News

Carvana faces ultimate challenge in new year

When you see a stock fall by 98 percent, questions are going to come up.

When a company restructures its staff twice in a year, one has to wonder.

When a still-young company loses about half a billion dollars in each of three straight quarters, you have ask: Are these guys gonna make it?

As we near the end of this 2022 that has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for Carvana, the online, used-vehicle retailer, reporter C.J. Moore set out to ask that fundamental question — and the others surrounding it — in this week's front-page story:

■ Is Carvana getting tossed around simply because its business is concentrated on the most-challenging part of the consumer-facing auto industry?

■ Or does it have special liabilities, such as under-developed title processing, that acts as a bottleneck on growth?

■ Did the acquisition of ADESA's physical auction business stretch the co…

A Cox Automotive employee was shot on an interstate near Birmingham, Ala., following "road rage" on Dec. 15, according to local police.

Vestavia Hills Police Department responded to a report of a person shot on Interstate 65 at about 7 a.m. on Thursday, according to a Facebook post from the department. Vestavia Hills is 13 miles south of Birmingham.

One person was injured and taken to a Birmingham hospital, where they were treated and released, according to the post. Cox Automotive confirmed the person is a Cox Automotive Mobility Fleet Services mobile technician in an email statement to Automotive News.

"We can confirm that our driver was the victim of an incident that occurred earlier this morning. At Cox Automotive, we are committed to the safety of our team members," Cox Automotive wrote in a Dec. 15 statement. "We are fully cooperating with local law enforcement on their ongoing investigation and ask that you contact them for more information."

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Hanging on a wall in my home office is a framed copy of the last Sunday magazine The Dallas Morning News published, featuring a cover story written by me. Framed along with it is a tongue-in-cheek letter from the executive editor at the time saying it couldn't be officially determined whether my excessive freelance writing for the magazine led to its demise.

I was a woefully underpaid young reporter (a redundant phrase, to be sure) at the Morning News and would try to pad my city desk salary by taking extra work writing for the magazine.

Thirty-some years later, here I am again witness to another magazine ceasing publication. After a lot of discussion at Automotive News, the decision was made to stop publishing Fixed Ops Journal. This issue will be the last.

But unlike the Sunday magazine, there is a second act for Automotive News' coverage of service, parts and collision. More about that in a minute.

The decision t…

Aston Martin has reached the top — of its 66-story condominium tower in Miami.

Five years into a project originally scheduled to be done in 2021, the Aston Martin Residences is finally nearing completion. The 816-foot-tall building is advertised as the tallest residential tower south of New York.

The 391-unit building is 97 percent sold out. Now, the developer is offering the three-story penthouse for $59 million, a price that includes a rare Aston Martin Vulcan.

The 7,300-square-foot, seven-bedroom penthouse is the subject of a limited-edition art book titled "Unique." The leather-bound book contains a QR code linking to a musical score composed by a 10-piece orchestra at the developer's behest "to capture the mood and ambiance of the residences," according to Forbes. Whoever buys the penthouse gets a custom-made lectern matching the penthouse design to hold the 10-pound book and use of a calligrapher to personalize the final six pages.

The tri…

Once flush with easy money, investors have soured on investing in electric vehicles and other mobility startups amid uncertain economic conditions. The total amount invested in the moblity tech sector dropped by 79 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of 2022, according to the latest figures from financial services firm PitchBook.

Going forward, investors expect investment in transportation tech to continue, albeit at a more deliberate pace and with startups facing more scrutiny from prospective backers.

Global economic headwinds, rising borrowing rates and the recent struggles of startups that went public via special-purpose acquisition companies have brought a heightened sense of cautiousness among venture capital firms, experts told Automotive News.

"The funding spigot is almost turned off," said Quin Garcia, co-founder and managing director of Bay Area venture-capital firm Autotech Ventures. "But VCs have a ton of dry po…

Most new-vehicle service departments are slammed. It's a perfect storm of customers keeping older cars longer, in part due to inventory shortages; vehicles on the road outpacing the number of service bays available; and underutilized shop capacity.

As a result, lengthy wait times, carryover tickets and frustrated customers are more a norm than an aberration. Increasing capacity is key, but this doesn't have to mean expanding facilities and hiring moretechnicians (nearly impossible in this market). Instead, a few small steps can increase efficiency and drive capacity without a big outlay of cash.

Increasing capacity first requires knowing a service facility's maximum potential. Calculate your facility's potential with this formula endorsed by NADA: number of bays x number of days x number of hours x effective labor rate = facility potential. In this formula, the number of bays excludes wash and undercoat bays. The figure for "days" is the total n…

Comedian Jay Leno, in his first interview since suffering severe burns while working on one of his classic cars on Nov. 12, said he initially ignored doctors' recommendation that he go to a hospital for treatment.

He eventually spent nine days at a burn center, where he underwent skin graft surgery and received hyperbaric oxygen therapy to help the healing process.

Leno, on NBC's "Today," said he was injured while trying to unclog the fuel line on a 1907 White steam car. He asked a friend, Dave Killackey, to help by blowing some air through the line.

"Suddenly, boom, I got a face full of gas, and the pilot light jumped and my face caught on fire," Leno said.

Killackey pulled Leno from under the car and put out the flames. He described the injuries as "horrific."

"He was really engulfed. I couldn't even see his face," Killackey said. "It was a wall of fire."

Leno said his right ear had to be reconstructed, and his fingers were burned …

BERLIN - Volkswagen shareholders renewed their criticism of CEO Oliver Blume's dual roles on Friday, even as they rubber stamped a roughly 9.6 billion euro ($10.2 billion) special dividend following the Porsche AG listing.

Blume, who became group chief executive in September, has continued as CEO of luxury brand Porsche even after its listing, prompting concerns among some investors about the pressures on his time and potential conflicts of interest.

At a shareholder meeting to approve the special dividend, Blume said Volkswagen was performing well in hard times, with his first 100 days spent on tasks such as reshuffling senior roles, defining its strategy for China and North America, and revising its software and platform strategy.

Shareholders voted in favor of the special dividend on Friday, with 99.9% of votes.

Yet some investors including DWS and investor association SdK used the opportunity of the speeches ahead of the vote to criticize Blum…