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WASHINGTON — U.S. auto safety regulators have opened a safety probe into nearly 1.9 million Ford Explorer large crossovers after reports of the windshield trim panel detaching while driving at highway speeds.

NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation said it has received 164 complaints on 2011-19 Ford Explorers alleging the trim piece detached while driving at highway speeds, which can vary from state to state.

Some of the complaints allege that "the driver of the vehicle following behind the subject Ford vehicle allegedly was startled when the trim piece hit the windshield and momentarily lost control of the vehicle," according to a report released Tuesday.

No injuries, accidents or deaths were listed in the report.

A spokeswoman for Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The agency has launched the probe — known as a preliminary evaluation — to assess the scope, frequency and potential safety risks of the alleged defect.…

General Motors' net income rose 15 percent in the fourth quarter to $2 billion, and the company posted a record pretax profit for the year as vehicle sales and supply constraints improved.

The automaker also said in a Tuesday statement it expects to generate similar or slightly lower earnings in 2023.

In the fourth quarter, revenue surged 28 percent to $43.1 billion. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes in the quarter rose 34 percent to $3.8 billion.

GM said its full-year EBIT of $14.5 billion, up 1.3 percent, was a company record. Its net income for all of 2022 slipped 0.8 percent to $9.9 billion as revenue rose 23 percent to $156.7 billion.

GM's fourth-quarter adjusted profit in North America soared 69 percent to $3.7 billion.

Shares in GM rose 5 percent to $38.09 in premarket trading.

"GM led the U.S. industry in total sales and delivered the largest year-over-year increase in market share of any OEM, thanks to strong deman…

BERLIN -- Volkswagen Group has no plans to offer discounts for its electric vehicles to counter price cuts by Tesla, CEO Oliver Blume told a German newspaper.

VW will not take part in a price war with Tesla, Blume told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. "We have a clear pricing strategy and are focusing on reliability. We trust in the strength of our products and brands," he said.

VW wants to be a global leader in EVs but this should be achieved through profitable growth, Blume said.

In the U.S., Ford has followed Tesla's price cuts by reducing the price of the Mustang Mach-E crossover by $600 to $5,900, depending on the trim.

"The price cut is coming faster and more brutally than expected. Tesla could be aiming to push competitors out of the market," Antoine Weill, a partner at consultancy Simon-Kucher & Partners, told Automotive News Europe sister publication Automobilwoche.

Besides VW, Renault has no plans to cut price…

SHANGHAI -- Xpeng Inc. said on Monday it had appointed Wang Fengying, the former vice chairman of Great Wall Motor, as the electric vehicle startup's president.

In her new role, Wang will be responsible for Xpeng's product planning, product portfolio management and sales operations, Xpeng said in a statement. She will report to the company's chairman and chief executive officer, He Xiaopeng.

Wang, 52, previously worked in Baoding, Hebei-headquartered Great Wall Motor for over 30 years and is one of the few experienced female leaders in China's automobile industry.

She had also served as the National People's Congress delegate since 2008 and often submitted policy proposals to the central government to improve China's auto industry including encouraging auto chip development and optimizing the utilization of factory output capacity.

Wang joins Xpeng at a time that the EV sector is facing intensifying competition and tensions of a price war after Te…

DETROIT — GMC has started building the SUV version of the Hummer EV and the third-generation Canyon midsize pickup.

Production of the 2024 Hummer EV SUV began Monday at General Motors' Factory Zero plant in Detroit, officials said. The 2023 Canyon entered production last week at Wentzville Assembly in Missouri. Deliveries of both vehicles will begin in the next two months.

Three of four Canyon trims are in production — Denali, AT4 and Elevation — and the AT4X will follow, Duncan Aldred, vice president of global Buick and GMC, told reporters Monday. The redesigned pickup is taller and wider across all trim levels.

Aldred said GMC has received 90,000 reservations for the Hummer SUV and pickup combined, and it has temporarily stopped taking additional reservations so it can work on fulfilling existing demand through 2023 and 2024.

Sales of the Edition 1 Hummer pickup, priced at more than $110,000, began in December 2021. Less-expensive trims initiall…

General Motors' defense arm and American Rheinmetall Vehicles said on Monday that they have won a contract for the first phase of the U.S. Army's Common Tactical Truck Program.

The multi-phased program aims to replace the army's family of heavy tactical trucks with the production of up to 40,000 trucks valued at up to $14 billion.

