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BMW is ramping up spending on its electric-car rollout after the luxury-car maker’s battery-vehicle deliveries more than doubled during the first half of the year.

The level of buyer interest in EVs means BMW is "investing more than originally planned in the global ramp-up of e-mobility," Chief Financial Officer Walter Mertl said Thursday. During the second quarter, development spending jumped by nearly a fifth to 1.84 billion euros ($2 billion).

Battery-powered car sales made up about 13 percent of group deliveries during the first half led by demand for models including the i4 sedan and iX3 SUV. Next year, the proportion of EV deliveries is set to rise to at least one-fifth, BMW said.

Incumbent carmakers are battling to catch up to Tesla, which is pulling away in the global EV sales race following aggressive price cuts.

In China, the most important market for Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, local manufacturers like BYD are increasingly domi…

Lauren Armbruster is a service adviser at Maple Hill Auto Group in Kalamazoo, Mich.

First car: 1991 Geo Prism

First concert you attended: Warped Tour

Name a pet peeve: People who have no self-awareness

Most thrilling/adventurous thing you've done: Traveled to Japan with friends

Your personal hero, and why: My mom; she's the best

One thing you learned on the job you never forgot: Always talk about the positive

If you could pick up a new skill, what would it be? I'd like to be better at cooking.

3 people you'd invite to dinner, living or dead: Tom Hanks, Oprah, my grandpa

What did you want to be when you were a kid? Chef

What's your Netflix binge show? "Love Is Blind"

You're king/queen for a day. What's your first order? Free healthcare!

First album/CD you bought: "Tragic Kingdom" by No Doubt

The most important room…

Chevrolet has decided not to build an entry-level 1LT trim on the new 2024 Blazer EV, pushing the starting price of the electric midsize crossover above the $45,000 mark it originally was targeting.

A front-wheel-drive version of the Blazer EV 2LT, scheduled to arrive next year, will be the base model instead, Chevy said. Blazer EV shipments to dealerships began this week with an all-wheel-drive RS trim that starts at $60,215 including shipping.

The brand did not say what the new starting price for the nameplate will be. Chevy said last summer when revealing the Blazer EV that the fwd 2LT was expected to start around $47,595. A 2LT with awd will go into production this fall at a price of $56,715 including shipping, Chevy said this week.

The planned 1LT entry trim that was announced in July 2022 was to have started around $44,995, Chevy said at the time. A Chevrolet spokesperson told Automotive News that the brand envisions higher trim levels on the…

Vehicle listings company TrueCar is jelling nicely as a smaller entity in the wake of a 24 percent work force reduction and restructuring announced in June, new CEO Jantoon Reigersman said during the company's second-quarter earnings call Tuesday.

"The team is working tremendously well coming together," Reigersman said. "It's a smaller team, it's a nimble team, and the team continues to work super hard. It's an exciting time for the company."

Reigersman, most recently TrueCar's COO, was appointed CEO as part of the company's restructuring plans. His brief comments about the staff reductions came at the end of the investor call.

TrueCar said in June that it would cut 102 positions, and the effort would incur $7 million in restructuring charges, excluding stock-based compensation, in the second and third quarters. Those expenses include one-time employee benefits and severance payments.

It will take some time before TrueCar, of Santa Monica, Calif…

A conversation with David Li, co-founder, and CEO of Hesai Technology, which has quickly become one of the largest lidar companies in the world. Plus, pent-up retail and fleet demand helps Ford, Honda, and Suburu sales. And UAW President Shawn Fain makes "audacious" demands of Detroit 3 automakers.

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The Fremantle Highway, the car carrier ship that caught fire off the Dutch coast last week, could generate a cargo loss of more than $330 million, said Patrick Anderson, an economist with Anderson Economic Group.

"It does appear after multiple days of fire that it is likely that all of the cars are a total loss and be very difficult to salvage any vehicles out of this," he said. "Certainly no vehicle that endured that fire damage and water damage can be sold as new in the United States."

Anderson, whose firm is based in East Lansing, Mich., referenced the Felicity Ace fire in 2022, when he called for a safety review of commercial car carriers. The Felicity Ace was carrying about 4,000 vehicles, including Volkswagens, Porsches, Audis, Bentleys and Lamborghinis — some of them electric with lithium ion batteries — when it caught fire and sank in the Atlantic Ocean.

The fire on the Panamanian-registered Fremantle Highway, which was carrying new cars, resul…

Supplier BorgWarner Inc. saw strong second-quarter growth in revenue and a small dip in earnings amid the completion of its aftermarket spinoff.

The supplier said net earnings fell 5.5 percent to $204 million, but operating income surged 40 percent to $383 million from last year. Second-quarter revenue rose 20 percent to $4.52 billion, up from the stagnation of the same quarter last year because of conversion on sales and customer pricing, BorgWarner executives said. The suburban Detroit company supplies powertrains and turbochargers.

