News

MUNICH -- Volkswagen brand will launch a performance version of its upcoming small battery-electric car using its GTI badge.

VW previewed the high-powered small EV with the ID GTI concept. The car was unveiled Sunday ahead of the IAA Mobility auto show in Munich, taking place from Sept. 5 to 14.

"We are transporting the GTI DNA into the electric age," VW brand CEO Thomas Schaefer, said in a statement.

The ID GTI harks back to the original Golf GTI first revealed 48 years ago at the 1975 IAA Frankfurt auto show.

Original GTI details echoed in the concept include a golf ball inspired central controller in place of the original golf ball gear shifter, and a chequer patterned interior fabric recalling the original tartan seats.

Drivers can choose a "Vintage mode" setting for the digital cockpit that brings up a recreation of the dials from the Mk2 Golf GTI.

The concept also features the GTI's signature red surround to the radiator grill…

MUNICH — BMW expects to sell more light vehicles in China this year despite a local price war in the electric vehicle segment, and muted demand overall, the luxury carmaker's CFO said at the IAA car show in Munich.

In his first interview since becoming finance chief in May, Walter Mertl told Reuters that BMW had been able to grow 3.7 percent in China in the first half, faster than the world's top auto market as a whole, and expected this trend to continue.

"We are assuming, and we are seeing this at the moment, that we will sell more this year than last year," Mertl said with regard to China, adding that the price war was predominantly affecting less expensive segments of the auto market, where BMW is not active.

China's passenger vehicle sales fell for a second month in July, as discounts and government support measures failed to lure consumers wary of buying cars amid a sputtering economy and a prolonged slump in the housing market.  

Pri…

While Volvo, Volkswagen and Buick trim or eliminate wagons from their U.S. lineups, Mercedes-Benz is sticking with a different direction — off-road — with the next-generation E-Class wagon coming next summer.

The 2024 E-Class All-Terrain, introduced Sunday at the Munich auto show, grows taller, wider and longer than the outgoing model, and undergoes a host of upgrades designed to appeal to customers who like the look of a beefy wagon that can traverse dirt and gravel country roads.

The All-Terrain's Airmatic suspension system places air suspension bellows at each wheel to maintain ground clearance regardless of the load.

The interior has electrically folding rear seats and a total cargo capacity of more than 64 cubic feet. The tailgate opens and closes electronically via the key fob. The All-Terrain's exterior has wheel arch cladding, a twin louver grille and an under-vehicle guard panel.

No word yet on prices.

The All-Terrain is expected…

MUNICH — While Mercedes-Benz has focused on electrifying its flagship cars and SUVs, the German luxury marque is now turning its gunsights on the other end of the product portfolio.

On Sunday at the Munich auto show, Mercedes revealed the Concept CLA Class, a four-door coupe that previews a new "electric-first" platform, underpinning future compact and midsize electric vehicles.

The concept features a drivetrain derived from the Vision EQXX concept, which Mercedes said can drive from New York to Cincinnati on a single charge and is as aerodynamic as a football.

Mercedes and German rival BMW are preparing software-driven vehicle architectures for a new next-generation of EVs to claw back market share from a surging Tesla.

The Austin, Texas, EV juggernaut has negatively impacted Mercedes sales, with the German brand's lower-priced models taking the brunt of those losses.

"With Tesla dominating the electric vehicle market and the Model 3 tak…

EV auto finance subject of new F&I special section

Electric vehicles made up 7.2 percent of second-quarter U.S. registrations, ahead of the 5 percent "inflection point" Chase Auto CEO Peter Muriungi said could signal EVs reaching 25 percent of the market within just two or three years.

For auto lenders and dealership finance offices, the question is: How are people currently paying for their EVs, and how will the potential impending flood of adopters pay for them in the future?

In this quarter's Finance and Insurance special section, we look at trends dealership sales and F&I departments might see today or leverage in years to come.

Our lead story demonstrates automakers whose vehicles do not qualify for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act's new-EV tax credit are indeed capitalizing on the commercial vehicle tax credit by incentivizing leasing. Lease deals boomed from 7 percent of the EV market to 26 percent of new EV transactions between D…

Electric vehicles made up 7.2 percent of second-quarter U.S. registrations, ahead of the 5 percent "inflection point" Chase Auto CEO Peter Muriungi said could signal EVs reaching 25 percent of the market within just two or three years.

For auto lenders and dealership finance offices, the question is: How are people currently paying for their EVs, and how will the potential impending flood of adopters pay for them in the future?

In this quarter's Finance and Insurance special section, we look at trends dealership sales and F&I departments might see today or leverage in years to come.

