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A Florida woman was arrested for grand theft following an investigation into a Chevrolet dealership's payroll.

Ariel Rutenbeck, 32, was taken into custody Wednesday for allegedly altering payroll at Dimmitt Chevrolet in Clearwater, Fla., about 20 miles west of Tampa, according to an arrest affidavit from Clearwater Police Department.

As one of two people with access to the payroll system, the police report alleges Rutenbeck assigned herself $28,179 in unauthorized bonuses between May 2020 and July 2022.

Dimmitt Chevrolet leadership provided payroll documents showing the irregularities and confirmed to police that the bonuses were not approved, according to the report. The company told police that routine audits were not conducted "unless there was suspicious activity observed, which is why this had not been caught before," the affidavit said.

More recent discrepancies in the payroll were in larger figures, "which were concerning and more noticeabl…

Stellantis offers buyouts to Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge employees. Better production isn’t enough to put Gentex in the black for Q3. Ford postpones the deadline for dealers to decide on EV outlays.  Plus, a conversation with Hireology co-founder and CEO Adam Robinson, who says the relationship between auto companies and their employees has fundamentally changed.

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Growing Parks Automotive Group has entered a new market in Virginia with the purchase of three luxury dealerships.

Parks Automotive, of Kernersville, N.C., on Sept. 12 bought Duncan Acura in Roanoke, Audi Roanoke and BMW Roanoke, all in Virginia, from Gary Duncan of Duncan Automotive Network, according to buy-sell advisory firm Tim Lamb Group of Columbus, Ohio. Bob Morris, director of the Southeast region for the Tim Lamb Group, represented the seller in the transaction.

Two stores were renamed Parks Acura and BMW of Roanoke, while the Audi Roanoke name remains. Roanoke is in Southwest Virginia.

"We are excited to provide locals with a world-class experience that exceeds expectations," Adam Parks, president of Parks Automotive, said in a statement. "My family has been doing just that throughout the Carolinas for over 50 years and I can't wait to establish our legacy here in Roanoke."

Acura, Audi and BMW are new brands to the group's portfolio, Par…

The United Auto Workers on Monday said it is seeking an election to represent workers at a General Motors/LG Energy battery cell joint venture in Ohio after the companies refused to recognize the union.

The UAW said it had filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of approximately 900 workers at Ultium Cells after a majority of workers had signed cards authorizing the union to represent them.

"By refusing to recognize their majority will, Ultium – which is a joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution – has decided to ignore democracy and delay the recognition process," UAW President Ray Curry said in a statement.

Stellantis NV said Friday it has offered voluntary buyouts to some of its 13,000 U.S. salaried employees.

Salaried workers age 55 or older who have been with the automaker at least 10 years are eligible.

The world's No.4 carmaker, created early last year from the merger of PSA and Fiat Chrysler, said the offer was "part of our transformation to become a sustainable tech mobility company and the market leader in low-emission vehicles." The deadline to seek a buyout is Dec. 5.

Stellantis plans to have 75 EV models on the market and sell five million EVs a year by 2030, including 50 percent of U.S. sales by then as EVs or plug-in hybrids.

Ford Motor Co said in August it was cutting a total of 3,000 salaried and contract jobs, mostly in North America and India, telling workers that the company's cost structure "is uncompetitive versus traditional and new competitors."

Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley had said he thought the No. 2 U.S. automaker …

TOKYO - Japan's Panasonic Holdings Corp said on Monday it will start building its new battery plant in Kansas in November and aims to begin mass production by March 2025, targeting North America's fast-growing EV market.

The conglomerate's energy unit said in July it had picked Kansas as the site for a new plant to supply batteries primarily to Tesla Inc, joining other battery producers planning massive U.S. investments to qualify for new EV tax credit rules and to tap that market's potentially massive demand.

Panasonic said in a statement it expects initial production capacity of 30 gigawatt hours per year at the new plant, equivalent to roughly 60 percent of the company's current annual EV battery production capacity in Japan and the United States.

Kansas state officials said in July the factory would create up to 4,000 jobs with investment of up to $4 billion, pending final approval by Panasonic's board, which came through on Monday.

