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A 2022 Jeep Wrangler four-door tipped over on its passenger side during a driver-side small overlap crash test, receiving a "marginal" rating, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said Thursday.

The news comes after the 2019 Wrangler also tipped onto its passenger side during an audit for the test and also received a "marginal" rating. According to a statement from IIHS, Stellantis made modifications to the 2022 model to try to address the issue.

IIHS said tipping on the passenger side "presents an additional injury risk beyond what the standard criteria are intended to measure" since the institute does not conduct the test with a dummy in the passenger seat.

"There are other things that sometimes happen during crash tests that sort of fall outside of the normal metrics that we use to assign a rating," IIHS spokesperson Joe Young told Automotive News. "Obviously, rolling onto the side could present additional risk to a person that would be seated…

Jeremie Papin has spent the past 24 months orchestrating sweeping change over Nissan Motor Co.'s Americas business.

As the region's top boss, the Frenchman is transforming Nissan's product lineup, sales strategy and organizational culture.

"We are different to what we were," said Papin, 48. "We speak about the products, we speak about the brand — we don't speak about the deal. We're focused on the customer experience."

That's a bold about-face for a brand that historically has pumped out vehicles and built a business on selling the deal.

But the Japanese automaker's "Nissan Next" strategy is beginning to pay dividends. A freshened product portfolio has revived consumer interest in the brand and raised dealer profitability and sentiment.

The brand's U.S. sales rose 12 percent last year, an optimistic reversal from 2020, when the automaker suffered its largest annual percentage decline.

Meanwhile, 22 percent of retailers in Kerrigan …

Stellantis said it secured lithium essential for its electric vehicle production in North America from a project in California, as carmakers worldwide scramble to secure supply of the battery metal key to the electric vehicle revolution.

Controlled Thermal Resources Ltd. (CTR) will supply the owner of Jeep and Peugeot with up to 25,000 metric tons per year of lithium hydroxide over the 10-year term of the agreement, Stellantis said Thursday.

CTR, which operates in California's Salton Sea, is also developing a geothermal lithium brine project to meet General Motors' lithium needs.

Lithium demand has soared of late as automakers boost production of electric vehicles that use lithium-ion batteries, driving a global supply shortage of the metal.

Stellantis, formed in 2021 through the merger between France's PSA and Fiat Chrysler, said in March it would have 75 EV models on the market and sell 5 million EVs a year by 2030.

The company has also…

Ford Motor Co. said it will invest $3.7 billion and create 6,200 UAW jobs across manufacturing hubs in three Midwest states as it looks to increase production of both internal combustion and electric vehicles.

The majority of the investment — $2 billion supporting 3,200 new jobs — will come in Michigan at Ford's Flat Rock Assembly Plant, Rouge Electric Vehicle Center, Michigan Assembly Plant, nearby parts factories and a new packaging facility coming to Monroe.

Ford said Thursday the investments would go toward producing the next-generation Mustang coupe at Flat Rock Assembly and the next-generation Ranger midsize pickup at Michigan Assembly, and boosting F-150 Lightning output at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center to 150,000 pickups per year. Ford set Lightning production goals in January but until now had not announced any additional jobs or investments related to that planned production increase.

Ford also plans to spend $1.5 billion and create 1,800…

China’s electric vehicle startups reported stronger sales for May and forecast continued gains for June as supply chains and output begin to recover from the disruption of COVID-19 lockdowns in Shanghai and other cities.

Li Auto Inc. reported a May sales gain of 166 percent from a year earlier to 11,496 vehicles on Wednesday. Xpeng Inc. posted a gain of 78 percent with 10,125 deliveries. Nio Inc. delivered 7,024 EVs, up 5 percent from a year earlier.

All three companies cautioned that output had not yet fully recovered, constrained by parts supply issues. Shanghai, a key production hub, ended a two-month lockdown for most residents on Wednesday.

Industry-wide sales data for May, including for the EV leaders in China, BYD and Tesla, are expected by next week.

China has announced a range of measures to support auto sales and the sputtering economy, including a halving of the tax on purchases of small-engine vehicles with sticker prices of up to abou…

An LMP Automotive Holdings Inc. shareholder has filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status against the fledgling auto retailer after the company disclosed last month that it would have to restate financial statements for three quarters of 2021.

