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AutoNation's $190 million acquisition in January of mobile service firm RepairSmith has energized the small but growing mobile repair world and highlights how dealerships can remain relevant in a rapidly changing retail environment.

At the time of the purchase, AutoNation CEO Mike Manley said buying RepairSmith gives the nation's largest new-vehicle retailer the ability "to penetrate the extensive after-sales service market."

Mobile repair firms offer a variety of automotive services, such as replacing parts and fluids, washing and detailing vehicles and changing tires. The services are generally booked via a mobile phone app.

Their rise is part of the evolution of home-based services as consumers demand more convenience, said Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars.com.

"Our society has become more expectant of flexibility [regarding] when you can get service," he said.

Brauer expects to see more acqu…

Dealership-to-dealership parts supply programs are now more important than ever to ensure parts departments get what they need to get their customers back on the road.

The pandemic-induced supply chain tangles and the microchip shortage resulted in a lack of auto parts to build new vehicles, repair damaged ones and maintain those brought into service departments. Despite signs of improvement, a shortage of some critical parts remains.

A team at Kia worked with software-as-a-service provider OEConnection to develop a system to keep parts flowing into service departments. Kia's D2D Express program locates and moves hard-to-find and sometimes back-ordered parts from one dealership to another that's in desperate need of it.

Kia launched the D2D program with OEConnection in July with 100 percent dealership enrollment. It won the automaker's Innovation Group Global Best Practice competition last year.

Greg Rivera, OEConnect…

In December 2021, a strange creature began running around Audi factories, helping them to prepare for the future.

Spot, a robotic dog developed by Audi and NavVis, a German startup, carries a 3D laser scanner that records images of every tool and square meter. The images will be fused to create a digital twin of the factory that can be used to plan production, change tooling, and realize a host of other efficiency gains and cost savings.

Because Spot can work weekends without complaint and doesn’t need breaks, he can scan an entire factory in 48 hours, a task that would take a team of people three weeks. 

"Merging all the planning data in our digital twin has given us a holistic look at our future production plans years ahead of time," said Andres Kohler, head of Audi’s virtual assembly planning team.

Spot, a test project, may be a few years ahead of his time -- most automakers are relying on other scanning methods to digitize their factorie…

The CEO and co-founder of battery technology company Sila Nanotechnologies describes his company’s materials breakthrough, ongoing work with Mercedes-Benz and how he went from a childhood in the Ukraine to Tesla.

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Illinois police racing to find a stolen Volkswagen Atlas with a 2-year-old boy inside hit a roadblock when they contacted the manufacturer for help tracking it down.

A representative from VW's Car-Net telematics service refused to provide the vehicle's location until the owner paid a $150 fee to reactivate remote access because the trial period had expired.

"The detective basically pled with the representative, letting them know this was a life-or-death situation," Christopher Covelli, deputy chief of the Lake County Sheriff's Office, told The Washington Post.

By the time a family member of the owner provided a credit card number so police could pay the fee and locate the vehicle, the boy already had been found safe.

The thieves had abandoned him in a parking lot, and police located the Atlas nearby.

Although the delay getting GPS information from Car-Net didn't result in any harm to the toddler, it frustr…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. in the coming months will offer two different battery chemistries on its electric vehicles as the automaker introduces a lower-cost and shorter-range alternative to the packs it uses today.

But its customers, Ford said, many of whom are new to EVs, won't be saddled with confusing purchase decisions over specific chemistries, as the options will be woven into already-established configurations based on battery range.

Today, all Ford EVs are equipped with batteries using a nickel cobalt manganese chemistry. Starting this spring, Ford will offer the less-expensive lithium iron phosphate chemistry on its Mustang Mach-E. This battery chemistry will come to the F-150 Lightning next year.