Hirokazu U…

Automotive mirror supplier Gentex Corp. said Friday that supply chain challenges led to lower third-quarter profits, but also touted a sales increase compared with 2021.

The Zeeland, Mich., company, which primarily produces automatic-dimming rearview mirror and camera-based driver-assistance systems, said net income decreased 5 percent to $72.7 million.

Net sales climbed 24 percent to $493.6 million compared to $399.6 million in 2021. This coincides with a 22 percent increase in light-vehicle production in the company's primary markets of North America, Europe, Japan and Korea.

Despite the increase in sales and production, the company missed its beginning-of-quarter forecast by $70 million to $80 million.

Operating expenses continue to increase, with a 15 percent rise to $60.4 million. Gentex cites staffing and professional fees, plus freight and travel-related expenses as causes for the increase.

Gross margin fell 5.5 percentage points to …

BEIJING -- BeyonCa, a start-up founded by a group of former Volkswagen executives, plans to take on automakers including Audi and BMW in China from next year with a new premium electric vehicle, the GT Opus 1, which offers features such as health monitoring.

Led by current Renault China CEO Soh Weiming and backed by Renault and Dongfeng Motor, two-year-old BeyonCa plans to unveil its first production car in the first quarter of next year with deliveries from 2024, Soh told Reuters.

The company rolled out the GT Opus 1 concept car on Sunday with features such as sensors that can monitor a driver's blood pressure, alarms to alert doctors employed by BeyonCa of an emergency and an autonomous driving function to help park the car.

Soh, BeyonCa's chairman, said the company was targeting the high-end premium segment, where they would compete with models such as Audi's A8L, BMW's 7 Series and Mercedes-Benz's S-Class.

"We need to confront them," Soh said…

SHANGHAI -- Geely Automobile plans to spin off its high-end Zeekr electric-vehicle brand and list the unit.

The terms of the proposed spin-off, including listing venue, offering size and price range for Zeekr have not been finalized, the company said in a statement.

Geely Automobile and its parent Zhejiang Geely Holding Group launched Zeekr in April 2021 as a premium brand targeting young and trendy customers.

In August last year, Zeekr raised $500 million in its first external funding from investors that included Intel Capital, battery maker CATL and online entertainment firm Bilibili.

An Conghui, Geely's president and Zeekr's CEO, has said Zeekr is confident of hitting its sales target of 70,000 units this year. The brand aims to sell 650,000 vehicles a year by 2025.

Besides Zeekr, the Geely group owns other brands such as Polestar, Volvo Car, Lynk & CO, Lotus, London Electric Vehicle Company and Geometry.

ECARX Holdings, a Chi…

Automakers are already beginning to alter production plans for 2023 because of the microchip shortage as the industry braces for millions more lost vehicles next year.

Stellantis, for example, has begun to taper back planned production of the Jeep Cherokee in 2023 because of the semiconductor shortage, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Sol-utions.

A spokesman for Stellantis declined to comment on future production plans.

The automotive industry can expect to lose between 2 million and 3 million units of planned production in 2023, on top of the 10.5 million lost in 2021 and the 3.6 million lost so far this year, Fiorani said.

"Slowly, more chips are being filtered into the auto industry," he said. "But when we see production of high-margin vehicles still being affected, we know that the answers still aren't here — and we're still seeing that."

Chipmakers are pouring billions of dollars into new…

TOKYO — On the surface, the negotiations over the Renault-Nissan alliance reboot are about preparing for the future by creating a next-generation electric vehicle spinoff that both partners will invest in.

But dig deeper, and the delicate talks involve another technology that is seemingly oh-so-yesterday: Old-school internal combustion engines are front and center in this bold EV overhaul.

After 20 years of working together on common technologies, partner Renault intends to cleave its internal combustion assets into a separate company that would stand alongside its newfangled EV business. And to do that, Renault and Nissan face the task of divvying up their shared intellectual property. One important question is how to handle key internal combustion systems.

It matters because — despite the promise of EVs — gasoline- and diesel-burning vehicles are still expected to account for huge swaths of global auto sales for a long time.