News

Mercedes-Benz's manufacturing joint venture with Nissan in Mexico could be on the bubble.

A top Mercedes-Benz executive questioned the long-term prospects of the $1.4 billion manufacturing partnership with Nissan Motor Co.

The auto assembly plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico, known as COMPAS, builds the Mercedes GLB crossover and Infiniti QX50 and QX55 crossovers.

On an earnings call from Germany last week, Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kallenius referred to the Mexico manufacturing partnership as "stable" for now.

"We have a good partnership with Nissan, and it's supposed to stay this way for the next three years," Kallenius said. "What will happen after that, we haven't decided yet."

The sprawling factory in central Mexico is the cornerstone of an extensive industrial partnership, announced in 2010, for Daimler and the Nissan-Renault alliance to share vehicles and powertrain technologies.

The Euro-Japanese industrial collaboration was willed…

Today’s vehicles, including hybrid and electric, are more connected than ever. We may not be Jetson’s level yet (as much as we may have hoped), but contactless digital experiences have dramatically changed customer expectations for how they buy and service their vehicles.

By 2035, connected vehicle sales in the US are expected to grow over 260% i. In California and Canada, 100% of new vehicles will be required to be zero-emission in that same period.

In response to these evolving expectations, automotive brands must transform the automotive buying and ownership experience. That includes how they strategize, resource, and execute on delivering a better, data-driven customer experience (CX) for the future. We recently conducted a study to determine just how effective OEMs are at these critical CX-building activities.

To achieve desired CX, automotive brands must invest in their customer data strategy, infrastructure, and use of data. That means asking the…

Thanks to their economic and ecological benefits, electric vehicles are surging in popularity. In 2021 alone, global EV sales hit a record $6.9 million, up 107 percent from 2020. As governments around the world look to provide manufacturers and consumers with incentives to curb emissions, these numbers will only climb.

Charging stations for EVs are also multiplying. In the U.S. alone, the number of sites has increased by 38 percent in just the last year. Similar trends can be tracked internationally. In 2021, for example, publicly available EV charging stations rose by 40 percent the world over.

Organizations hoping to capitalize on this explosion in demand need the right tools to analyze, plan, and implement effective EV charging networks. The main driver for this is location data, which can help organizations to select sites that serve the most customers. Let's dive into the variables that should be considered for a successful EV charging si…

Here Technologies has successfully fended off competition from technology giants looking to move into high-definition mapping, which is one of the key components for autonomous driving. CEO Edzard Overbeek recently told Automotive News Europe Correspondent Nick Gibbs how the location data and technology platform provider will keep a step ahead of Google.

Volvo and Google used CES to announce a partnership on HD maps. How do you fight the tech giants?

We do pretty well. For example, the Mercedes S-Class with Level 3 autonomous capability uses our high-definition maps. We just launched with the BMW i7, which is currently Level 2 Plus and will go to Level 3. As far as I know, we are the largest supplier of HD maps in commercial contracts. Google has a relationship with Volvo, but we also have a relationship with Volvo, not for HD maps, but on other things.

What are your strengths against someone like Google?

They don't have our capabilities. For ex…

WILMINGTON, Del - Lawyers for Elon Musk and a Tesla Inc. investor will make closing arguments on Tuesday in a trial over his $55 billion pay package and whether it fueled the EV maker's growth or improperly subsidized Musk's dream of one day traveling to Mars.

The arguments follow a five-day trial in November that featured testimony from the Tesla chief executive about the origins of the 2018 pay package and whether its performance goals were difficult to achieve and accurately described to investors.

Richard Tornetta, a small Tesla investor, sued Musk and the board in 2018 and hopes to prove Musk coerced compliant directors into providing a package of his design, which is many times larger than the combined pay of the next 200 highest-paid CEOs. It contributes to Musk's fortune, the world's second largest.

The package allows Musk to buy 1 percent of Tesla's stock at a deep discount each time escalating performance and financial targets are met, otherwi…

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked Tesla Inc. for more information about one of its vehicles colliding with a fire truck in a fatal crash in the San Francisco Bay area.

The agency reached out to the manufacturer after the incident in Contra Costa County during the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend. The county fire department said in a Feb. 18 tweet that a Tesla struck one of its trucks that was blocking lanes while responding to an earlier accident.

