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The U.S. Department of Energy on Friday said it plans to loan $362 million to help California wiring components startup CelLink open a factory in Texas.

The conditional commitment from the government's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program is for the development of lighter, more efficient flexible circuit wiring harnesses for automotive and other industries. Once fully operational, the Georgetown, Texas, facility is expected to produce flex harnesses to support some 2.7 million electric vehicles per year, the department said.

The loan commitment comes after CelLink last year closed on a $250 million funding round with backers including BMW and suppliers Lear Corp. and Robert Bosch. Ford Motor Co. was also an early backer of the San Carlos, Calif., company, which was founded in 2011.

"Factory construction is pretty expensive," CelLink CEO Kevin Coakley said in an interview with Automotive News. "So having an entity like [the Energy Depar…

Volkswagen is committed to moving completely to electric vehicles by the mid-2030s, but until then, an interim step makes sense while the U.S. continues to build out charging infrastructure, the new head of the brand's North American arm argues.

In an interview with Automotive News, Pablo Di Si, who is also in his first year as CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, said VW is looking hard at adding at least one plug-in hybrid to its U.S. lineup in the immediate future.

"It takes you a long time to develop a technology. If I wouldn't have any plug-in hybrid in the group, it wouldn't be an idea" worth pursuing, Di Si said this month. But because of Audi, it's a possibility.

"When you're talking Volkswagen Group in North America, we do have a plug-in hybrid: The [Audi] Q5 e, in Mexico, is a plug-in hybrid. I drove the car in Mexico; it's beautiful, and the [plug-in hybrid] system works very well," Di Si said. "So we do have plug-in hyb…

Linda Yaccarino is the next CEO of Twitter, according to people close to the situation, who confirmed that she did accept the position.

On Thursday, Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted that he was ready to hand the top job to a person he had not yet named. Immediately after that announcement, sources told Automotive News sister publication Ad Age that it was Yaccarino, chairman of NBCUniversal’s advertising and partnerships group. On Friday, a person with direct knowledge of the move said that it was official.

That came after NBCU announced that Yaccarino was leaving the company, without saying where she was headed. Mark Marshall, NBCU’s president, advertising sales and client partnerships, is now in Yaccarino’s former position as interim chairman of advertising and partnerships, NBCU said.

Twitter declined to comment.

Yaccarino is coming to Twitter as a fixer for its advertising problems, bringing deep connections with brand…

Elon Musk said on Thursday he has found a new chief executive for Twitter without naming the person and that he will transition to the role of chief technology officer of the social media platform within the next few weeks.

"Excited to announce that I've hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!," Musk said in a tweet.

Musk has previously not named any prospective candidates, and it was unclear who he had named as his successor, although Blind, an anonymous messaging app for tech employees, was ripe with speculation.

Former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and a top executive at Musk' brain-chip startup Neuralink, Shivon Zilis, were among the names being discussed on Blind, according to a former employee who viewed the comments.

Top female executives from Musk's other companies, such as SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell and Tesla Inc TSLA.O Chair Robyn Denholm could also be named, according to Jason …

The unusual taillight clusters of the imposing DS 4 hatchback – the latest model from the French premium brand, DS Automobiles – are reminiscent of a sparkling jewel. Vehicles from DS Automobiles are easily recognizable from a distance thanks to their unique signature lights.

The shimmer of the taillight covers sets the perfect scene for the light design. Supplier Marelli Automotive Lighting manufactured the covers using a crystal-clear PLEXIGLAS® molding compound, which was then framed by a black gloss contour made from PLEXIGLAS® Hi-Gloss 8N black. This interplay completes the high-quality overall look of the taillights.

PLEXIGLAS® ensures the taillights of the DS 4 shine like diamonds The material for contemporary automobile design that saves resources Brand PMMA from Röhm provides both aesthetic and functional properties Emotional product design with PLEXIGLAS®

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The unusual taillight clusters of the imposing DS 4 hatchback – the latest model from the French premium brand, DS Automobiles – are reminiscent of a sparkling jewel. Vehicles from DS Automobiles are easily recognizable from a distance thanks to their unique signature lights.

