musk's claim that the SEC exploited his consent decree to conduct bad-faith, harassing investigations that violated his First Amendment free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Musk's decree resolved an SEC lawsuit accusing him of defrauding investors with an Aug. 7, 2018, tweet that he had "funding secured" to take his EV company private.

It required advance review of tweets that might contain material information about Tesla. Musk and Tesla each also paid $20 million in civil fines, and Musk gave up his role as chairman.

In the appeal, Musk's lawyers called the pre-approval mandate a "government-imposed muzzle" that amounted to an illegal prior …

Tesla Inc.'s new vehicle-assembly system, which created instant buzz when it was unveiled in March, ignited a debate among auto manufacturing experts on whether CEO Elon Musk's so-called unboxed process is radical, revisionist or derivative -- or all of the above.

Musk believes the company needs to radically rethink conventional manufacturing methods in order to build more affordable - and profitable - EVs in higher volumes. 

Investors have been waiting for Tesla to announce what is perceived as the company's holy grail: An EV priced under $30,000. Right now, the least expensive Tesla starts at more than $40,000.

The unboxed assembly process is intended to enable Tesla to hit that ambitious price target.

One expert described the process as "revolutionary," with the potential to upend the auto industry's traditional moving assembly line. Others questioned whether a process that relies on previously tested techniques such as modular assembly c…

Stellantis and LG Energy on Monday ceased some construction of its planned electric-vehicle battery factory in Canada as it continues to spar with the federal government over financial assistance.

The automaker is accusing Ottawa of reneging on a previously made promises regarding the plant in Windsor, Ontario, which borders Detroit.

“As of today, the Canadian Government has not delivered on what was agreed to therefore Stellantis and LG Energy Solution will begin implementing their contingency plans. Effective immediately, all construction related to the battery module production on the Windsor site has stopped,” Stellantis said in a statement Monday. 

The C$5 billion ($3.7 billion USD) plant, slated to begin operations in August 2024, will be able to produce 45 gigawatt-hours of lithium-ion cells and modules a year to feed the automaker’s assembly operations in Canada and the U.S., Stellantis previously said.

Cells…

Tesla Inc. contributed almost one-quarter of Shanghai's total automotive production value last year, local media reported, in a sign of how quickly the electric car maker has ramped up output in China.

The U.S. company, which rolled out its first car from its Shanghai factory in 2019, generated production value of 183.9 billion yuan ($26.4 billion) in 2022, accounting for 23 percent of Shanghai's total automotive manufacturing production, Chen Kele, an official at the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information, said during a media tour of Tesla's Shanghai plant, according to local media reports.

More than half of Tesla's global deliveries in 2022 were manufactured at the Shanghai plant, which can now produce a maximum of 1.1 million cars a year.

The production value generated by Tesla's China factory also increased Shanghai's overall industrial production by 1.3 percentage points last year, Chen said. The automaker's push to localize parts …

At first glance, the numbers Automotive News reporter Hannah Lutz highlights in her report on electric vehicle makers disrupting franchised dealers in California and a handful of other states are startling.

Dealers, who once had a hand in every new light-vehicle sale in California, have lost nearly 12 percent of the market to Tesla, Rivian and Lucid, companies that sell directly to consumers.

The average California dealer lost about $700,000 in gross profit opportunity last year. The market erosion for dealers is spreading to Colorado, Washington and other states that follow many of the Golden State's environmental and motor vehicle policies.

While Tesla and other EV startups have capitalized on the direct sales model, it's unclear how far that can go. That top line may represent Tesla's success and a dearth of compelling EVs from legacy automakers, something that's about to change with the rollout of dozens of new models in the coming years.

Then…