Our lead story demonstrates automakers whose vehicles do not qualify for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act's new-EV tax credit are indeed capitalizing on the commercial vehicle tax credit by incentivizing leasing. Lease deals boomed from 7 percent of the EV market to 26 percent of new EV transactions between December 2022 and July 2023. Kia, for example, which passed all $…

The president and co-founder of BlueSpace.ai offers an alternate path to developing self-driving software, shares lessons learned from her first startup experience and details the state of driverless deployments in San Francisco.

How do I subscribe?

Apple Podcasts: “Shift: A podcast about mobility” is available on the iTunes Store and through the ‘Podcast’ app pre-installed on all iOS devices. Click here to subscribe.

Spotify: "Shift: A podcast about mobility" can be streamed through Spotify on your desktop, tablet or mobile device. Click here to subscribe.

Google Play: "Shift: A podcast about mobility" is available on Android devices through the Google Play store. Click here to subscribe.

There's a moment of UAW legend, when Joe Hinrichs — now the CEO of rail giant CSX — was at Ford Motor Co., and he called CEO Alan Mulally late at night to tell him that they could get needed concessions from the union ... if Mulally was willing to cut his pay.

And the boss said yes.

Ultimately, Mulally and Executive Chair Bill Ford both cut their salaries by 30 percent. Though as we see now even more starkly, such as our listing of CEO pay packages: For people at the top, salary is a relatively modest slice of the compensation pie.

Still, it's interesting to me that the UAW today hasn't requested pay cuts for CEOs and other executives. Of course, their pay is decided by the board of directors and is not a matter of union negotiations. But does that really have to stop the union from demanding it?

UAW President Shawn Fain has highlighted CEO compensation in his ample communication with UAW members.

He has n…

Subaru's future product plan will require it to rebalance its North American production capacity and rely on corporate partner Toyota as it begins to widen its U.S. product offerings to include more battery-electric vehicles — while still continuing to invest in its combustion-powered models.

To meet its growing demand, Subaru is expected to move production of the slow-selling Legacy sedan from its sole U.S. plant, in Lafayette, Ind., back to Japan, as it did earlier with the Impreza. But it might also discontinue the model.

AutoForecast Solutions, which tracks automaker production plans, projects that Subaru will also consolidate production of its Outback midsize crossover in Japan in 2025, despite that model's popularity in the United States. Doing so would free up capacity in the Indiana plant to expand production of the Forester and Crosstrek crossovers, while perhaps providing capacity for future EV production. That measure would help those electric vehic…

Microchip shortages continued to trip up automakers in China and Asian markets outside of China. Assembly plants there made the lion’s share of production cuts to production schedules last week, according to the latest estimate from AutoForecast Solutions.

Asian factories outside of China eliminated 43,157 vehicles from their production plans due to shortages, while factories in China cut 19,669.

Globally, carmakers lost 67,541 vehicles because of inadequate supplies of chips, even as the semiconductor and automotive industries work to fix the problem.

North American assembly plants cut just over 4,700 vehicles out of their schedules last week — a modest number compared with the scope of the problem automakers were dealing with earlier this year.

Source: AutoForecast Solutions Inc. autoforecastsolutions.com

Multiple banks view their auto lending behavior for both prime and subprime customers today as on the tougher end of their historic spectrum, according to the Federal Reserve's senior loan officer survey released in July.

More than one-fifth of lenders polled in June said they were showing prime auto borrowers strictness beyond the "midpoint" of the range of underwriting rigor they had from 2005 to 2023; one-tenth called themselves looser. When it came to subprime lenders, more than half of the bank executives surveyed considered their companies tighter than that historical middle ground. None said they were looser.

"We're experiencing a tightening or contracting of the subprime market in general," Matthew Phillips, CEO of Car Pros Automotive Group, told Automotive News. He said it had been harder to find financing for Car Pros' subprime borrowers.

The Fed said the survey found consumer loan standards "on the tighter ends of their hi…

Dennis & Co. Auto Group completed two dealership sale-leasebacks with Legacy Automotive Capital this year to quickly free up millions of dollars in funding for the growing group to use to aid future acquisitions.

By not sitting on the stores' real estate, "we're able to focus on our primary business: car dealerships and selling cars," CEO Brian Dennis told Automotive News. "The ability to sell these properties and become a tenant rather than a landholder has freed up capital to continue our growth."

A typical sale-leaseback involves a dealer selling the dealership real estate and the buyer immediately leasing the property back to the dealer.

And it's at the heart of Legacy Automotive of Exton, Pa., which said in 2022 that it planned to spend $500 million over three years by providing capital for dealership sale-leasebacks or assisting dealers in acquiring property in buy-sell transactions.

"We've been pretty aggre…