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Lithia Motors Inc., which continues to gobble up dealerships, including acquiring five in Wisconsin in September, also sold one dealership in Northern California and another in Southern California this month, as it sheds some stores in a "network optimization" plan.

The Medford, Ore., auto retailer sold Lithia Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram-Fiat of Eureka on Sept. 14 to Harper Motors, a Lithia representative confirmed.

The store was renamed Eureka Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram-Fiat. Eureka is located about 100 miles south of the Oregon border.

Harper Motors also owns a Ford-Kia dealership and Honda and Toyota stores in Eureka, said Joe Ozog, president of Ozog Consulting Group in Scottsdale, Ariz. Ozog Consulting Group represented Lithia in the Stellantis dealership sale.

A day after that sale, on Sept. 15, Lithia sold DCH Gardena Honda to David Wilson Automotive Group. The dealership was renamed Gardena Honda. Gardena is south of Los Angeles.

Jay Fran…

Growing Lithia Motors Inc., which has indicated it is targeting further Midwest expansion, did just that with its recent acquisition of five dealerships from Wilde Automotive Group in Wisconsin.

Lithia on Sept. 12 acquired Wilde East Towne Honda in Madison, Wilde Toyota in West Allis and Wilde Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram, Wilde Subaru and Wilde Honda, all in Waukesha. Lithia said last week that the acquisition is expected to add $625 million in annual revenue.

Lithia has had a presence in Iowa since 2006, the auto retailer confirmed, with nine stores. In 2021, Lithia barreled into Michigan when it acquired the Suburban Collection and 34 dealerships, mostly in the Detroit area.

Most of the Midwest is part of Lithia's North Central Region 3, which includes North Dakota, where Lithia has two dealerships.

"Even though we're in Detroit, we're really not into the other major population areas like St. Louis and Minneapolis," Li…

LEBANON, Tenn. — Tritium, an Australian producer of electric vehicle chargers, is arriving in the U.S. market with a new assembly plant here at a less-than-auspicious moment for the EV charging segment.

Two recent industry surveys have thumped charging networks for doing a poor job at pleasing the growing numbers of American EV buyers.

One of them, a J.D. Power report in August — just as Tritium was opening its plant — said EV charging satisfaction is declining and dampening EV buyer enthusiasm.

"Public charging continues to provide challenges to overall EV adoption and current EV owners alike," Brent Gruber, J.D. Power executive director of global automotive, said when the report was released last month. "Not only is the availability of public charging still an obstacle, but EV owners continue to be faced with charging station equipment that is inoperable."

But Tritium CEO Jane Hunter knows all that.

In fac…

In summer 2021, Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley told analysts on a quarterly earnings call the automaker planned to shift all of its models to an order-bank system to reduce complexity and incentive costs that come with building too many vehicles.

Ford already had tested such a system with the launch of some new vehicles, including the Mustang Mach-E electric crossover, by asking customers to reserve one before production began.

Gaudin Ford in Las Vegas jumped into action, setting up its own retail ordering strategy, installing new technology and revamping pay plans to compensate employees for ordering vehicles that potentially would not be delivered for months, said Bryant Gilligan, the dealership's general sales manager. The store's website was updated to feature an orders page for vehicles.

Since July 2020 when Ford unveiled the new Bronco, Gaudin Ford has taken 1,507 retail orders. As of last week, nearly half those orders, 679, had been delivered to …

WASHINGTON — U.S. traffic deaths declined for the first time since 2020 but remain at levels that call for "urgent and sustained action," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said last week.

From April to June, 10,590 people died in vehicle crashes on U.S. roads, down 4.9 percent from the same period in 2021, according to NHTSA estimates. The agency said it's the first decline in fatalities after seven consecutive quarters of year-to-year increases since the third quarter of 2020.

Still, early projections show roadway deaths increased in the first six months of 2022. Through June, an estimated 20,175 people died in crashes, up 0.5 percent from the first half of 2021.