Chris Nguyen filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court in Florida, alleging violations of federal securities laws and that the company made false or misleading statements and failed to disclose adverse facts about LMP's business. LMP CEO Samer Tawfik and CFO Robert Bellaflores also were named as defendants.

"As a result of defendants' wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the company's securities, plaintiff and other class members have suffered significant losses and damages," the complaint states.

Tawfik did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

LMP's stock price has plummeted in the past year. In 2021, the stock had traded above $…

J.D. Power has purchased finance and insurance menu and reporting programs from the auto retail software company Tail Light.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed in J.D. Power's Thursday announcement of the acquisition.

"The pace of digital transformation in auto dealerships has been staggering, and the F&I department has been leading that charge with growing demand for digital menu solutions that clearly and consistently display financing details and special offers to consumers whether they are in the showroom or buying online," Phil Battista, J.D. Power's dealership technologies president, said in a statement.

"Similarly, demand has grown for analytics and reporting solutions that allow dealers to optimize their F&I offerings. By augmenting our rapidly growing suite of dealer-focused F&I solutions with Tail Light's F&I technology and resources, we are solidifying our role as an end-to-end data analytics and software solutions provider t…

Bill Sheahan from Spectrum Reach Automotive discusses the opportunities that strategic data driven-digital advertising provides dealers and how to reach audiences in today's fragmented media landscape.

Volvo Cars and video game company Epic Games are partnering to improve the role of the human-machine interface for Volvo's next generation of electric vehicles.

According to a statement Wednesday, Epic Games will use a visualization tool known as Unreal Engine. Unreal Engine — used to power the popular video game Fortnite — will run on the HMI and provide "state of the art graphics" and other key features such as multi-user scalability and high-speed, two-way data communications systems.

In an email to Automotive News, Epic Games spokesperson Richard Gotch said that while other companies had been using Unreal Engine for several years, the partnership marked the first time Epic Games is collaborating with a European vehicle manufacturer on an HMI project.

"Unreal Engine is already used in some way by most of the world's major vehicle manufacturers, with applications ranging from sales configurators to styling, engineering and manufacturing planning," Got…

SHANGHAI -- China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group conducted its first successful satellite launch on Wednesday, sending nine units into low earth orbit as it builds out a satellite network to provide more accurate navigation for autonomous vehicles.

The self-designed and manufactured GeeSAT-1 satellites, were launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

Geely said it expects another 63 to be in orbit by 2025 and eventually plans to have a constellation of 240.

With the launch, Geely becomes the second major automaker to have an allied space business. SpaceX, owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has more than 2,000 satellites in orbit for its Starlink network that offers commercial internet services.

Starlink plans to have a first-generation network of 4,408 satellites.

While SpaceX uses its own rockets to launch its satellites, Geely used a Long March 2C rocket developed and operated by a Chinese stat…

WASHINGTON — Eight automakers have improved their emergency response guides for EVs and incorporated vehicle-specific details on extinguishing lithium ion battery fires following a recommendation last year by a federal safety agency.

The National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday said Honda, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Volkswagen and Volvo — along with electric commercial vehicle maker Proterra and electric bus maker Van Hool — have completed the actions asked for in the recommendation issued in January 2021 to 22 vehicle manufacturers.

The agency asked those manufacturers to model their emergency response guides on international safety standards and to include vehicle-specific information on extinguishing electric vehicle battery fires as well as mitigating thermal runaway and the risk of battery reignition.

Twelve automakers, including Ford, General Motors, Tesla and Toyota, are making progress on the recommendation, the agency said. Two other…

DETROIT — Buick is giving customers and dealers a hint of its future design philosophy with the Wildcat electric vehicle concept unveiled Wednesday.

As the brand plans to launch an all-electric lineup in North America by the end of the decade, it will also revamp its design approach by giving vehicles a more sculptural look, wider stance and more spacious interior.

"We are on the cusp of true change, and this concept is a tangible vision of it," Sharon Gauci, executive director of global Buick-GMC design, said in a statement. "It inaugurates the next chapter in Buick's design heritage as we make the crucial transition to our all-electric future."

Every future production vehicle will be informed by the Wildcat concept in some way, Gauci told Automotive News.

The Wildcat shows Buick's new face for EVs, with a low-mounted mouth where a grille would typically be and high-mounted, check mark-shaped headlights and taillights. The windshield wraps arou…