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The Center for Automotive Diversity, Inclusion and Advancement held its second annual CADIA Impact Awards in suburban Detroit last month. The ceremony recognized individuals and companies making noteworthy contributions to DE&I efforts in the industry. There were nine winners within five categories.

CHAMPION FOR DIVERSE TALENT

Individual: Mae Smitherman-Smith, controller, global manufacturing, material planning and logistics, and warranty, Ford Motor Co.

Mae Smitherman-Smith has led several initiatives to improve diversity recruiting and talent development within Ford's finance organization, including a three-year program that connects ethnically diverse employees with senior management, a deep-dive talent review of Black employees and a focus on increasing the diversity of the finance internship program. She is the first Black woman in the finance organization to rise from entry level to senior management in the history of Ford, opening the door for …

Eric Loughmiller will wrap up his tenure of nearly 16 years as KAR Global's CFO when he retires from the wholesale auctions provider at the end of the month.

Since joining KAR in April 2007, the company's finance chief has been witness to two industry-shaping events — the Great Recession in 2008-09 and, a decade later, a global pandemic that forced wholesale auction players to further consider technologies enabling operations to continue at a safe distance.

In the late 2010s, it became clear to KAR that zeroing in on offering digital and hybrid wholesale auction tools was the way of the future. COVID-19 provided further evidence for that, Loughmiller said. In 2022, his final year with KAR, the company took the pivot to digital even further, shedding ADESA U.S., its physical auction network, in a $2.2 billion sale to Carvana Co.

Loughmiller, 63, spoke with Staff Reporter C.J. Moore about his time at KAR Global, the company's journey in evolving to majori…

The 2022 Ferrari F8 Spider reaches 60 mph from a stop in just 2.9 seconds — no surprise for a storied sports car. Still, the more than $300,000 Ferrari would barely beat the 9,000-pound GMC Hummer EV pickup in a drag race.

The massive electric truck hits the same speed only a couple tenths of a second later thanks to its electric architecture. It is about a third of the price, and other electric vehicles about half the Hummer's price can match that pace.

Generally, electric vehicles democratize acceleration by pricing supercar speed at a fraction of the cost. Automakers find that a great sales tool, but it brings up safety questions. How many average drivers can handle a supercar?

The would-be Ferrari vs. Hummer highlights an advantage electric vehicles have over internal combustion power counterparts. Electricity provides instant torque and acceleration. There's no need to move pistons, spool turbochargers or shift gears.

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Can average drivers handle the supercar acceleration of many EVs?

Who would have thought the massive GMC Hummer can nearly match a Ferrari F8 Spider in a drag race?

It would be unthinkable in the old gasoline Hummer. But the latest electric iteration has the speed to compete with a Ferrari and other supercars.

Rapid acceleration is an advantage electric vehicles have over internal combustion power counterparts. Electricity provides instant torque and acceleration. There's no need to move pistons, spool turbochargers or shift gears.

"It all comes down to physics. You have an electric motor that's all torque, you can get to peak power in a tenth of a second, and there are no dips for transmission shifts," said Tim Grewe, General Motors' director of electric strategy.

Electric vehicles democratize acceleration by pricing supercar speed at a fraction of the cost. The Hummer sells for about a third of the Ferrari. Some versions of a $56,000 Te…

The vice president of service delivery for self-driving tech company Aurora Innovation explains how autonomy can help double the utilization rates in trucking and what it takes behind the scenes to run a self-driving operation.

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U.S. vehicle inventory continued to recover from historic lows, rising another 150,000 vehicles to 1.61 million, according to data from Cox Automotive and the Automotive News Research & Data Center.

The increase mirrored the rise from the previous month and extended the run of slight inventory gains that began in June, when automakers and dealers had an estimated 500,000 fewer vehicles in their stocks. Levels are up 78 percent from where they were a year earlier, Cox said, but still are down substantially compared with where they were at the same point in 2019 and 2020.

Cox noted that high-performance cars, compact cars and minivans were the segments with the tightest supplies, while full-size pickups, full-size cars and high-end luxury cars had the largest days' supply. Notably, electric vehicles had nearly a 50-day supply, Cox said, just under the national average for all segments.

All seven of the automakers that continue to …

A desire to attend his children's activities during the workday led Zeigler Auto Group CEO Aaron Zeigler to extend the same courtesy to his employees.

"I would kind of bounce out to [an event] and come back," Zeigler told Automotive News.

He concluded if he could do so and lead a company, the rest of the staff should be allowed to take such temporary absences as well.

This decision about 15 years ago, when his eldest son was about 5, was the start of Zeigler Auto's regard for work-life balance. It has helped foster both employee retention and customer satisfaction, according to Zeigler, who added that he thought it helped improve productivity as well.

Customer satisfaction improved once the company started to accommodate work-life balance, Zeigler said. Now, those consumer scores are so consistently good Zeigler Auto doesn't even watch that variable closely, he said.

"It became something we didn't have to focus on," he said. "It was just …

DETROIT — Even as Ford Motor Co. faces litigation over its electric-vehicle certification program for dealers, roughly two-thirds of its U.S. retail network has bought in to the plans, and some are finding that costs could be lower than advertised.

Ford CEO Jim Farley, speaking last week at the Automotive News Congress here, said 1,920 dealers had agreed to follow the rigorous new sales standards and invest heavily in EV chargers and training. He said 1,659 dealers chose the Certified Elite track, which requires investing as much as $1.2 million, while 261 chose the Certified status, which requires up to a $500,000 investment but caps their EV sales at 25 a year.

The automaker, which has about 3,000 dealers in the U.S., views the upgrades as critical to challenging Tesla's leadership in EV sales. Ford is the nation's second-largest EV brand this year, according to Experian registration data.

"The future of the franchise system hangs in the balance here…

WASHINGTON — Subaru is recalling more than 287,000 Ascent large crossovers globally for a potential defect that could increase the risk of fire.

The recall covers vehicles from 2019-22 model years and affects a total of 271,694 vehicles in the U.S.

Subaru is advising owners of these Ascent models to park their vehicles away from structures such as garages and avoid leaving their vehicles unattended with the engine running.

The Japanese automaker on Friday said a ground bolt that secures the ground terminal of the Positive Temperature Coefficient heater may have been improperly fastened during vehicle production.

"This potential condition may result in the melting of the ground terminal and surrounding components, increasing the risk of fire when the PTC heater is in operation," the automaker said.

There have been no crashes or injuries related to the issue.

To fix the issue, Subaru dealers will replace the ground bolts. They also wil…

WASHINGTON — U.S. auto safety regulators again issued an urgent warning Friday for the public to check for open recalls after confirming another death linked to a defective Takata airbag inflator.

NHTSA said one person died in a crash in a 2002 Honda Accord after the driver's side airbag inflator ruptured.

In a statement Friday, American Honda Motor Co. also confirmed the death, which occurred Feb. 2 in Bowling Green, Ky.

"The driver of the vehicle sustained injuries from the ruptured inflator and subsequently died. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the family of the driver," the automaker said.

Honda said the Accord had been under recall since April 2011 for replacement of the original Takata driver's side airbag inflator.

"Honda made more than 300 attempts to reach the owner of this vehicle, who purchased the car in 2008. This included more than 40 mailed notices to the registered address, over …