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Despite continued robust profits, franchised dealers polled by Cox Automotive this spring were a little less optimistic about the future than they were mid-winter, as overall dealer sentiment softened in part because of inflation, higher costs and still-tight inventory.

Franchised dealers' expectations for their vehicle markets for the next three months fell from a score of 69 in the first quarter to a still-positive 64 in the second quarter, according to the latest Cox Automotive Dealer Sentiment Index results.

"The decline we're observing with franchises here is not typical for this time of the year," Cox Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke told Automotive News. Normally, franchisees' three-month outlook holds steady heading into both spring and summer, Smoke said.

Cox surveyed 591 franchised and 555 independent dealers from Jan. 24 to Feb. 7 for the first-quarter index and 568 franchisees and 531 independents from April 25 to May 9 for the second-quarter…

Ferrari plans to significantly expand its factory in northern Italy as part of the electrification strategy it will unveil during a highly anticipated briefing next week, according to people familiar with the matter.

The automaker has snapped up space near its Maranello plant and started clearing the way for a third production line that will be dedicated to making electrified vehicles, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

The expansion will also likely include a new battery R&D center, they said.

Ferrari will highlight the project during its June 16 capital markets day, when CEO Benedetto Vigna is expected to shed light on the automaker's EV strategy and lay out his business plan for the next four years.

The former STMicroelectronics executive was hired as Ferrari CEO in to accelerate the shift away from the 12-cylinder engines and four-figure horsepower the automaker is known for.

Ferrar…

SEOUL -- Production at Hyundai's biggest factory complex fell by half on Thursday because of component shortages caused by a truckers' strike in South Korea, a union official at the automaker said.

The automaker's Ulsan plants operated at about 50 percent to 60 percent of capacity due to parts procurement issues the strike caused.

Hyundai normally builds about 6,000 vehicles a day at its Ulsan factories including the high-margin Genesis SUV and Ioniq 5 EV.

With trucks unavailable because of the strike, Korean companies are seeking alternative ways to transport goods. At Hyundai affiliate Kia, employees were spotted driving newly produced cars on the streets to warehouses.

Hyundai said it has experienced partial production disruptions at its Ulsan plants and is monitoring the situation closely.

Thousands of South Korean truckers have been on strike this week to protest the surge in fuel costs, disrupting production, slowing activity at por…

Denso, one of the world’s top automotive semiconductor manufacturers and a key supplier to Toyota, might consider spinning off its chip business, which generates around 420 billion yen ($3.1 billion) in sales, the company’s chief technology officer said.

Denso ranks second on the Top 100 suppliers list and has also quietly built up a presence in automotive chips.

Now, with semiconductor-related capital expenditures totaling around 160 billion yen over the past three years, Denso ranks as the world’s fifth-largest supplier of automotive chips by sales.

"We need to think about whether the time will come when we sell semiconductors, alone, externally," CTO Yoshifumi Kato said in an interview at Denso's headquarters in Aichi prefecture on Friday. "It's worth looking into whether that kind of structure is possible," he said.

Today, the semiconductors Denso makes in-house go into automotive parts that it then sells to carmakers or other suppliers. Whe…

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ By 2035, BEVs forecast to be majority of global sales

Battery-electric vehicles will account for a majority of new light-vehicle sales worldwide by 2035 as government mandates begin and automakers roll out new models, according to a forecast by Boston Consulting Group.

BCG anticipates 59 percent of all new vehicles sold worldwide will be BEVs by 2035, a double-digit upward revision from its estimate in 2021, which called for a 45 percent market share. Likewise, the consulting firm anticipates BEVs will make up 20 percent of worldwide sales in 2025, up from last year's forecast of 11 percent.

"We really think the switch has been flipped," said Aakash Arora, managing director at BCG. "It used to be a few years ago that for many companies, both OEMs and suppliers, EVs were a very important piece of their strategy but still just a project. Now, we're seeing that EVs are the company and that ICE is the project."

BCG's report …

Kellen Walker gives you the top headlines. The Biden administration proposes minimum standards for electric vehicle charging stations. A new forecast says “the switch has been flipped” on EV growth. The 2023 Nissan Altima gets a new design. Plus, George Hines of Lithia & Driveway talks about the company’s aim to bring car-buying into the digital age.

