News

Penske’s earnings slip despite record revenue in Q3. Mercedes is the latest automaker to quit Russia. Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares calls Europe’s emissions standards a diversion. Plus, a conversation with the CEO of Research Frontiers, which patented the cutting-edge glass technology used in the Cadillac Celestiq’s four-quadrant roof.

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Employee turnover at U.S. dealerships in 2021 dropped to its lowest level in at least a decade as average annual compensation for dealership employees soared — appearing to top the $100,000 mark for the first time.

Average industry turnover was 34 percent in 2021 — the lowest level in the 11-year history of the National Automobile Dealers Association's annual Dealership Workforce Study, the dealer trade association shared with Automotive News. It fell from 2020's figure of 46 percent, which is where the annual turnover number had been hovering for several years.

Meanwhile, average weekly earnings at dealerships that participated in the study increased 27 percent in 2021, NADA said on its website. The association publicly releases only a handful of highlights, not the full study.

Automotive News used the percentage increase figure and data from last year's study covering 2020 to calculate estimated average annual earnings for dealership employees in 202…

Polestar's U.S. dealers expected the Swedish electric vehicle maker's first crossover model to arrive in their hip, urban stores early next year. But now they find they will be without the high-volume Polestar 3 for the better part of a year.

U.S. deliveries of the midsize crossover will begin in the fourth quarter of 2023, several months later than some retailers had anticipated.

That could prove problematic for the young brand as it claws its way into the competitive U.S. auto market.

Polestar, which sells a sedan model, delivered an estimated 6,400 units of the Polestar 2 in the first nine months of 2022, according to Automotive News Research & Data Center.

"It's disappointing not to have your franchise car," Mathew Haiken, CEO of Polestar Short Hills in New Jersey, told Automotive News. "We hoped to go from a startup to an established competitive franchise next year with a volume SUV."

The U.S. is expected to be the largest single …

Four out of five dealerships in a new survey have lost a vehicle to identity fraud in the past year and a similar proportion said they'd encountered at least one fraudulent loan application, according to research by eLEND Solutions.

A third-quarter poll by eLEND of more than 700 dealerships — nearly all of which were franchised — revealed 79 percent had an identity fraud-related loss in the past year. Sixty percent lost at least three vehicles because of identity fraud.

A similar proportion of dealers, 80 percent, said they encountered at least one fraudulent loan application in the past year. Of that group, about one-third estimated the rate of fraud is as high as 1 in every 100 applications. Another 24 percent said they saw fraud in 1 out of every 150 prospective borrowers.

eLEND CEO Pete MacInnis, whose company sells driver's license validation technology, said feedback from dealer customers revealed an uptick in fraud: " 'Oh my God, we caught anothe…

ELLABELL, Ga. — Hyundai Motor Group broke ground Tuesday on a mammoth $5.54 billion manufacturing project that will produce electric vehicles and batteries for the Hyundai, Genesis and Kia brands.

Jose Munoz, Hyundai's global chief operating officer, said the dedicated EV factory, to be called the Metaplant, will build up to six models and have the capacity to produce up to half a million vehicles a year on a 2,800-acre plot of land 30 miles northwest of Savannah.

"We are making the current investment to get to 300,000 vehicles in phase one, and then 500,000," Munoz said at a media roundtable after the groundbreaking ceremony.

"Construction is expected to start as soon as possible, and then the target is to start production January 2025," he said.

Munoz did not say which models the Metaplant will produce, but a new three-row Hyundai EV crossover called the Ioniq 7 is expected to be the first. Munoz also said Hyundai is still examining what models…

An office manager must pay back nearly $50,000 to an Ohio dealership after she was sentenced for tampering with the dealership's records.

Nicole Bradley, 44, was sentenced on Oct. 13 following an investigation into her role as office manager at Erwin Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep in Troy, Ohio, about 19 miles north of Dayton, according to records from the Common Pleas Court of Miami County, Ohio.

Bradley accrued $47,475 in unauthorized funds from the dealership between 2019 and 2021, according to court documents. She was sentenced to five years of community control (a form of probation) and 40 hours of community service and ordered to pay $47,475 to Erwin Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep in monthly increments, according to court records.

An investigation into Bradley began after the dealership filed a complaint in August 2021, according to Steve Hickey, a detective for the Miami County Sheriff's Office.

Hickey, who led the investigation, said Bradley had access to busin…

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story contained an incorrect figure for Q3 earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT). The correct figure is $911 million, down 17 percent from 1.1 billion a year earlier.

Lower leased-vehicle income dragged down GM Financial's third-quarter earnings as net income fell 16 percent and revenue dropped 5 percent, the company reported Tuesday.

Net income was $688 million for the quartercompared with $829 million last quarter and $822 million vs. the same period last year. Net income for the first nine months was $2.5 billion compared with $2.9 billion last year for GM's captive finance arm. The automaker also reported its earnings Tuesday, registering record revenue for the quarter.

Total revenue in the third quarter was $3.19 billion compared with $3.35 billion for the same period last year. 

The $200 million decrease in adjusted earnings to $900 million for the quarter is "primarily due to lower net le…

Truck production and rising prices help GM generate record revenue in the third quarter. Hyundai breaks ground on its $5.5B U.S. EV plant. Bosch expands its U.S. plant to produce more EV motors. Plus, a look at auto supply and demand with LMC Automotive President of Global Forecasting Jeff Schuster.

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Can't wait to hear the next episode of "Daily Drive"? Subscribe through a podcast app to receive episodes days in advance. If you don't have a podcast app already, here are some options. 

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Android

“Daily Drive” is available on the Google Play store. Click here to subscribe to "Daily Drive"

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Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk seemed to kill off plans to build a $25,000 car for the masses earlier this year with comments that such a vehicle was no longer in the works — only to revive speculation this month that it's still on the way.

The tech billionaire said during the company's Oct. 19 earnings call that Tesla is actively working on a third vehicle platform that would cost Tesla about half as much to build as the platform underpinning its current volume vehicles, the Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover. The base Model 3 starts at $48,440 with shipping.

"We don't know the exact dates, but this is the primary focus of our new vehicle development team," Musk said. The new vehicle eventually will exceed the volume of all other Tesla vehicles combined, he added.

Some analysts and Tesla observers are interpreting that to mean the company is reviving the $25,000 model that Musk had strongly promoted at an event in September 2020. Musk predicted then that th…

Volvo will use colors to signal the difference between driver-assisted mode and what it calls "unsupervised autonomous driving" mode in its full-electric flagship.

The EX90 driver-focused display screen visual through the steering wheel will use green to signal when the car is using assistance solutions such as lane keeping and adaptive cruise control.

This color, which will be used on the lane markings, on the car directly ahead and on a steering wheel symbol on the bottom right of the screen (see image, below), is carried over from current-generation Volvos.

The new color -- blue/green or aquamarine -- appears as a thin horizontal line across the top of the screen, on the lane markings, and on the car directly ahead (see image below).

This signals that the car has taken control of the driving.

Volvo said Tuesday its goal with the EX90 is "to make the transition from manual to assisted driving modes (and in the future, autonomous drivin…