NHTSA has spent the last 18 months investigating how Tesla’s driver-assistance system Autopilot handles crash scenes involving fire trucks and other first-responder vehicles. It’s unclear whether the driver in the Contra Costa County incident — who was pronounced dead at the scene — was using Autopilot. A passenger in the Tesla and four firefighters also were transported to the hospital.

NHTSA opened the first of two active investigations into possible Autopilot defects in August 20…

SHANGHAI -- Chinese electric-vehicle maker Nio plans to build a factory to produce budget EVs under a new brand for export to Europe from as early as next year, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

The plan to broaden the company's lineup and expand overseas sales comes as EV sales sharply weaken in China, the world's largest auto market, following an end in state subsidies for EV purchases.

Nio has been planning to launch more affordable EV products under new brand names after 2024 as part of projects codenamed "Firefly" and "Alps," according to the people, who declined to be named as the discussions are private.

The new factory will be built in Chuzhou city in eastern China's Anhui province, they said, adding that the plant will make cars, developed under project "Firefly," which Nio wants to export to Europe where customers prefer small-sized vehicles.

Nio already has two car assembly plants in Anhui's provincial capital, Hefei city…

LONDON -- Jaguar Land Rover said on Tuesday it is opening three new engineering hubs in Europe to develop autonomous vehicle technologies as part of its partnership with Silicon Valley artificial intelligence company Nvidia.

The hubs in Munich, Bologna and Madrid will develop self-driving systems for JLR's next generation of luxury vehicles. JLR already has six global tech hubs in the U.S., China and Europe.

JLR, a unit of India's Tata Motors, said the locations were chosen because of the local availability of digital engineering specialists and will create almost 100 engineering jobs focused "on developing driver assistance systems and artificial intelligence for self-driving cars of the future."

JLR and Nvidia announced a multiyear agreement last year under which they will jointly develop the computer brains and AI systems for Jaguars and Land Rovers launching in 2025 and beyond.

The partnership with Nvidia gives JLR a well-funded ally as it tri…

DETROIT — Cadillac is freshening its XT4 compact crossover with an updated look and touch screen display and a longer list of standard safety features.

The brand's smallest crossover will continue to be built at General Motors' Fairfax Assembly plant in Kansas and go on sale as a 2024 model this summer, Cadillac said Monday. Pricing was not disclosed. The 2023 XT4 starts at $37,490, including shipping.

"The XT4 continues to be a top-selling vehicle in its class, year over year," Rory Harvey, vice president of global Cadillac, said in a statement. "Its balance of dynamic style, drivability and luxury has made it a favorite for many new Cadillac customers."

The XT4 — which was introduced in 2018 as a 2019 model — will be offered in Luxury, Premium Luxury and Sport trims and feature updated grilles, refined vertical LED headlights and three new exterior color options. The Premium Luxury and Sport trims each have unique wheels, fascia and other design elem…

Three milestones say loads about the auto business

We bring three very noteworthy milestones to your attention in this week's issue.

First is the milestone that Lithia Motors just skipped past AutoNation to become the biggest auto retailer in America.

That's a landmark moment.

AutoNation pioneered the notion of a publicly held auto dealer group, and it proved to the business world that car dealers were not merely lucky and crafty. AutoNation made it clear that success in auto selling comes from a systematic and repeatable equation of strategic planning and business fundamentals. And that approach paid off by making AutoNation king of the industry year after year until — well, until now.

Second, please note that the official count is in on U.S. new-vehicle registrations for the full 2022 year, and it reveals that Tesla — the opaque, unpredictable and often second-guessed automaker — is officially a force majeure in the market. Tesla regist…

The CEO and founder of the financing and loan startup discusses the attributes of EVs not often considered by traditional lenders and how recent Tesla and Ford price cuts alter the cost competitiveness of electric vehicles.

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At a time when automakers are expressing confidence about nearing the end of the global microchip shortage, factories worldwide just cut another 35,000 vehicles from their production schedules this week for lack of chips.

Nearly 13,000 are being dropped from North American factory plans, according to the latest update from AutoForecast Solutions. Another 4,400 cuts are coming out of European plants. Factories in China have been modestly impaired by chip shortages this year, but the new forecast says 8,853 vehicles will be eliminated this week.

Source: AutoForecast Solutions Inc. autoforecastsolutions.com