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Cadillac is going dramatic with a prototype of its third-generation endurance race car, the Project GTP Hypercar.

Introduced Thursday, it previews the race car Cadillac will use to contest the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The Project GTP Hypercar, co-developed by Cadillac Design, Cadillac Racing and Italian race car builder Dallara, incorporates some of the brand's key design characteristics such as vertical lighting and floating blades.

It is powered by an all-new 5.5-liter double-overhead-camshaft V-8 engine that will be paired to IMSA's common hybrid system.

"The Project GTP Hypercar is a unique convergence of form and function and showcases Cadillac's future performance aesthetic," said Chris Mikalauskas, lead exterior creative designer at Cadillac. "We have plenty more to come, from the upcoming race car to amazing production…

Ford topped new-vehicle registrations for electric vehicles among mainstream brands in the first four months of the year, followed closely by Kia and Hyundai.

But Tesla dominated the EV registration charts overall in the U.S. and remained the top luxury automaker regardless of fuel type, according to new numbers from Experian.

California-based EV startups Rivian Automotive and Lucid Group continued to struggle with their production ramp-ups, according to the registration data, with just over 1,700 combined through April.

Ford's 11,751 EV registrations came mostly from the Mustang Mach-E crossover at 10,740, along with 908 E-Transit vans and 103 of the new F-150 Lightning pickup, the four-month data showed. Ford EV registrations doubled from the same period the previous year.

New EV registrations for Kia came in at 11,483 in the January-April period, compared with just 1,549 in the year-earlier period. Kia's EV6 compact crossover made up 7,303 of …

Tesla Inc. has staged a remarkable comeback in terms of vehicle production in China, with May output more than tripling despite the electric carmaker only recently getting a Shanghai factory back up to speed after the city’s punishing lockdowns to contain COVID-19 outbreaks.

The U.S. electric vehicle maker produced 33,544 vehicles at its Shanghai plant last month, versus 10,757 in April, China Passenger Car Association data released Thursday showed. Shipments came in at 32,165 units, with 22,340 of those EVs exported to markets in Europe and the rest of Asia, and 9,825 of the vehicles going to domestic buyers.

Tesla has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep its factory in China up and running during Shanghai’s months-long lockdown to eliminate the spread of Covid-19. The facility, which is capable of making 2,100 EVs a day in normal times, was shut for three weeks through mid April and staff were only recently able to resume double shifts, working around the cl…

Digital auto retail and finance platform AutoFi tapped Santander Consumer USA head of pricing and strategy Josh Baer as its president.

Baer, whose resume also includes more than a decade at Capital One, will run AutoFi's lender and enterprise segments. AutoFi on Thurday said he will focus on speeding growth in those businesses with "transformative retail and financing experiences" which will help clients meet consumer preferences.

AutoFi's software allows consumers to browse dealership inventory and see financing offers tailored to the dealership's preferences. It handled more than 1 million financing requests to lenders and was associated with more than $3 billion in sales last year.

"AutoFi is a pioneer in the digitization of the auto industry," Baer said in a statement Thursday. "The company is uniquely positioned with manufacturers, retailers, and lenders to deliver digital experiences that will drive the future of the market. The opportunity to shap…

Volkswagen Group is offering compensation to employees at a car assembly plant in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, if they agree to quit voluntarily.

The offer of financial compensation and medical insurance until the end of 2022 is available to about 200 people working at the plant, a VW spokesperson said.

The VW Taos compact crossover, along with the Skoda Octavia, Karoq and Kodiaq models, are produced at Nizhny Novgorod.

VW said in March that production at its Kaluga and Nizhny Novgorod sites would be suspended until further notice because of Western sanctions, and vehicle exports to Russia would be stopped with immediate effect.

While VW owns its Kaluga plant directly, employing around 4,200 workers there, it does not own the Nizhny Novgorod plant but has a contractual agreement with owner GAZ Group to assemble its models there.

The U.S. treasury department in January shortened two licenses for GAZ Group, which has been sanctioned since 2018 …