Musk bans employees from phoning it in

Elon Musk says he no longer owns a home. He's also not a fan of working from one.

The Tesla CEO told employees in a pair of emails last week that they are no longer allowed to work remotely every day and would be dismissed if they spend too little time at the office.

"Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla," Musk wrote May 31. "This is less than we ask of factory workers."

Musk sent a similar proclamation to workers at SpaceX and said he would consider exceptions for "particularly exceptional contributors" who can't meet his mandate. Without his personal approval, he warned, "if you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned."

Musk referenced the months he spent sleeping at Tesla's Fremont, Calif., plant as the company was preparing to launch the Model 3 sedan in 2018, saying that without his constant presence there, "Tesl…

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Dealer declines to buy 3-wheeled Honda after crash

After crashing into a freeway wall, an Indiana man tried to get rid of the evidence by driving his damaged SUV straight to a nearby dealership and asking the store to buy it from him, according to police.

When Jordon Mattingly arrived at D-Patrick Honda in Evansville, his vehicle was missing a tire and had clear signs of having been in a recent collision, the Evansville Courier & Press reported.

Mattingly, the 30-year-old son of former MLB player Don Mattingly, appeared "super drunk," a witness at the dealership told police, and had minor injuries to his shin and forehead.

He told police that the damage to his vehicle was caused by hitting a pothole two days earlier and that he had gone to the store to sell it and buy a new one.

Mattingly had reportedly arrived at the dealership about 15 minutes after a caller reported seeing a silver Honda matching his vehicle driving erratically and hit a nearby freeway wall at abo…

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Liebert out after another short stint as a CEO

Carl Liebert's career in the real estate business lasted just 20 months, but that's still more than four times as long as he survived in auto retailing.

Liebert, who was ousted from AutoNation in 2019 after 133 days as its CEO, took the top job at Keller Williams parent Kwx in October 2020. Keller Williams last week said Liebert was leaving, effective immediately, to "pursue other opportunities."

Just as he was at AutoNation, Liebert had been a industry newcomer and the successor to a beloved, longtime leader stepping aside to be chairman. At Keller Williams, that leader, co-founder Gary Keller, has been reinstalled as the top executive while the firm examines its future needs.

AutoNation called Liebert a bad fit for the role and handed him a nearly $4 million severance package on the way out the door. It wasn't clear last week whether Liebert was leaving Keller Williams with such a generous golden parachute, though the firm avoided any negative public…

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GM cobalt supplier admits to bribery

Glencore, a key supplier of cobalt to General Motors for its upcoming electric vehicles, admitted to bribery and market manipulation and said it will pay about $1.5 billion to settle U.S., U.K. and Brazilian probes that have hung over the commodities giant for years.

The settlements will help remove a question mark that has long overshadowed the trader's business but show how far the company, founded by U.S. fugitive Marc Rich, has been willing to go in pursuit of profit. Rich fled to Switzerland in 1983 and died there in 2013.

Glencore units agreed to plead guilty to a list of charges that range from bribery and corruption in South America and Africa, to price manipulation in U.S. fuel-oil markets.

"Bribery was built into the corporate culture," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said at a May press conference. "The tone from the top was clear: whatever it takes."

Glencore paid more than $100 million in bribes to government officials in Braz…

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New Lexus RX, RZ spindle design ushers in new era

TOKYO — No more controversial mugs for Lexus—

The premium brand's polarizing spindle grille — derided as the Darth Vader death mask by some critics — is getting a face-lift for a kinder, gentler look thanks to the brand's shift to electrification.

With no engine to cool in Lexus' upcoming line of electric vehicles, there is no need for a gaping front air intake — or the brand's trademark gaping grille to shield it.

Lexus global design chief Koichi Suga told Automotive News that the makeover is already underway, with the new RZ full-electric crossover unveiled in April and the soon- to-arrive redesigned 2023 RX crossover revealed last week in Japan and at a media event at Toyota Motor North America's headquarters in Plano, Texas.

Lexus is sticking with the spindle motif. But going forward, it will be structurally incorporated into the solid body paneling. Say so long to the spindle grille; say hello to the "spindle…

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Elon Musk’s warning about recession seen as ‘canary in the coal mine’

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk's "super bad feeling" about the economy could be the auto industry's "canary in the coal mine" moment, signaling a recession for an industry whose bosses have shown no signs of concern.

Musk said the electric carmaker needed to cut about 10 percent of its workforce in an email to executives seen by Reuters. He later told staff that white-collar ranks were bloated and he would keep hiring workers to make cars and batteries.

Musk's warning is the first loud and public dissent in a united stance by the auto industry that underlying demand for cars and trucks remains strong despite two years of global pandemic. One executive this week called demand "sky high."

"Tesla's not your average canary in the coal mine. It's more like a whale in the lithium mine," Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a research note, referring to the metal used in EV batteries.

