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Autolivreported fourth-quarter core earnings above analyst forecasts after the supplier restored profitability by passing higher costs on to its customers, sending its shares up almost 8 percent.

Rising raw material prices have squeezed car suppliers for some time now. Autoliv CEO Mikael Bratt said the cost inflation seen by Autoliv in 2022 was the worst in three decades.

Despite this, the Swedish company has been able to meet or exceed analysts estimates in the past quarters as it has continued to negotiate price hikes with automakers, which Bratt told Automotive News Europe was "new territory" for both.

"But I think we found good resolutions," he said.

The Swedish company delivers its equipment -- which includes seatbelts, airbags and other safety solutions -- across broad swathes of the auto industry.

That includes a growing number of EV startups based in Asia and the U.S. that Bratt told Automotive News Europe have turned to Autoliv be…

Last year’s Super Bowl drew a significant number of auto advertisers despite a supply shortage that caused brands to think twice about spending big on marketing to spur demand.

The game emerged as a tool to broadcast big electric vehicle investments by those shelling out millions of dollars to appear in commercial breaks, including Kia, BMW, General Motors and EV startup Polestar.

But this year — even as EV sales continue to rise — larger economic concerns are keeping automakers and automotive websites on the sidelines, including softening demand that is forcing more execs to scrutinize budgets.

“Clients are being very cautious about how much they spend,” said one ad agency executive who works on automotive and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Does it make sense to frontload the year with a big Super Bowl ad? Probably not.”

So far only one auto brand — Kia — has confirmed an ad buy in the Feb. 12 game on Fox. And while more automakers a…

An underappreciated piece of news recently came out of France. It was the declaration by the CEO of Alpine — the high-end sports car brand of Renault — that the brand intends to move into the U.S. market.

Laurent Rossi told reporters that his fledgling brand, which sold barely 3,500 cars last year and has just one factory with a production capacity of only 6,000 vehicles a year, expects to grow to about 150,000 a year by 2030. And getting there, Rossi made clear, will rely critically on entering the American market in 2026 or 2027.

Here's why this is a remarkable ambition: It reveals the sort of change that's now coming to what had been Carlos Ghosn's Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance.

As head of two automakers for most of a generation, Ghosn wrote and enforced the ground rules for Nissan and Renault until his leadership ended after his arrest for alleged financial improprieties in Japan in 2018. The basic understanding was that Ni…

Jennifer Swope was convinced the F&I departments at the six stores owned by the Swope Family of Dealerships had untapped revenue potential.

The main obstacle? Silos.

From her perspective, each finance department worked independently with little collaboration, even though five of the stores are close to each other along what's known at Swope as the Miracle Mile on Dixie Avenue in Elizabethtown, Ky.

So Swope, who is general manager of Swope Hyundai and Genesis of Elizabethtown and also the granddaughter of the company's co-founder, Bill Swope, demolished those silos.

Her wrecking ball? Monthly meetings with the company's eight finance managers and six general managers.

Held on the first or second Friday of each month at Swope Toyota in Elizabethtown, the 90-minute meetings, which began in September 2020, have boosted revenue.

The companywide average F&I profit per vehicle retailed profit per vehcile retailed in 2021 increased…

The EV tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act are a mess: The eligibility of vehicles is opaque at best.

Even when the rules are written, they will still be very complex — limited by where the vehicle is made, where its battery components come from, where the minerals for the batteries came from, its classification. And that’s before we get to whether the customer qualifies for one credit or another.

It’s too much to expect of the mass-market consumer. What we need is a computer.

Call it a website, call it a portal. Whatever. We need someplace we can go to find out if a vehicle qualifies for a $7,500 credit, a $3,750 credit or nothing.

It’s going to have to be VIN-specific, because some models are made in different places or equipped differently in ways that regulators deem crucial, like whether an ID4 has all-wheel drive or rear-wheel drive.

Ultimately, each vehicle is unique.

“Having one central location for that data, we th…

When Mazda’s larger three-row CX-90 crossover goes on sale this year, it will be the brand’s first offering of a plug-in hybrid powertrain in the U.S.

Mazda told dealers at their make meeting Friday that growing its PHEV business in the U.S. is a priority, and it will happen before the brand commits to pure battery-electrics like many rival automakers.

Jim Scherer, chairman emeritus of the Mazda National Dealer Advisory Council, told Automotive News outside the meeting that Mazda’s plan to focus on plug-ins first is more aligned with current market demand.

“I think introducing PHEVs at the time that we’re going to fits our brand perfectly,” said Scherer, owner of Scherer Mazda in Peoria, Ill.

“Most of our vehicles right now are set up to have a PHEV segment, and as we just learned, we will get up to 25 percent of production,” Scherer said of the U.S. market.

The CX-90 and CX-70 will have PHEV variants, Scherer said. “But looking at Mazda’…

Having zipped from six-figure sedans to Costco-crushing crossovers, electrification is finally zeroing in on the auto industry's most esoteric form: the tiny pickup truck. At least two major carmakers are considering adding small, battery-powered pickups to their growing parade of EVs.

At General Motors Co., spokesman Stuart Fowle says a pint-sized pickup is one of several electric options mocked up by a team of engineers and designers focused on developing affordable models, though "at this point it's simply a design proposal." "There are still some steps before anything moves to production consideration," he says.

Nissan Motor Co., meanwhile, is eyeing its next wave of EVs and has promised to make two battery-powered models at its Mississippi plant. The first is the Ariya EV, which just hit the market. As for the second, advisory board member Tyler Slade reportedly said an electric version of the brand's Frontier pickup would be logical. A Nissan spokesman ca…

WASHINGTON — Ford Motor Co. is recalling more than 462,000 vehicles globally for rearview cameras that may not display images.

The recall covers Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator large crossovers from the 2020-23 model years and Lincoln Corsair compact crossovers from the 2020-22 model years, all equipped with a 360-degree camera. It affects nearly 383,000 vehicles in the U.S., more than 39,000 in Canada and more than 5,000 in Mexico, Ford spokeswoman Maria Buczkowski said.

Ford told U.S. auto safety regulators it is aware of 17 minor accidents allegedly resulting from the defect. It is not aware of any injuries.

"Recalls are an important way for us to keep our customers safe and with every recall we want to make the experience of getting serviced easier on our customers," Buczkowski said in a statement to Automotive News. "With this recall, customers will be able to take advantage of mobile service free of charge with participating dealers to get the so…