"Although it is heartening to see a projected decline in roadway deaths in recent months, the number of people dying on roads in this country remains a crisis," said Ann Carlson, NHTSA's acting administrator.

Carlson assumed the role after Steven Cliff's d…

Hyundai's plans to field a supercar to help launch its N performance brand — rivaling the Acura NSX, Audi R8 and Porsche 911 Turbo — have been officially scrapped.

Albert Biermann, who steered Hyundai's N division until he retired in 2021, told Top Gear last week that the project — nicknamed the Chairman's Car — would have cost over $150,000.

"At that time it was thought a Hyundai could not have this price," Biermann said.

The N supercar featured a carbon-fiber tub chassis and midengine layout.

"We had plans for a petrol [engine] with or without hybrid, or [the car could have accepted] a hydrogen fuel cell," he said.

The supercar project's demise hasn't stopped Hyundai from dreaming, though, most recently with the N Vision 74 concept. The high-performance hydrogen fuel cell hybrid introduced in July was inspired by Hyundai's heritage, namely the 1974 Hyundai Pony Coupe concept created by Giorgetto Giugiaro.

What V-8? The most potent Mercedes-AMG C 63 sedan will be powered by a four-cylinder hybrid powertrain.

The spunky compact 2024 C 63 S E Performance swaps a V-8 for a plug-in-hybrid powertrain with 671 hp and 752 pound-feet of torque. Many of the key technologies in the 2.0-liter inline with an electric turbocharger are derived from the 1.6-liter hybrid that is among the most advanced and highest-performance powerplants ever under Mercedes' umbrella: the EQ10 Power+ setup used in Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One cars.

Mechanical linkages allow both the gasoline engine and electric motors to power all four wheels.

The latest C 63 marks the end of compact V-8 performance sedans by AMG that began with the W202 C 43, followed by C 63 models with a 6.2-liter V-8 and the outgoing C 63 with a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8.

The changes go beyond what is under the hood. The front end is 2 inches longer, the wheelbase has grown by 0.4 inch, and the front fend…

Mega-supplier Robert Bosch is on the prowl to save money by monitoring and reducing energy waste at its plants, such as its operation in Eisenach, Germany, here, where a connected energy management system allows technicians to collect energy-use data from devices around the facility to make adjustments wherever possible. The company's factory in Changsha, China, recently deployed an "AI-controlled energy management system" that helped reduce energy consumption by 18 percent.

WASHINGTON — The new general director of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association's U.S. branch office says the eligibility restrictions in the new electric vehicle tax credit could impede EV adoption in the U.S.

"The current eligibility requirements significantly narrow American consumers' choices and likely make the tax credit less effective, thereby hindering the market uptake of electrified vehicles," said Anita Rajan, who was hired in May to steer the group's Washington, D.C., office following the departure of Manny Manriquez.

Under the Inflation Reduction Act signed last month, new EVs must be assembled in North America to be eligible. New restrictions on sticker price, buyer income and battery component and critical mineral sourcing take effect Jan. 1. The 2022-23 Nissan Leaf is the only Japanese-brand EV that may qualify for a $7,500 credit through Dec. 31, according to U.S. data.

Rajan, 42, submitted written respons…

DETROIT — General Motors on Friday said all employees who have been working remotely must report to an office at least three days a week starting later this year, modifying the flexible and intentionally vague "Work Appropriately" approach it adopted during the pandemic.

In an internal message to affected employees, GM said it's making the change because "the COVID-19 situation has dramatically improved" and to encourage more collaboration as the automaker transforms its business in the years ahead. A GM spokeswoman confirmed the authenticity of the message obtained by Automotive News and provided a statement explaining the change.

"We're committed to maintaining flexibility to ensure our employees can attend to personal commitments, and we will share details with them in the coming weeks," the statement said.

The message to employees was attributed to "the senior leadership team," listing CEO Mary Barra, President Mark Reuss and 12 other top executives. …