News

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Training self-driving vehicles to handle unexpected situations is one of the biggest challenges to commercialization.

Autonomous technology companies frequently showcase how their self-driving software responds to unusual events and edge cases in general traffic, but few demonstrate what happens when something is physically amiss with the autonomous vehicle itself.

Flat tires, for example, can result in catastrophic consequences for self-driving trucks. At highway speeds, big rigs can be difficult to control when one of the tires they used for steering suffers a blowout.

That's one safety skill Kodiak Robotics Inc., a self-driving trucking startup, has been refining and demonstrating in closed-course testing. The company recently showed video from a test in which one of its Class 8 tractor-trailers driving at 35 mph runs over a device designed to puncture tires.

Within microseconds, it respon…

Economists are keeping an eye out for signs of a U.S. recession. But one early indicator of business conditions ahead is signaling that the auto industry is moving into some good times.

Orders for vehicle tooling — an activity that reveals when vehicle programs are stirring — are rising and will likely experience 13 percent compound annual growth from next year through 2025, according to a forecast from Harbour Results Inc.

The increase is significant because automotive tooling activity has been on a downward curve for the past three years.

The coming change is not a reflection of the pandemic's disappearance from automaker business plans, but rather a sign that companies are preparing for redesigns and variations of bread-and-butter products such as full-size pickups, said Laurie Harbour, CEO of Harbour Results, which tracks activity and trends among tool-and-die and mold makers across North America."It's not electric vehicles tha…

What will automotive F&I see in 2023?

This year started with the Fed's benchmark interest rate at 0.1 percent and a new car's APR at 4.3 percent. New-vehicle inventories were down and used vehicle prices were up year-over-year.

Nearly 12 months later, 2022 is ending with the Fed's rate likely to reach or exceed that 4.3 percent itself as the central bank seeks to attack persistent inflation. New-vehicle interest rates sit at about 6.4 percent. Inventories are rebounding — at least for some automakers. And used-vehicle prices are down compared with last year.

Such conditions are bound to shake things up for finance-and-insurance offices, which have enjoyed record profits per vehicle this year.

So where do things go from here?

That's what we're exploring with this quarter's F&I special section.

In it, you'll find analysts concluding F&I profits per vehicle are due for a fall in 2023, but dealerships shouldn't necessarily …

The ICE age is waning and the EV wave is coming.

While the timing still is in flux, there is no denying that every aspect of the transportation industry is unavoidably moving toward electrification. And the time to prepare for it, from sales training to service contracts, is now.

We've all seen the headlines — OEMs are investing hundreds of millions in R&D to advance their inventory changeover from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles in large part because of aggressive fuel emission standards and other legislation. There also is a growing consumer movement to take actions that reduce our carbon footprint, and EVs help fill that need for many drivers. So great is this groundswell, in fact, that in 2022 Audi, Volkswagen, General Motors and Jaguar Land Rover all announced they will phase out ICE vehicles by 2036.

Forward-looking dealers are not sitting on the sidelines. Many are already taking action to refin…

When the car wash they owned across the street from their Stellantis dealership in New York needed expensive upgrades to keep operating, brothers Bob and Larry Siracusano decided to go a different direction.

They tore down the car wash and built a 1950s-themed ice cream shop.

The brothers opened Sawyer Ice Cream Co. this fall in Saugerties, a town along the Hudson River 100 miles north of Manhattan.

For Bob Siracusano, who has spent the past year giving out free ice cream to local kids from his 1967 Ford Good Humor truck, the new venture is about doing something fun, not making a profit.

"If I break even, I'll be happy," he told Forbes for a story last week. Bob Siracusano, 72, wouldn't answer a reporter's question about how much the two-story shop cost to build, saying, "If I tell you, my wife will find out."

The business does have a benefit for the Sawyer Motors dealership, which the Siracusanos have owned f…

Automakers will cut 68,000 more vehicles out of their worldwide factory schedules this week because of the microchip shortage, according to the latest estimate from AutoForecast Solutions.

North American plants expect no cuts, for a change. Most of the latest disruption is occurring in Europe and at Asian assembly plants outside China.

