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Ford Motor Co.  said on Monday it has signed a preliminary deal to buy lithium from a Lake Resources facility in Argentina, marking the first time the automaker has publicly announced where it will procure the electric vehicle battery metal.

The deal is a major bet by Ford on direct lithium extraction, or DLE, a relatively new breed of technologies that filter the metal from brines and use far less acreage than open-pit mines and evaporation ponds.

General Motors, BMW, Stellantis and other Ford rivals have inked supply deals of their own with companies planning to use DLE technology.

Ford aims to buy 27,000 tons annually of the white metal from Lake's Kachi project in northern Argentina, which is being developed with privately held extraction startup Lilac Solutions Inc.

Lilac's technology, like all DLE technologies, has yet to work commercially, though it has the support of Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures and other high-profile inve…

SHANGHAI — Contemporary Amperex Technology has implemented a so-called "closed-loop management" system at its main factory to keep production going as the country battles an Omicron wave of the coronavirus.

The southern Chinese city of Ningde, where CATL is headquartered, has tightened prevention and control efforts because of a spate of COVID-19 cases, the company said in a statement Monday.

"For the moment, to ensure market supply to the best of our capabilities, we have adopted strict grid management measures for the orderly operation of Ningde production base," said CATL, the world's largest supplier of EV batteries to automakers such as Tesla Inc.

A representative for the company added that they started the system on Saturday evening, and had made arrangements for key workers, who do not usually stay in dormitories within the factory's premises, to live there during this period.

China's "closed loop management" process resembles a bubble-like…

Del Grande Dealer Group, of San Jose, Calif., has expanded in the Golden State by purchasing three rooftops in the past eight months, adding Hyundai-Genesis, Hyundai and Honda dealerships.

The group said that in September it bought Hanlees Fremont Hyundai from Hanlees Automotive Group. That dealership was renamed Fremont Hyundai.

On Jan. 19, the Del Grande group bought Stevens Creek Hyundai/Genesis of Stevens Creek in Santa Clara from Isaac Sargiz. It marked the group's first Genesis franchise. Del Grande retained the store's name.

Nearly a month later, on Feb. 16, the group bought its first Honda dealership, Sam Linder Honda in Salinas, from Sam Linder and Stewart Kerr. It renamed the store Salinas Honda.

"These acquisitions are complementary to our existing portfolio of top brands and are in line with our continued growth strategy," Del Grande Dealer Group CEO Jeremy Beaver said in a statement.

With the new stores, the group has 17 roofto…

American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. is acquiring Tekfor Group in a deal valued at more than $135 million as the U.S. automotive supplier expands its electrification portfolio.

American Axle's purchase of the Hausach, Germany-based company, announced Monday, comes with 2,100 employees across eight plants in Europe and America, including one in Ohio.

The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and expected to close in the second quarter.

"This acquisition leverages the core strengths of AAM with significant synergy potential, diversifies our geographic and customer sales mix and increases our electrification product portfolio. In addition, this purchase fits nicely with our recent tactical M&A approach," AAM Chairman and CEO David Dauch said in a news release. "We are excited to expand our metal forming technologies to serve a broad range of global customers."

The deal follows Detroit-based American Axle's $15 million investment in S…

DETROIT — Anthony Lo, hired last year as Ford Motor Co.'s chief design officer, plans to showcase more concept vehicles as electrification of the automaker's lineup presents what he calls a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to rethink how a vehicle should look."

The approach is a familiar one for Lo, 57, who spent the past decade at Renault, where he helped implement the company's "cycle of life" design strategy that resulted in a number of award-winning concepts.

"A concept car is not just simply a sculpture," he told Automotive News. "It's a platform for us to test experiences and think, ultimately, how the brand design language should evolve."

The public will get its first glimpse of Lo's vision April 20, when Ford plans to release an electric vehicle concept for its Lincoln luxury brand. The company on Monday shared a teaser image, calling the global concept "inspiration for our fully electric Lincoln vehicles coming in the near future."

China’s new light-vehicle market lost steam in March after expanding for three straight months, with production and shipments upended by restrictive measures widely adopted by local governments to contain a spike in coronavirus cases.  

Deliveries of new sedans, crossovers, SUVs, multipurpose vehicles and minibuses slid 0.6 percent to 1.86 million last month, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said on Monday. 

