News

Chinese car parts makers are facing growing pressure from overseas customers to set up factories outside the country as mounting trade tensions and three years of COVID lockdowns make them wary of relying too heavily on China.

Carmakers from Europe and elsewhere are making direct overtures to manufacturers of everything from cooling components to brake systems and auto charging parts, pressing them to establish plants in places like Vietnam and Indonesia so they can still benefit from their expertise and long-held relationships but avoid the risks China poses right now, according to a number of suppliers interviewed by Bloomberg News.

While some international names like Airbus SE and Tesla Inc. are doubling down on Asia’s biggest economy, the shift is an increasing threat to China’s status as the world’s factory and its bid to regain the trust of global business amid the unpredictability of President Xi Jinping’s rule.

For one manager at a Jiangsu-based…

Jamie Butters talks with Hyundai Global COO Jose Muñoz about the automaker's growing sales numbers and new model debuts at the New York auto show. Tesla plans a new Shanghai battery plant. And there are new warnings against selling cars over sticker price.

How do I subscribe?

Can't wait to hear the next episode of "Daily Drive"? Subscribe through a podcast app to receive episodes days in advance. If you don't have a podcast app already, here are some options. 

iPhone / iPad

Android

Spotify

BEIJING -- The growth in sales of China's passenger vehicles was flat in March from a year earlier, industry data showed on Monday, as more price cuts by auto brands and the rollout of incentives by local governments helped to support demand.

March sales tallied 1.61 million, the China Passenger Car Association said. In the first three months, sales fell 13 percent to 4.33 million, it added.

Sales of new energy vehicles, which include pure battery electric cars and light trucks and plug-in hybrids, rose 22 percent in March and accounted for 34 percent of the month's delivieres, data showed.

BYD led the segment with market share of 35.5 percent, while Tesla accounted for 14 percent.

There is no doubt that April will see a strong recovery in sales growth, Cui Dongshu, the association's secretary general, told reporters, citing a low base in the corresponding period last year.

China imposed strict COVID-19 lockdowns in major cities, such as i…

The advent of electric vehicles portends many changes ahead for dealership service departments in the coming decades. Service managers and directors will have to be agile, resilient and forward-thinking as they prepare for this disruptive technology that will likely decrease customers’ service and maintenance needs compared to internal-combustion engine vehicles. How will dealers be affected and how can they stay ahead of the curve as this new business landscape unfolds? And what new opportunities might emerge to replace slowly fading revenue streams? For insights and perspectives, Automotive News spoke with Piermichele Robazza, Global Practice Director of Aftersales at Urban Science, a global retail consulting firm.

Q: What are dealers and their partners doing now to prepare their parts and service offerings for the future? 

Piermichele Robazza: Two important trends are driving how dealers are currently preparing for the future: The growth of EV sales and the …

Volkswagen Group’s choice of Ontario for a new battery cell manufacturing plant puts Canada in contention to land an additional auto assembly operation, as the German automaker’s luxury brand Audi weighs establishing a new North American site to build electric vehicles, auto analysts say.

A Canadian assembly plant to complement the planned battery site in St. Thomas, Ont., “is a real possibility,” said Conrad Layson, senior alternative-propulsion analyst at U.S.-based forecasting firm AutoForecast Solutions.

“It puts the Audi production line very close to the PowerCo facility … and there are benefits to that.”

Because battery cells do not travel well, minimizing the distance between battery and vehicle production cuts down on cell scrappage, Layson added.

“These things are electrochemical reactions, even in their lowest charge state during transport. It’s almost like transporting live animals. Some of them don’t make it.”

Volkswagen and i…

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect that all states follow the U.S. Clean Air Act.

Three in four vehicles in the U.S. could be electric by 2050 if certain states enact California's ban on gasoline vehicle sales by 2035.

If the 17 states that follow the California Air Resources Board's limits on pollution also adopt California's Advanced Clean Cars II rule, which requires all vehicles sold to be zero-emission by 2035, more than 239 million vehicles on U.S. roads could be electric by 2050. That's from a report published Monday by Energy Innovation, an energy and climate policy think tank.

Those states make up nearly 40 percent of vehicle registrations today, according to CARB. If each state goes all-EV by 2035, the shift "could really dramatically reshape the U.S. car market," Robbie Orvis, Energy Innovation's senior director of modeling and analysis, told Automotive News.

Without the Advanced Clean Cars II rule, 189 million …

Jaguar Land Rover expects free cash flow of around 500 million pounds ($622 million) for the full financial year.