"We continue to expect to deliver strong organic growth to drive improved profitability in our e-products as we leverage our top-line growth and to continue to make the necessary investments to support the long-term profitable growth of our e-product portfolio," BorgWarner CFO Kevin Nowlan said in a call with investors Wednesday.

The supplier's net merger, acquisition and divestiture expenses spiked this quarter, up $47 m…

Three consumers who accused DARCARS Automotive Group dealerships in Connecticut of charging more for vehicles than was advertised have withdrawn their 2022 lawsuits against the group.

Mary-Jo Halloran had ended her case against DARCARS Infiniti of Greenwich over alleged behavior under its prior ownership, when it was known as Greenwich Infiniti, in January. Arkadiusz and Katarzyna Gaska withdrew their action against DARCARS Lexus of Greenwich on June 1, two weeks after they succeeded in having the litigation returned to the Connecticut judicial system from a federal court.

Details related to the resolution of the two cases were unavailable.

"Unfortunately, I am not able to discuss the nature of any agreement between my clients and DARCARS for those two files," Daniel Blinn, managing attorney of Consumer Law Group in Hartford, Conn., and counsel for Halloran and the Gaskas, wrote in an email to Automotive News.

Emails seek…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk hasn't offered many key details about the coming Cybertruck — such as final pricing and range — even after celebrating the first pickup rolling off the assembly line. But he has dropped hints that Tesla is targeting the Ford F-150 in both serious and humorous ways.

After Tesla showed an image of the "first Cybertruck built at Giga Texas" in mid-July, Musk commented on the size of the pickup, which is smaller than the prototype first presented in 2019. The proportions of the four-door truck also favor bed size compared with current rivals, such as the F-150 Lightning.

While the Cybertuck has wild styling and is sometimes dismissed as a lifestyle vehicle by analysts, Tesla has some specific metrics in mind to compare against rival pickups, both gasoline and electric.

"Musk has promised and boasted big numbers," said Robby DeGraff, product and consumer insights analyst at AutoPacific. "Brute strength, insane performance and grand range…

TOKYO – Electric-vehicle latecomer Subaru is dramatically stepping up the pace in the global electrification race, planning now to build EVs in the U.S. from around 2027 and sell some 400,000 battery-powered cars in the U.S. by 2028 – a volume amounting to nearly half its current U.S. sales.

New CEO Atsushi Osaki, in announcing the plan Aug. 2 with quarterly financial results, said the Japanese automaker also wants to get half its global volume – an estimated 600,000 units – from full-electric models in 2030. Osaki envisions worldwide sales of 1.2 million vehicles that year.

Subaru will also expand its EV lineup to eight models, from an earlier envisioned four.

The new EV goals are a step up from Subaru’s previous electrification plan.

As recently as May, Subaru targeted global sales of 400,000 EVs a year starting in 2028 by adding a second line in Japan. It wanted 40 percent of its global sales from EVs and hybrids in 2030.

But Osaki said …

French-based Automotive Cells Company is in early talks with officials in Canada and the U.S. on setting up a battery manufacturing plant in North America.

ACC is a joint venture between Stellantis, Total Energies and Mercedes-Benz Group.

Its representatives met with officials from the Quebec government in Canada, from the mayor's office in the city of Mirabel in Quebec, and with representatives of the federal government in the province in May this year, according to the provincial and federal government lobby registry.

The lobbying efforts were to enquire about direct funding, incentives and grants related to site selection, development and construction of a new battery processing facility in the province of Quebec, according to public documents.

"ACC is conducting simple exploratory studies, without commitment. We are focused on executing our already very ambitious European industrial and technological roadmap," a company spokesperson said in a …

SALT LAKE CITY — Toyota's venerated Land Cruiser nameplate rejoins the brand's U.S. lineup next year in a trimmed-down and less-expensive form much closer to the off-roader's roots than its bloated predecessor, which had evolved to overlap similar body-on-frame Lexus models.

The 2024 Toyota Land Cruiser will be smaller, more nimble and equipped with a hybridized turbocharged powertrain, a host of infotainment and driver assistance features and a boxy look that evokes its early heritage.

Imported from Japan and based on the Land Cruiser Prado that Toyota sells in Japan and other global markets — badged in the U.S. as the Lexus GX — the U.S. version of the Land Cruiser will start in the mid-$50,000 range, Toyota said. In comparison, when Toyota suspended U.S. sales of Land Cruiser in 2021 after a 63-year run, the low-volume off-roader started at $86,880, including shipping.

"This icon belongs in our lineup," Toyota division head Dave Christ said in a writ…