The shimmer of the taillight covers sets the perfect scene for the light design. Supplier Marelli Automotive Lighting manufactured the covers using a crystal-clear PLEXIGLAS® molding compound, which was then framed by a black gloss contour made from PLEXIGLAS® Hi-Gloss 8N black. This interplay completes the high-quality overall look of the taillights.

PLEXIGLAS® ensures the taillights of the DS 4 shine like diamonds The material for contemporary automobile design that saves resources Brand PMMA from Röhm provides both aesthetic and functional properties Emotional product design with PLEXIGLAS®

A conversation with Daimler Truck North America CEO John O’Leary, who says a lack of charging infrastructure is delaying the push for zero-emissions trucking. Nissan expects a sales surge in North America. And Subaru plans four new crossover EVs while other automakers delay their own models.

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Canadian auto supplier Linamar Corp. plans to break ground “immediately” on a new plant in Welland, Ont., that will house three giga-casting presses capable of producing very large aluminum structural parts for electric vehicles. 

The Guelph, Ont.-based parts supplier announced the new site in the city south of Niagara Falls as it reported its first-quarter earnings on Wednesday.

Company CEO Linda Hasenfratz said the state-of-the-art plant will be a “flagship location” for the company’s structural castings business.

"As the first supplier to invest in this equipment in North America, Linamar will naturally take a market leadership position in this technology,” she told analysts on a conference call Wednesday.

Pioneered by Tesla, giga-presses are used to produce large structural vehicle components, replacing parts that previously required numerous welds with a single aluminum piece.  

Linamar COO Jim Jarrell said the inve…

The widespread theft of vulnerable older Hyundai and Kia models not equipped with a crucial anti-theft device could end up costing the U.S. insurance industry up to $600 million.

Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, American Family and 65 other auto insurers, which comprise only a fraction of the country's insurance companies, estimate that just their portion of the payout to owners who have been affected by the social media-driven crime wave could top $300 million.

The insurers, who filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Orange County, Calif., in March, say they have already paid out $190 million. They are demanding that Hyundai Motor America, Hyundai Motor Co., Kia America and Kia Corp. reimburse them for funds paid to owners for replacement or repair of damaged or stolen vehicles.

The lawsuit said repairing broken windows and busted steering columns resulting from an attempt to break into a vehicle and hot-wire its ignition often costs an insurer more than…

Rear-seat passengers are not well protected by small cars' safety systems, new moderate overlap tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found.

The IIHS rated the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla acceptable. The Kia Forte, Nissan Sentra and Subaru Crosstrek earned poor ratings.

The IIHS put the five popular small car models through a crash test and rated the vehicles on how well the vehicle's structure held up, injury measures recorded by two dummies inside the vehicles and how well the restraints controlled the movement of those dummies.

The test propelled vehicles down a 600-foot runway and crashed them into a barrier at 40 mph with 40 percent impact to the front of the vehicle. Driver and rear-seat passenger dummies and cameras in the vehicles helped measure the success of the vehicles' safety systems.

Last year, only 3 of 15 small crossovers earned a good or acceptable rating on the same test. The IIHS plans to test small pickups, mid…

Sales at Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. showed no signs of recovery in April despite a strong rebound in the overall Chinese car market from a year earlier.

Nissan sales dipped 1.5 percent to 61,313 last month while Honda deliveries were flat at 94,879, according to numbers released by the China offices of the two major Japanese automakers this week.

Through April, Nissan and Honda both saw China sales plunge 30 percent from a year earlier. Nissan and Honda delivered 223,274 vehicles and 315,245 vehicles in China in the first four months of 2023, respectively.

In contrast to the sales slump at Nissan and Honda, new-vehicle deliveries in China rebounded 56 percent to 1.63 million in April, with year-to-date volume sliding 1.3 percent to 5.9 million, according to the China Automobile Dealers Association. 

With the Chinese market fast pivoting to full electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, Nissan and Honda plan to accelerate the introducti…