Minibus sales advanced 34 percent to around 45,000, while sedan deliveries edged up 0.2 percent to some 872,000. 

But multi-purpose vehicle sales slumped 24 percent to some 71,000, while the volume of crossovers and SUVs edged down 0.1 percent to about 876,000.

First-quarter sales of new light vehicles industrywide rose 9 percent to approach 5.55 million on strong volume generated in January and February.

The market for new commercial vehicles such as trucks and buses continued shrinking in March amid a …

Automakers are driving toward eliminating emissions in their vehicle fleets, production plants and supplier networks.

Mercedes-Benz said Monday it will more than halve its carbon footprint per passenger car by the next decade compared with 2020 levels.

The luxury marque will source 70 percent of its energy needs for production through renewable energy by 2030 by rolling out solar and wind power projects at its plants and through power purchase agreements.

In an online presentation, Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius described climate change as "our generation's most important task."

Mercedes' environmental focus will significantly affect the automaker's suppliers globally.

Sustainability will be an "awarding criteria," Källenius said.

"If you want to do business with us in the future, you need to have a sustainable business strategy," he said.

Mercedes-Benz Chief Technology Officer Markus Schäfer said suppliers representing 90 p…

General Motors said on Monday it has developed a global continuity plan with partners and suppliers to mitigate the uncertainty faced by the auto industry following China's COVID-19 outbreak.

The Detroit automaker said it was on track to launch more than 20 new and refreshed models in the world's biggest auto market despite the pandemic's impact.

The COVID-19 curbs introduced in China to fight the worst outbreak in two years caused auto sales in the country to plunge in March, with automakers such as Tesla Inc. feeling the pain of limits on production.

GM's sales fell 21 percent to 613,000 in China in the first quarter compared with a year earlier. Sales of its top-selling Chevrolet brand declined nearly 20 percent in the same period.

The lockdown, one of the biggest tests for China's "zero-COVID" strategy, has forced automakers and suppliers to either try to adapt with extreme measures to keep factories running or to shut down and risk delayed sh…

The automotive industry has historically responded to rapid technology advancements in a fast but familiar way: by integrating tech into vehicles at the hardware level. Although this has sufficed for years, the average modern vehicle now has more than 100 million lines of code. This reality has enabled upstart brands with more software savvy than manufacturing moxie to gain market share and high valuations. Between this new competition and increasing software complexities, traditional automakers are challenged not only to innovate and lead, but to ensure the safety and security standards they’ve upheld for a generation. Amid this struggle, a new truth has emerged: the demand for new software-defined features and the current automotive architecture are no longer compatible. 

As the auto industry moves closer to making smart devices with wheels, manufacturers need to shift from their existing work structures to an approach that empowers them to quickly develop, de…

As Toyota executes "the fastest ramp-up that we've ever had for a multimedia system," it will overhaul the electronics on the Corolla Cross subcompact crossover after just its first year on the market, and more nameplates will be upgraded in short order.

Between the Toyota and Lexus brands, the automaker expects 20 nameplates to be equipped with the new multimedia system this year. Toyota has plans to roll it out across both lineups over the next three years, though there could be "one or two niche vehicles" that take longer to equip.

"Normally, that would have taken us five to eight years to get this out, based on the remodel cycle," Zack Hicks, chief digital officer of Toyota Motor North America, said during a media roundtable last week.

Toyota introduced the 2022 Corolla Cross late last year as it sought to woo budget-conscious buyers in an increasingly competitive segment. The automaker plans to release the 2023 model in the late summer or early fa…

MINE, Japan — Internally at Mazda, engineers and executives have a name for the small brand's traditional slow-and-steady upmarket move. They call it the "inchworm strategy."

With each model's redesign, they keep the base price planted in the range of the previous generation. But top-grade stickers reach higher, capturing the value of ever-better vehicles.

The tactic has not only lifted transaction prices in recent years, it has burnished Mazda's image as something approaching premium. Employees have their own name for that: Mazda Premium.

But now, Mazda the inchworm is coiling up for more than a caterpillarlike crawl.

This year, it will attempt a big leap forward in a bid to remake the lineup and its brand image for an industry under siege by change. The overhaul centers around a range of larger and electrified new vehicles that Mazda bets will boost U.S. sales 35 percent to a record 450,000 in just four years.

In a word, Mazda Motor Cor…