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WASHINGTON -- The United Auto Workers union called on automakers to shift their entire supply chain out of China's Xinjiang region after a new report on Tuesday suggests that nearly every major automaker has significant exposure to products made with forced labor.

In June, a U.S. law took effect banning the import of forced labor goods from Xinjiang, in pushback against Beijing's treatment of China's Uyghur Muslim minority, which Washington has labeled genocide.

"The time is now for the auto industry to establish high-road supply chain models outside the Uyghur Region that protect labor and human rights and the environment," UAW President Ray Curry said.

The UAW cited a new report released by researchers at Britain's Sheffield Hallam University on the auto industry's use of steel, aluminum and copper, batteries, electronics, and other components produced in Xinjiang.

"Between raw materials mining/processing and auto parts manufacturing, we found t…

Toyota Motor North America has appointed Takefumi Shiga as the new head of production engineering and manufacturing for its operations in the region and handed him the leading role in developing its first battery manufacturing plant now under construction in North Carolina.

His new role is effective Jan. 1.

Shiga, 55, will have responsibility for all aspects of the Japanese automaker's production engineering operations and its 14 vehicle and unit plants across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. In addition, Shiga will oversee continued development of Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina, the $3.8 billion battery plant under construction near Liberty, N.C., Toyota said.

He succeeds Toshio Niimi, who has been in the role since 2020 and will be returning to Toyota Motor Corp., in Japan, the automaker said.

Shiga, who has worked at Toyota since 1992 and held numerous executive positions, will report to North American CEO T…

Vietnam-based electric-vehicle maker VinFast said on Tuesday it has filed for an initial public offering in the United States and plans to list its ordinary shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "VFS".

For the IPO, the company said it will convert to a Singapore public limited company and will be known as VinFast Auto Ltd., while the number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined.

While no time frame was specified on Tuesday for the offering, the IPO was initially slated for the fourth quarter of this year, the company had previously said.

The company's parent, Vingroup conglomerate, said in May that the IPO maybe delayed to 2023 due to market uncertainty. 

VinFast, which began operations in 2019, is betting big on the U.S. market, where it hopes to compete with legacy automakers and startups with two all-electric SUVs and a battery leasing model that will reduce the vehicle …

Japan-based Envision AESC will plow $810 million into a new South Carolina battery factory to supply BMW Group's next-generation electric vehicles.

The planned 1.5-million-square-foot factory in Florence, S.C., will initially create 1,170 jobs and have an annual capacity of up to 30 gigawatt hours, the company said Tuesday. That volume can supply enough batteries for 300,000 EVs annually, according to AutoForecast Solutions.

The new plant will produce BMW's new energy-dense Gen 6 lithium ion cell.

The South Carolina investment is "another milestone on our journey to building an electrification network in the U.S.," Envision AESC Group CEO Shoichi Matsumoto said in a statement.

The investment is the latest in an ever-expanding constellation of battery factories in the southeast United States but also a critical weapon in BMW's U.S. manufacturing expansion.

The German automaker is undertaking a $1 billion retrofit of its Spartanburg plant, t…

From upcoming changes to FTC regulations including the Safeguard Rule, to the steady increase in fraud risk, to common compliance misconceptions, there's a lot to know about protecting your dealership and your customers. In this whitepaper, we'll talk about the compliance issues that should be top of mind for dealerships - and how a digital compliance solution can help.

The 2022 Automotive News All-Stars persevered during a challenging year for the industry, with the chip shortage improving somewhat but still lingering. These All-Stars delivered excellent products and services to their customers, introduced innovations and made other significant contributions to the industry.

Their successes were celebrated at a ceremony Dec. 5 at the Detroit Athletic Club.

Executive Editor Jamie Butters, Brand Executive All-Star Christian Meunier of Jeep, and Dennis Ephlin of Capgemeni.

Software Innovation All-Star Maria Anhalt of Elektrobit and Mike Robertson.

Automotive News Publisher KC Crain kicks off the night's program.

