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ZF Friedrichshafen and Wolfspeed plan to build a $3 billion wafer factory in Germany’s Saarland to make chips for electric vehicles and other applications, a boon for a region dependent on combustion-engine components, according to people familiar with the matter.

The go-ahead for the project is subject to commitments on subsidies amounting to a quarter of the total investment, the people said, declining to be named discussing private information.

ZF will hold a minority share in the factory with its U.S. chipmaking partner, located in Ensdorf near Saarbrücken.

ZF operates its largest factory nearby where 9,000 employees make transmissions.

The plan will see the site of a former coal-fired power plant converted into the world’s largest factory for silicon carbide semiconductors, used in EVs and photovoltaic converters.

The move will create hundreds of jobs, the people said, providing relief over concerns for Saarland state’s 40,000 auto i…

DAYTON, Ohio — When Reynolds and Reynolds Co. leaders head to Dallas this week for the annual NADA Show, they'll have a key goal in mind: Demonstrate to auto dealers that the company is shedding its inflexible and difficult past.

For two years, the dealership technology giant has been remaking itself under new leadership following the departure of longtime CEO Bob Brockman, whose tenure at the company ended in November 2020 after he was indicted in what the federal government has called the largest tax evasion case ever brought against an individual in the U.S.

Under Brockman, who died in August at age 81 while awaiting trial, Reynolds and Reynolds gained a reputation in the industry as a challenging business partner, with complicated contracts and rigid policies. Executives say the change at the top — Tommy Barras, the company's former president and COO, took over as CEO after Brockman stepped down — was the "inflection point" that prompted th…

Nobody ever said this business was going to be a cakewalk

The convention of franchised auto dealers, officially called the NADA Show, later this week in Dallas gives us a good opportunity to talk in this issue about the trends and pressures auto retailers everywhere are dealing with right now.

And there's a bucket of them.

There's the ongoing dance between dealers and factories to set agreeable ground rules on how electric vehicles will be sold and serviced. There's the issue of the languishing leasing market. There's the confusion over how tax credits are going to be doled out on EV purchases. And there's the likelihood that higher interest rates are going to turn store floorplanning back into a cost for retailers to contend with.

We delve into all that and much more this week.

These are new issues looking to be resolved. And the NADA Show is a yearly reminder that the car business is flush with resources and powerful in the wisdom of it…

Japanese tire maker Bridgestone Corp. is developing tires for use by crewed rovers on the moon. The tires are metal and airless, designed to withstand the moon's extreme temperatures, rocky terrain and cosmic radiation better than traditional tires. Because the moon surface is covered in a layer of incredibly fine sand, Bridgestone opted for a double-tire structure with two tires attached to each wheel — like on large trucks here on Earth. That results in a contact patch area roughly six times that of standard passenger car tires, allowing for pressure to be dispersed across a larger surface. Bridgestone believes that some of its lunar solutions will help it develop new ideas for advanced concepts here at home.

As someone who has been selling new Toyotas for more than 50 years, Steve Gates said he never would have believed that he and his fellow brand dealers could have had as much success as they did last year with so few vehicles in stock.

"I was absolutely certain, when this all started, I thought I needed to jump off a bridge because I didn't think that there was any way that we could survive with virtually no inventory," said Gates, dealer principal of Gates Auto Family, a group of 11 rooftops in Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana that includes three Toyota stores.

Gates is a dealer council veteran but is taking his first spin as a chairman, with the Toyota National Dealer Advisory Council. He's also a former chairman of the American International Automobile Dealers Association. Gates said he has been selling Toyotas since he was a senior in high school, and the current sales process looks surprisingly familiar.

"My dad became a Toyota dealer in 1970, and th…

As Infiniti creates its product road map for the next generation, retailer Steve Lapin has ideas.

The Infiniti National Dealer Advisory Board chairman would like a pair of new models to bookend the Japanese luxury brand's portfolio.

"If we're going to become this aspirational brand, we would need a six-figure GT-R-type car," Lapin told Automotive News. "We need a differentiator."

Lapin's ideas might not be so fanciful.

Infiniti previously brainstormed a racy halo car before ditching it to focus on more practical segments. The Japanese brand displayed a running prototype of a Formula One-inspired high-performance hybrid coupe at the 2018 Paris auto show.

Based on the Q60 coupe, the Project Black S concept featured a dual-hybrid electrified powertrain that boosted Infiniti's 400-hp VR30 twin-turbo V-6 engine into an estimated 563-hp electrified power source. With a top speed of 153 mph, the Black S could sprint from 0 to 60 mph in under four…

The turmoil at Jaguar Land Rover's headquarters in the U.K. has not impacted dealers, says Larry Zinn, chairman of the Jaguar Land Rover Retailer Cabinet.

CEO Thierry Ballore, after just two years on the job, left abruptly in December.

The reinvention of Jaguar as an all-electric superluxury brand remains on track, with a new three-vehicle lineup due in about two years.

And while most of JLR's competitors have found ways to earn significant profits while dealing with the microchip shortage, JLR hasn't had a profitable quarter in almost two years.

The automaker has a backlog of more than 250,000 orders for the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Defender.

But the shortage of vehicles isn't all bad news. It has helped reduce incentives and prompted customers to order their vehicles, often with expensive customized features.

Dealers, Zinn said, had a great 2022.

"Jaguar Land Rover dealers have been performing at a very high level…

Kia hasn't said whether production of its EV9 three-row electric vehicle will be shifted to a U.S. factory from Korea when it comes online in the fall to qualify for $7,500 in federal tax credits. But James Morrell, chairman of the Kia Dealer Advisory Council, said there's no way to deal with the new law without building the EV9 in the U.S.

The private reveal of the new EV9 at last year's NADA meeting was the brand's "biggest excitement," said Morrell, who has been head of the dealer council since 2019.

"It's an EV that people can get behind," Morrell told Automotive News. "It's not some wacky, small, futuristic-looking vehicle that's only going to appeal to a small niche. It's a seven-passenger SUV that's electrified so there's going be a huge demand for it."

But the complex new requirements of the Inflation Reduction Act were a buzzkill on dealers' anticipation.

"There's a lot of trepidation from headquarters and from the dealers on introducing…

Polestar has opened a pop-up snowroom in Finland.

That's not a typo.

The electric vehicle maker's newest retail location is built entirely out of snow — more than 105,000 cubic feet of it, harvested from a nearby ski resort. The cube-shaped building was constructed over just 20 days in Rovaniemi, which lies on the Arctic Circle.

The Polestar Snow Space is open until late February for consumers to book Arctic test drives of the Polestar 2 EV. At that point, Polestar will demolish the structure and return the snow to the ski slopes.

"The city of Rovaniemi is known for its wonderful design," Martin Österberg, marketing manager of Polestar Finland, said in a statement. "We wanted to honor this by creating a beautiful work that was inspired by our brand's minimalistic and pure design language. The choice of building material was easy due to the location and our desire to use circular materials: of course, it had to be built…