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In the automotive industry, ECAD-MCAD co-design has long been recognized as a potential enabler to increasing productivity and ensuring a robust design. Until now, the electrical and mechanical domains mostly exchanged design data through email, spreadsheets, and XML files. With modern CAD tools, designers can directly synchronize their data. This ensures data integrity and more efficient, effective collaboration on critical designs between domains.

Electronic device manufacturer Foxconn has signed a contract to build autonomous electric tractors for a California startup.

Foxconn, which assembles iPhones, iPads and Kindles, will build the vehicle for Monarch Tractor of Livermore, Calif., the companies said Tuesday.

Monarch has raised $81 million in funding. Its investors include VST Tillers, CNH Industrial, Musashi Seimitsu Industry, Astanor Ventures, At One Ventures, Trimble Ventures and MUUS.

Foxconn will build the tractor at the former General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio. It acquired the plant in May for $230 million from the struggling Lordstown Motors electric pickup startup. Monarch expects production to begin in the first quarter of 2023.

"Creating the industry's most advanced tractor demands a manufacturing partner with the experience to quickly scale and execute with precision," Praveen Penmetsa, CEO of Monarch Tractor, said in a news release.

The partnership continues a t…

Lucid Motors will offer a new Stealth Look package for its Air sedan with changes to 35 components for a sportier, assertive exterior compared with the elegant, luxurious design of other models.

"From its inception, Lucid Air was designed for two distinct looks that reflect the duality of its personality: standard Platinum Look, which highlights its luxurious nature; and now Stealth Look, which is simultaneously assertive, yet under the radar," said Derek Jenkins, Lucid Group senior vice president of design and brand.

The company said the Stealth Look Air will make its public debut Aug. 17 during Monterey Car Week.

The exterior package costs $6,000 and can be configured online in three of the Air's trims: the top Grand Touring Performance trim, the high-level Grand Touring and the mid-level Touring. The base Air Pure trim won't immediately get the option.

The black-on-black version of the Air with the Stealth Look is the most aggressive of the ne…

The U.S. Senate approves expanded EV tax credits as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. U.S. House lawmakers try to jump-start legislation for self-driving cars. Embattled ex-Reynolds and Reynolds CEO Robert Brockman dies at age 81. Plus, Ample's Levi Tillemann talks with Automotive News' Pete Bigelow about what the Inflation Reduction Act might mean for the push to get more EVs on the road.

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WASHINGTON - The heads of chipmakers GlobalFoundries and Applied Materials and carmakers Ford Motor and General Motors were to meet at a closed-door summit with U.S. government officials on Monday to discuss administration plans to invest in semiconductors.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden will sign legislation to subsidize the U.S. semiconductor industry and boost efforts to make the United States more competitive with China. The bill provides $52 billion in subsidies for chip manufacturing and research. It also includes an investment tax credit for chip plants estimated to be worth $24 billion.

GlobalFoundries CEO Thomas Caulfield said in a statement the chips legislation "protects U.S. economic, supply chain and national security by accelerating semiconductor manufacturing on American soil."

The legislation aims to alleviate a persistent shortage that has affected supplies of goods from cars and weapons to washing machines and vide…

LMP Automotive Holdings Inc.'s board of directors has unanimously recommended that stockholders approve a proposed plan to liquidate and dissolve the company, while the publicly traded auto retailer has agreed to sell what looks like most of its franchised dealerships.

LMP said Monday that it has entered into dealership and real estate asset sale agreements for its Kia dealerships in Port Charlotte, Fla., and Cape Coral, Fla., as well as Kia and Subaru stores in Mount Hope, W.Va., a Chevrolet dealership in Oak Hill, W.Va., and a Buick-GMC store in Beckley, W.Va.

It's not clear if LMP is selling the six dealerships in one transaction or in multiple deals. LMP said closing is expected in October.

The retailer said its board recommends that the company's stockholders "vote to approve a proposed plan of liquidation of LMP's assets and the dissolution of the company" at its next special meeting of stockholders. LMP did not indicate when the meeting is to take…

Bob Brockman, the former CEO of dealership management system giant Reynolds and Reynolds Co. who was indicted in what federal prosecutors called the largest-ever tax case against an individual in U.S. history, has died at 81.

