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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…

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…

A top Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Inc. shareholder is opposing a takeover of auto salvage and parts auction company IAA Inc., a business it calls "distinctly inferior."

Luxor Capital Group, which owns about 3.6 percent of Ritchie Bros. shares, said an 18 percent drop in the company's share price since the deal was announced Nov. 7 indicates investors' "clear distaste" for the transaction.

"The IAA Merger will permanently subject RBA investors to the vagaries of operating a weaker and declining second place player with far less appealing business dynamics than those currently enjoyed by RBA, as a dominant leader with a long runway of growth ahead," Luxor said in a letter dated Friday to the company, a copy of which Bloomberg reviewed.

A spokesperson for Ritchie Bros., based in Burnaby, British Columbia, said the company couldn't comment on a letter it had not seen. They said the deal with IAA will unlock additional service revenue and be accretive within th…

Tesla Inc. is building 3,000 Model Y crossovers a week at its new Austin, Texas, factory — a sign the electric-car maker is making up for lost time at the money-losing plant.

Teslashared the new production figure in a tweet Thursday. The milestone comes a week after Bloomberg reported that Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk had asked the head of the company's China division to get the Austin factory up to speed.

Extrapolated out over a year, that production rate would get Tesla to about 156,000 vehicles, still short of the annual target of 250,000 the company promoted in its third-quarter letter to shareholders.

But it's a long way from the slow start Tesla experienced in Austin, due in part to the company pivoting at the last minute to using older battery cells after it found a new design wasn't ready for volume production.