In addition to their low cost because of more readily available materials, lithium iron phosphate batteries are more durable and can be fully recharged more quickly, Ford said. That makes them better for customers who mainly use…

Electric vehicle battery startup Our Next Energy will supply its new energy storage products to a $500 million Berkshire Hathaway Energy solar-powered manufacturing hub in West Virginia.

It will also open a factory to build the systems at the industrial complex.

BHE Renewables selected the Novi, Mich., battery company to help supply power to the 2,000-acre solar-powered industrial site in Ravenswood, W.Va., the company said. The complex broke ground on Saturday.

BHE will utilize ONE's new Aries Grid energy storage units, which will store solar-generated electricity during the day for use on the site at night. The units will help power the site's first factory, a Precision Castparts Corp. plant that will assemble titanium products for the aerospace industry.

The Aries Grid makes use of the same lithium iron phosphate battery technology that the company employs for electric commercial vehicles. One Aries Grid unit contains 78 Aries I EV battery pack…

The way Harold White sees it, customer surveys conducted by automakers and independent companies often provide an opaque picture of how well a store is satisfying its customers.

So, White, general manager of Robin Ford in Glenolden, Pa., since 2013, decided to use the equivalent of a magnifying glass on the customer survey process. He added two specialists to his store's call center. Their only job: Call Robin's new-vehicle, used-vehicle, service and commercial customers to seek immediate feedback. The calls usually take place a day or two after the customer visit.

Each morning when White turns on his work computer, the first file he looks at is the one containing reports that detail what customers are saying about how they were treated, if repairs were done properly and if they experienced anything that might cause them to look elsewhere for their next vehicle or service visit. White said he reads 150 to 200 reports per week.

The privately owned store…

One day, auto lenders might not need to call the repo man when their customers stop making payments.

Instead, the car could just drive itself to an impound lot, according to a patent application filed by Ford Motor Co. engineers.

The patent application lists a number of methods that could be used to shake down customers, starting with reminders and warnings sent to the vehicle display or a smartphone. Further nonpayment could lead to some features being disabled, including cruise control, window and seat controls, the infotainment system and climate control. The vehicle eventually could lock out the customer or play an "incessant and unpleasant sound" whenever the owner is inside it.

The application, first reported last week by The Drive, notes that there could be a way to unlock the vehicle in case of emergency. An onboard camera and "neural network" would be used to determine if the situation is urgent. The system could be used on any vehicle with a…

WASHINGTON — Toyota Motor Corp. is recalling about 144,000 Tundra full-size pickups in North America because the tonneau covers might detach from the vehicle while driving.

The recall affects certain 2022-23 Tundra pickups equipped with optional Toyota-genuine tonneau covers. Toyota said about 130,000 of the vehicles are in the U.S.

"A tonneau cover that detaches from a vehicle could increase the risk of a crash or injury," the automaker said in a statement Friday.

Toyota declined to comment on whether it was aware of any injuries, crashes or deaths related to the issue.

The automaker is advising owners of Tundra pickups with the truck bed accessory to remove it until a remedy is available and installed.

Owners of involved vehicles will be notified by late March and will be contacted again once a remedy is available, Toyota said.

In a separate recall report Friday, about 9,000 Tundra pickups, including hybrid versions, from the 2022-…

An "inventory efficiency index" created by software company Cloud Theory can tell manufacturers exactly how well their vehicles are selling in real time.

The index allows automakers to view supply and demand across all makes and models instantaneously to better see what is and isn't selling — and allocate their resources accordingly.

"Cloud Theory is collecting information via the indexing of dealer websites," Cloud Theory Vice President Rick Wainschel told Automotive News. "We have about … 99.7 percent of franchise dealers in America. We know what inventory is on their lots or on its way to their lots."

A score for manufacturers is created based on a relationship between a make or model's market share and "competitive supply situation." A score of at least 100 means a manufacturer is selling vehicles at above-average efficiency, while a score below 100 shows that supply is stronger than demand.

While manufacturers typically know their inventory p…