While more modest than many other production schedule modifications this year, the latest cuts bring the global industry to a loss of nearly 4.2 million cars and trucks in 2022 to date, according to AutoForecast Solutions. 

Automakers have been inching back to more normal supplies of chips all year, but they still have a long way to go. AutoForecast now warns that 200,000 more vehicles likely will be eliminated this month because of insufficient chip supplies. But its projection for the end-of-year total has been trimmed back by nearly 92,000 vehicles from the full-year forecast just one week ago.

Source: Aut…

I have always believed that finance and insurance is a critical linchpin in connecting car buyers back to the selling dealership. As a dealer, you can either practice hope — meaning, you hope the customer returns to your store — or you can create a contractual link with a customer.

A contractual link increases the odds of a customer returning to your store. For example, 70 percent of customers who purchase a vehicle service contract return to the selling dealership for service, paving the way for long-term customer relationships.

The contractual link is created in the F&I office. However, F&I managers are currently paid through a commission-based structure that incentivizes them to sell products with the highest margin without regard to whether a contractual link is created.

Take guaranteed asset protection and appearance products, for example. These products have a high upfront profit margin for the dealership and thus the …

Although the electric motor has only a few moving parts, it is not a simple machine. Because the rotor spins at high speeds, the internal windings and other components must be strong. The temperature also has to be managed. If the motor gets too hot, the magnets will lose their strength. Here's a look inside the motor and it's controller, the inverter. AC, or alternating current Generated by power stations, the battery flow of electricity switches constantly, 60 times per second — in a smooth, continuous wave Air gap Distance between the rotor and the stator Armature The component in the electric motor in which the current passes to generate torque Brushed motor A type of motor that uses carbon brushes pressed against the rotor to pass electricity. This type of motor does not drive a vehicle, but is used elsewhere on vehicles, such as in power mirrors, seats and sunroofs. Brushless motor A motor that has a rotor made of magnets, not coil windings Commutator Used …

Group 1 Automotive Inc. has expanded its U.S. luxury portfolio with the purchase of Mercedes-Benz of Anaheim in California.

The store appears to have been owned by Caliber Motors, according to California dealership license records, and was founded in 1984, according to the store's website. A Group 1 spokeswoman confirmed the transaction happened Thursday.

The dealership, which includes a Sprinter franchise, is expected to generate $200 million in annual revenue, Group 1 said.

The dealership group is "extremely pleased to expand our existing operations in Southern California with this great brand," Group 1 CEO Earl Hesterberg said in a statement. "Our strong relationship with Mercedes-Benz and experience in this market area make this dealership an excellent addition to our portfolio."

Group 1 in July added another Mercedes-Benz dealership, in Louisiana, along with Jaguar-Land Rover and Volvo dealerships.

The company said it has acquired dea…

As Stellantis prepares to unleash a flood of battery-electric vehicles that will redefine its portfolio, its dealers are getting crash courses on fast-charging stations and the electrical infrastructure they'll need to sell those EVs.

Instead of talking about moving metal, stores are dipping into a new world involving power companies and energy sourcing, said Randy Dye, chairman of the Stellantis National Dealer Council. These are different topics than Dye is used to, he said, but he is learning on the fly.

Dye said he's installing three fast chargers at his stores — two at Daytona Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep-Ram and another at Maserati-Alfa Romeo of Daytona.

"One of the most important pieces of this is the power company that you're using has to have the right amount of power, the right transformer for you to tie into," Dye said. "The problem with that is that's something the dealer has zero control over. If you have it, great. If you d…

Ford Motor Co. is facing legal challenges to its dealer certification program for electric vehicles from retailers in three states who argue that the plan violates franchise laws.

A group of 27 dealerships in Illinois filed a protest with the state's motor vehicle review board Friday, and four dealers in New York filed suit against the automaker earlier this week. Those actions come after the Arkansas Automobile Dealers Association in October filed a formal complaint against the manufacturer with that state's motor vehicle commission.

They are believed to be the first legal actions taken against Ford as opposition to the certification program mounts. Dealer associations in at least 14 states have written letters to Ford calling for changes, and earlier this week the plans drew rebukes from U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and some state lawmakers.

Ford had set a Friday deadline for dealers across the U.S. to decide whether they will invest up to $1…