"If the world's largest EV company warns on jobs and the economy, inve…

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Magna makes transmission transition to EVs — carefully

Magna International Inc. is homing in its research and development efforts on electric- and hybrid-vehicle projects as it works to balance light but growing volumes of parts for next-generation vehicles with demand for its “traditional” lineup of products.  

About 70 percent of the engineering projects under way at North America's largest supplier are now geared toward EVs or hybrids, and the company’s powertrain division is no exception, the unit’s president Tom Rucker, told Automotive News Canada. It is a considerable mismatch when compared with the 15 percent of Magna’s production currently devoted to electrified-vehicle programs.

But the company’s research pipeline sends a clear message about what will be driving growth at the company through the 2020s. Once slow to materialize, EV demand is picking up at a rapid pace, Rucker said.  

“Many or most of our customers are shifting their focus away from traditional ICE [internal-comb…

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Rare Jaguars, first Land Rover to celebrate queen’s 70 years

Jaguar Land Rover will celebrate Queen Elizabeth's 70 years on the throne with 26 vehicles in the Platinum Jubilee Pageant and the donation of a Defender 130 to the British Red Cross.

The pageant on Sunday is scheduled to feature two of the queen's Land Rover Defenders, three Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles from James Bond films and a collection of Jaguar convertibles, including a bespoke 1965 Series 1 E-type Roadster with metallic blue paintwork inspired by the United Kingdom's Union Jack flag. Also participating in the event will be the first Land Rover unveiled at the 1948 Amsterdam Motor Show, an F-Pace plug-in hybrid and an electric I-Pace from the E-Trophy racing series.

The procession is to follow a nearly 2-mile route echoing the route of the queen's 1952 coronation.

"It is a true honor for our vehicles to play a part in this momentous occasion to mark Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee," JLR Chief of Staff Chris Thorp said in a statement. "As the U…

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Toyota mulls a compact pickup. But there’s a catch …

PLANO, Texas — Those watching closely have noticed that the white-hot Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz compact pickups have already racked up nearly 50,000 sales in 2022 through May — an impressive pace in a down U.S. market from what had been an abandoned segment.

But guess who else is eyeballing those results and wondering whether it's time to rekindle its own compact pickup legacy?

The answer is Toyota, but an antithetical bit of emissions regulations might actually make it harder for the Japanese automaker to leap back into the compact pickup segment it once dominated.

"There is space" in the Toyota lineup for a pickup beneath the current midsize Tacoma, said Jack Hollis, senior vice president of automotive operations at Toyota Motor North America. "The question is, how to fill it?"

Hollis — who himself introduced the Toyota A-BAT concept compact unibody pickup at the 2008 Detroit auto show — told Automotive …

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Ford rolls out headset for dealership service techs to connect with vehicle experts

Richard Hershey is one of about 50 technicians certified to work on the Ford GT supercar, and sometimes the automaker will ask him to leave his job as lead tech at Pompano Ford in Pompano Beach, Fla., to visit other dealerships to work on the high-performance sports car.

Hershey and other Ford dealership technicians now have a new tool for their toolbox, one that paid immediate dividends in troubleshooting a recent problem with a GT.

It's called SWIS, for "See What I See," and it is very similar to a wearable small-screen computer complete with voice- activated commands. The headset's eyeglasses allow Ford's Technical Assistance Center to see what the dealership's technician sees and suggest fixes while allowing the technician to be able to work with both hands.

Hershey was sent to investigate why a GT would go into failsafe mode once it hit 160 mph on the racetrack. Without SWIS, a logical repair would have been to replace the t…

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Stellantis pleads guilty, to pay $300M to settle U.S. diesel emissions probe

FCA US, a subsidiary of Stellantis, pleaded guilty and is paying more than $300 million in criminal penalties to resolve a federal investigation that it conspired to mislead regulators and consumers about the emissions control systems in 101,482 Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram 1500 models.

The affected vehicles were equipped with the company's second-generation EcoDiesel engine spanning the 2014 to 2016 model years.

The U.S. Department of Justice, in court documents Friday, said FCA "purposely calibrated the emissions control systems on the subject vehicles to produce less NOx emissions during the federal test procedures, or driving 'cycles,' than when the subject vehicles were being driven by FCA US’s customers under normal driving conditions."

The automaker pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, commit wire fraud, and violate the Clean Air Act. The plea agreement includes a fine of $96.1 million along with the forfeiture of…

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DAILY DRIVE PODCAST: June 3, 2022

Kellen Walker gives you the top headlines. Stellantis faces federal conspiracy charges. GM Cruise scores its first permit to offer paid driverless car rides in California. Elon Musk wants to cut jobs at Tesla. Plus, Fixed Ops Digital CEO Owen Moon talks about how marketing can help dealership service departments hold onto drivers of older, out-of-warranty vehicles.

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