Under the contract, the companies will provide their HX3 Common Tactical Truck, which will support advanced driver assistance systems and are enabled for autonomous vehicle operation.

NEW YORK- U.S. lender Citizens Financial Group cut back on auto lending last year and plans to further reduce its exposure to the segment as it becomes cautious on certain businesses as it factors in risk of a recession, its chief executive officer said in a interview.

Moody's Investors Service late last year cut the outlook for U.S. auto financing arms to negative, citing likelihood of higher delinquency and provisioning.

Citizens has reduced its auto loan portfolio to about $10 billion as of now from a peak of $14.5 billion in December 2021, Bruce Van Saun recently told Reuters.

"We basically made a decision to move that portfolio down materially over time," Van Saun said.

"Spreads are tight, so you're not making a good return on that capital," he said, adding that there are limited cross-selling opportunities.

Van Saun said it will be brought down to $5 billion to $6 billion by 2024.

Citizens would like to grow its lending busines…

Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for Cox Automotive, talks about the economic headwinds ahead in 2023. Renault and Nissan agree on a framework to rebalance their alliance. And the EV price wars are on.

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PARIS --   Renault and Nissan are rebalancing their troubled alliance in what could be a major step in reviving it. But for the French automaker the benefits of the revamp are for now unclear and potentially quite limited, three industry sources said.

The automakers on Monday announced a deal that will see Renault reduce its stake in Nissan to 15 percent from about 43 percent.

For Nissan, the advantages are clear: the Japanese carmaker gets more ability to do what it wants, and it is no longer in an alliance of unequal partners because capital ownership is rebalanced. However, its stock could be weighed down as the bulk of Renault's stake is sold off. The stake is worth 3.8 billion euros ($4.1 billion) and will be moved to a trust.

The deal also sees Nissan commit to invest in Renault's flagship Ampere electric vehicle unit, which was the French automaker's key goal.

But Nissan's participation in Ampere is fairly conditional, joint projects …

Less than three years after being booted from California for violating the state's franchise laws, Volvo Cars is reviving a vehicle subscription program in a key U.S. market.

The latest program, slated to launch next month, ends a four-year battle between Volvo and its California dealers to introduce the service that now bundles vehicle use, road hazard coverage, maintenance and other services into a monthly payment.

Care by Volvo offers a 2-year term, but subscribers can change vehicles or cancel the subscription without penalty after five months.

"Giving customers the freedom to move in a personal, sustainable, and safe way is our mission," Volvo Car USA outgoing CEO Anders Gustafsson told Automotive News. "Working with our retailer partners to offer the flexibility to do so is one way we are fulfilling our mission."

Launched in 2017, Care By Volvo was a key initiative by former CEO Hakan Samuelsson. Volvo views the …

TOKYO -- Toyota sold 10.5 million vehicles in 2022, it said, defending its title as the world's top-selling automaker for a third straight year.

Global sales for the group, including truck unit Hino Motors and small-car maker Daihatsu, inched down 0.1 percent as record overseas sales of 8.6 million vehicles helped offset a 9.6 percent dip in its home market to 1.9 million, Toyota said in a statement.

Second-ranked rival Volkswagen Group earlier this month reported its lowest sales in over a decade, of 8.3 million vehicles, as COVID-19 lockdowns in China and the war in Ukraine upended supply chains.

While some chip-related supply constraints remained for Toyota as well, the automaker said strong demand in Asia and an increase in the production capacity and optimization in Asia and North America helped it boost global production by 5 percent in 2022.

Toyota in November revised its production forecast for the current financial year through the end of…

TOKYO – Renault Group and Nissan have agreed on a basic framework for rebalancing their decades-old alliance in which Renault will reduce its controlling stake in Nissan to 15 percent from 43 percent, while Nissan will take a share in a new electric vehicle spinoff from Renault.

In joint statements on Monday, Nissan and Renault said the proposal was still subject to approval by their boards and that a formal announcement will come "immediately" after approval.

People familiar with the long-running talks, which began early last year, said the final structure of the deal was expected to go before the boards for review and approval as early as this week.

An announcement could happen as early as Feb. 6. 

"The ambition is to strengthen the ties of the Alliance and maximize value creation for all stakeholders," the companies said.

Under the proposal, Renault will reduce its 43 percent stake in Nissan to 15 percent, matching the 15 percent s…