Brockman was a self-taught computer programmer who started dealership software company Universal Computer Systems Inc. in his living room in 1970, before taking the helm of Reynolds and Reynolds after a merger with UCS in 2006.

But his rise in the auto retailing software world started to unravel in October 2020, when he was charged with tax evasion, wire fraud and other crimes in what prosecutors say was a scheme lasting two decades to evade taxes on $2 billion in income.

He stepped down as chairman and CEO of Reynolds in November 2020, shortly before his attorneys argued in federal court that Brockman had dementia that left him incompetent to stand trial. A federal judge in May ultimately found Brockman to be competent, moving for…

Mobile games and real-time 3D platform developer Unity Technologies will power the infotainment domain of the new Mercedes-Benz operating system.

The infotainment domain is an essential component of the German automaker's plan to broaden its digital offerings. Mercedes' current infotainment platform, MBUX, was co-developed by Daimler and Luxoft, a unit of DXC Technology.

The new Mercedes-Benz Operating System, or MB.OS, will debut in 2024 model-year vehicles and enhance four central domains — infotainment, automated driving, body and comfort, and powertrain, the automaker said Monday.

"With our own operating system, we want to achieve three key things: to shape the user interface according to a luxury brand, to create a bidirectional communication with the customer and to integrate the digital lifestyle of the customer into the vehicle domain," Magnus Östberg, chief software officer for Mercedes-Benz, told Automotive News in an email.

Unity is pro…

WASHINGTON - Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives are launching a bipartisan effort to help revive legislative efforts to boost self-driving vehicles.

Representatives Robert Latta, a Republican, and Debbie Dingell, a Democrat, told Reuters in a joint interview they are unveiling the bipartisan Congressional Autonomous Vehicle Caucus to help educate fellow lawmakers on the importance of self-driving vehicles as they work to revive legislation.

"We're working hard to find that common ground to get something that we can pass," Dingell said, adding the United States must update motor vehicle safety standards written decades ago assuming human drivers are in control and "cannot afford to have a patchwork of laws either across 50 states."

Last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said General Motors and Ford Motor had asked for exemptions to deploy up to 2,500 self-driving vehicles annually without human c…

What started out in 2016 as a security technology that scanned vehicles for weapons and explosives at international border checkpoints has been transformed into what some in the auto industry are calling "game-changing" technology for dealers and manufacturers.

Companies such as General Motors, Volvo, Toyota, Hyundai and CarMax — plus investors not affiliated with the auto industry — are lining up to invest in UVeye because they see the benefit for their business.

CEO Amir Hever, who developed the technology and co-founded the company, originally sought to supply the security industry with an alternative to mirrors on long handles used to inspect vehicle undercarriages for explosives. He created a camera-based, high-speed system equipped with artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies.

At the checkpoints, the founders noticed that as more vehicles were scanned, the more the technology detected wear and tear on under…

After working to develop digital retailing at Ford Motor Co., longtime automaker executive Matt VanDyke is now looking to accelerate online sales throughout the broader auto industry.

In June, VanDyke left Ford after 14 years, primarily in marketing roles, to become president of Shift Digital.

VanDyke, who was CEO of the FordDirect joint venture with franchised dealers, said the time was right to make the jump to the digital marketing vendor based in Birmingham, Mich., outside Detroit. He said that in addition to his marketing efforts, he had worked to advance Ford's digital retailing going back a decade.

That was before the pandemic accelerated the use of technology for both brands and dealerships. Now, VanDyke said, he has a chance to work on a bigger scale with more dealerships and brands and make progress on a "really unique opportunity" to improve the customer experience.

VanDyke, 50, spoke with Staff Reporter Li…

UAW convention unusually full of messy surprises

Something noteworthy happened at the UAW convention last month: surprises.

And while they weren't all great, the fact that they happened at all during what has for decades been a giant rubber-stamp party shows that the Detroit-based union is now at least pointed in the right direction — even if the road ahead looks bumpy and full of curves.

Perhaps the biggest surprise came when delegates agreed to adopt a runoff process for elected officers to ensure that any potential victor must capture a majority of votes for the office they seek — as we had suggested in February when a federal judge ordered the union to change its constitution and election system. In doing so, delegates eschewed a proposal that would have adopted so-called ranked choice balloting in favor of the more costly runoff process.

We continue to believe that head-to-head runoffs of the top two vote-getters for each office will ensure…