Road rage shooting leaves Cox Automotive employee injured

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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Column: Turning the page on Fixed Ops Journal

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…

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Competitions a route to career

High school auto repair competitions are beginning to start up around the country.

In early December, the North Texas Automobile Dealers held its third annual Auto Tech Competition at the Texas Motor Speedway.

And in mid-December, about 50 Pittsburgh-area high school students gathered at a nearby community college for an auto repair competition.

At these events and many like them across the country this school year, students can win prizes and scholarships to continue their careers and possibly land a job as a dealership technician.

With the dire shortage of technicians nationwide, competitions like these become a more important recruiting opportunity for dealerships and the industry.

"There's always been the need for technicians; I think what we've done is become more focused and better at getting the kids excited about it," says Lisa McIntyre, CEO of the Greater Pittsburgh Automobile Dealers Associatio…

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Aston Martin penthouse comes with a rare Vulcan

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…

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Economy chills investments in EVs and mobility

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…

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Vehicle tooling orders are not a good sign

TO THE EDITOR:

Regarding "From a distant corner, a harbinger of good times for the auto industry," autonews.com, Dec. 4: Unfortunately, tooling orders are not a good harbinger for the industry. From a manufacturer perspective, the industry is moving to a state of retooling for new products, just as it has for decades. All manufacturers retool annually for new products, and the next five to 25 years will not be any different, except that they will be doing more retooling in the next five to 10 years due to the evolution of electric products.

The demand for vehicle production by dealers has been greater than the supply since March 2020. Consumer demand is diminishing to where it is now less than what the manufacturers are beginning to produce, with chip supplies starting to become somewhat more available.

As manufacturers build more vehicles for their dealers, consumer demand is going to force dealers to order fewer and fewer, as our stockpiles of inventor…

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Highlights from the latest Daily Drive podcasts, Dec. 12-14

Here are highlights from the latest episodes of 'Daily Drive', Automotive News' weekday podcast, Dec. 12-14, hosted by Jamie Butters with Kellen Walker.

"We're a company that has worked with unions around the world for many years, so we're welcoming of the union at the battery plant."--Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, on union representation in its joint venture battery plants

"When we say EVs for everyone, it's more than an advertising tag line. We've got to do this in a way where no one gets left behind."--Barra on concerns that the move to EVs could exacerbate existing inequalities due to affordability and charging availability

"We electrify or power everything from a bike that you can drive down the street all the way up to a semi, all the way up to an agricultural machine. …When you look at that whole gamut of where we want to participate, we believe there's lots of opportunity."--Paul Thomas, executive vice president of Bosch North America, speak…

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Musk finds few fans in comedy cameo

Tesla CEO Elon Musk found himself surrounded by a hostile crowd last week when comedian Dave Chappelle brought him on stage at a show in San Francisco.

"Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for the richest man in the world," Chappelle can be heard saying in a video posted on Twitter. Some in the audience began to cheer, but they were soon drowned out by boos that got louder and more persistent as the cameo became increasingly awkward.

At one point, Chappelle turned to Musk and said, "It sounds like some of those people you fired are in the audience."

Musk appeared rattled, eventually asking, "Dave, what should I say?"

After the video began circulating, the account that posted it abruptly disappeared from Twitter, which Musk bought in October. He downplayed the boos the next day in a tweet he later deleted.

"Technically, it was 90% cheers & 10% boos (except during quiet periods), but, still, that's a lot o…

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Guest commentary: Adding service bays isn’t the only way to bolster capacity

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…

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Jay Leno recounts ‘horrific’ garage accident

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 …

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Volkswagen investors revive governance grumbles even with despite special dividend

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…

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Self-driving trucking firm TuSimple appoints CFO, reconstitutes audit panel

TuSimple Holdings Inc. appointed interim financial chief Eric Tapia on a permanent basis and reconstituted its audit committee, the self-driving trucking firm said on Friday, weeks after an internal probe revealed links to a China-backed firm.

The company reappointed former CEO Cheng Lu as its top boss last month after it fired his predecessor Xiaodi Hou following the probe.

The investigation by its board revealed that some employees spent paid hours last year working for Hydron Inc, a startup working on autonomous trucks mostly in China.

TuSimple also said on Friday it had appointed three new independent board members last week.

"With the appointment of Eric as permanent CFO, three new independent board members in the last week, the reconstitution of the Board's Audit Committee and other board committees, we're moving forward with our plan to restore accountability and transparency to this company," CEO Lu said.

Tapia joined TuSimple in 20…

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