Vice President of Editorial Operations Chrissy Taylor, F&I All-Star Tina Miller and Capgemeni's Dennis Ephlin.

Michelle Maki, Kimberly Lark, Margaret Baxter and DEI All-Star Cheryl Thompson, CEO of the Center for Automotive Diversity, Inclusion & Advancement

Talent A…

About 270 workers at an Autoneum AG plant in Bloomsburg, Pa., went on strike last week against the key global automotive insulation systems supplier.

Contract negotiations between the company and its union have stalled following the company's latest contract offer being rejected by workers, according to media reports. Workers walked off the job Thursday afternoon, according to the reports.

Autoneum, based in Winterthur, Switzerland, focuses on internal and external sound and heat insulation systems. The supplier works with almost every major automaker, including General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis, according to its website.

For the Bloomsburg plant, its exact list of customers is unclear. However, the plant received awards from Toyota in 2011, Ford in 2014 and GM in 2021. Autoneum did not respond to calls from Automotive News' seeking comment on the strike.

Brian Heverly, president of Local 1700 Workers United, told FOX 56 that the rank-…

DETROIT — The auto industry winnowed from hundreds of companies from its beginnings a century ago to the Detroit 3 in the U.S.

There once were a dozen or so popular search engines. The number dwindled to, charitably, two.

Chris Urmson, one of the founding members of Google's self-driving car project more than a decade ago, and now the CEO and co-founder of Aurora Innovation, sees the self-driving industry unfolding in similar fashion.

"I've been saying for six to seven years that we're going to see consolidation," he said Monday. "It doesn't mean that it's not an interesting space. It just means some people had the combination of capabilities, capital and technology, then made the partnerships to go and succeed."

Urmson spoke during the Automotive News Congress Monday in Detroit.

His remarks came at a time the self-driving industry is facing renewed self-reflection. In October, Argo AI, a self-driving tech company funded by Ford Motor Co. a…

DETROIT — The ongoing digital transformation of the auto industry has not only changed the way vehicles are retailed but the relationship between consumers and automakers as well, according to two executives leading that transformation.

"The cloud is as important a component as the wheels on the vehicle," Scott Miller, vice president for software defined vehicle and operating system with General Motors, told attendees here at the Automotive News Congress.

Miller said GM will begin rolling out the first foundational systems to eventually enable its vision of fully connected vehicles, Ultifi, next year.

Ultifi is GM's in-vehicle customer experience platform. The automaker sees that ecosystem eventually extending decades into the future, changing and adapting even through subsequent owners and connecting consumers to a digital world through their vehicles.

The "once-a-century" transformation of the auto industry is underway but will change "every asp…

Mercedes-AMG is poised to raise the vroom ante with the 2023 S 63 E Performance.

The S-class sedan features performance hybrid technology from Formula 1 with an AMG 4.0-liter V-8 Biturbo engine at the front and a 188 hp electric motor at the rear axle.

Also on board is a 13.1-kilowatt-hour, high-performance battery.

The sedan delivers combined output of 791 hp and can sprint from 0-to-60 mph in about 3.2 seconds. Also, for the first time, an S-Class sedan bears the AMG-specific radiator grille with vertical louvers and a large central star.

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. — Pierce College inaugurated a $22.3 million Advanced Automotive Technology building in mid-October to expand its automotive service technology program. Community colleges such as Pierce are a vital source of service technicians for auto dealerships.

The job of automotive service technician is evolving, and funding is pouring into programs to meet the need for technicians who can work on electric and autonomous vehicles. But the job's image is still stuck in its grease and grime past, and that needs to change to help attract more young people to the field.

"People don't want their kids to be auto mechanics," says Tom Fortune, associate professor of automotive service technology and a faculty advisor at Pierce. "They want them to be doctors and dentists and lawyers."

The new 21,233-square-foot building includes bays specifically designed for teaching curriculum related to alternative fuel vehicles, including advanced diagnostics. …