While that’s half the forecast of more than 1 billion pounds it gave back in 2022, it significantly exceeds a more recent estimate as supply chain snarls that dented business in the second quarter eased.

JLR, which is owned by Tata Motors of India, missed expectations in the second quarter but has beaten its second-half guidance for both volume and cash flow versus what was forecast in November of 2022 as the supply of chips gradually improved, a spokesperson said via email. Last week JLR said cash flow in the final quarter of its fiscal year, which ended March 31, would be more than 800 million pounds.

The global semiconductor shortage has undermined the luxury carmaker’s turnaround as it struggles to work through a debt reduction plan. While JLR has ramped up production of its Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models, it’s still feelin…

What if ordering food in the car didn’t mean contending with a slow-moving drive-thru lane?

That’s the premise of a new offering from Domino’s Pizza that can turn cars themselves into ordering devices via Apple CarPlay. Domino’s is the first pizza chain to have integrated an app with CarPlay, which turns a car’s infotainment screen into a connected iOS device. Other restaurants on the system include Dunkin' and Panera Bread.

The technology allows motorists to order a pizza with a few taps on the screen. While providing the convenience consumers demand, Domino’s stands to benefit by giving them a reason to carry out their orders, which is more efficient and profitable than delivery. Orders through the app also provide Domino’s with valuable first-party data.

The new spot from WorkInProgress shows a family waiting in their car at the end of a long drive-thru line at a burger restaurant. They decide instead to order a Domino’s pizza using CarPlay as the re…

About one-third of customers paid more than sticker price for a new vehicle in December 2022, sales which GfK research indicates might cost the retailer — or manufacturer — repeat business from some of those customers.

Twenty-seven percent of customers who paid more than sticker told GfK they would never buy that brand of vehicle again. Julie Kenar, GfK senior vice president of consulting, noted on a GfK webinar March 16 while automakers have no control over dealership pricing, "brands are still being negatively impacted."

Thirty-one percent of buyers charged above sticker told GfK they'd advise other consumers to avoid that dealership, and 29 percent plan to never use that retailer for service.

"There are downstream revenue implications and customer relationship implications with charging over MSRP," Kenar said.

GfK said 47 percent of shoppers in December paid sticker price for a vehicle, while 34 percent paid more and 19 percent paid less. Mor…

Tesla Inc. will build a new battery factory in Shanghai, increasing investment in China at a time of brewing tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Tesla will manufacture Megapack large-scale energy-storage units in the new facility, which adds to its factory for electric vehicles in Shanghai. Tesla made the announcement at a signing ceremony for the project in Shanghai. Tom Zhu, Tesla’s senior vice president of automotive, and Shanghai government officials including vice mayor Wu Qing attended, with Tesla Vice President Tao Lin signing the contract.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk was also reportedly in China at the time.

Tesla is leveraging China's world leading battery supply chain to ramp up output and lower costs of Megapack lithium ion battery units to meet rising demand of energy storage globally as the world shifts to use more renewable energy.

Construction is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of this year and the plant will commence productio…

The news has been relentless lately telling us about wondrous new plans and technologies that will take the auto industry into a remarkable new future. This week, we zoom a little closer into that picture to show you some specific examples of technological change in the making.

Starting on Page 21, our Emerging Technologies special section gives you a glimpse of more than 20 new devices, trends, factory practices and bold ideas to lift vehicles to the next evolutionary stage. Turns out, automotive is currently leading the economy in the growth of patent applications.

Will all those new technologies succeed as envisioned? Who knows. That's the sort of question investors and entrepreneurs wager their fortunes on.

But "success" is a funny word in the car business. Mostly because the industry is constantly evolving, changing strategies and changing hands, and a brilliant solution that succeeds one year could be rendered obsolete the next.

Consider M…

The auto industry is churning out new technology ideas

The news has been relentless lately telling us about wondrous new plans and technologies that will take the auto industry into a remarkable new future. This week, we zoom a little closer into that picture to show you some specific examples of technological change in the making.

Our Emerging Technologies special section gives you a glimpse of more than 20 new devices, trends, factory practices and bold ideas to lift vehicles to the next evolutionary stage. Turns out, automotive is currently leading the economy in the growth of patent applications.

Will all those new technologies succeed as envisioned? Who knows. That's the sort of question investors and entrepreneurs wager their fortunes on.

But "success" is a funny word in the car business. Mostly because the industry is constantly evolving, changing strategies and changing hands, and a brilliant solution that succeeds one year could be rend…