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Toyota Motor Corp. has dismissed some workers at one of its plants in China, three workers told Reuters, as the Japanese automaker struggles with a price war and sales slump in the world's largest auto market.

The joint venture between Toyota and China's state-owned Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) laid off the workers over the weekend and offered them compensation, said the workers, who declined to be named for privacy.

The workers affected were hired by labor service companies and dispatched to work at the factory of GAC Toyota in the southern city of Guangzhou.

Reuters was unable to determine how many workers in total were dismissed. GAC and Toyota did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

The GAC Toyota factory has an annual output capacity of 1 million vehicles and employs around 19,000 people, according to its website. It produces models including Camry, Levin and bZ4X.

Toyota's move comes after peer Mitsub…

NEW DELHI - Tesla representatives are set to meet India's commerce minister this month to discuss plans to build a factory to produce what the company has described as a new $24,000 car, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Tesla has expressed an interest in building a factory in India to produce low-cost EVs for the local market and for export, the person said, adding that the company had indicated the factory would be for the new vehicle.

The meeting with the commerce minister would be the highest level discussions between Tesla and the Indian government since June when Elon Musk met India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said he intended to make a significant investment in the country.

The 2 million rupee ($24,000) EV Tesla representatives were said to have described in discussions about an Indian plant would be 25 percent cheaper than its lowest priced offering, the Model 3 sedan, selling for a bit more than $32,200 in China.<…

Stellantis and Samsung SDI are teaming up on a second battery plant in the U.S. as the automaker works to develop a supply chain to support its electric vehicle ambitions.

The companies, already building a battery plant in Kokomo, Ind., that begins production in 2025, have signed a memorandum of understanding to build another facility slated to go online in early 2027. The second facility's location remains under review.

The plants are being established under StarPlus Energy, the Stellantis and Samsung SDI joint venture company.

Stellantis is planning for EVs to make up 50 percent of its passenger car and light-duty truck sales mix in the U.S. by 2030, while aiming for 100 percent in Europe during that time frame. Stellantis said it is securing about 400 gigawatt hours of battery capacity to achieve these sales targets.

Stellantis is aiming for the latest plant to have an initial annual production capacity of 34 GWh. The automaker said it intend…

General Motors is launching a new advertising campaign that aims to reposition its OnStar service as the digital connection underpinning in-vehicle safety, connectivity and entertainment.

The campaign set to launch Monday gives OnStar a new tagline — "Better Never Stops" — and includes a commercial promoting the brand as the link behind all of GM's vehicle technology, from its Super Cruise hands-free driver-assist technology to real-time navigation.

Previously, OnStar used the tagline "Be Safe Out There," which GM said will continue to be part of safety-related messaging.

GM is transitioning to an all-electric lineup and developing its Ultifi software platform, which will enable software-defined vehicles offering apps and other features through over-the-air updates. The automaker has said it expects software and subscription services to generate revenue in the range of $20 billion to $25 billion by 2030.

Amid that transition, the automaker in re…

The definitive guide for all-new, redesigned, freshened and reengineered vehicles hitting the market in the next five years just got an update.

Our annual Future Product Pipeline series kicks off this week with a new, interactive tool that allows you to filter our vehicle database by brand, segment, powertrain, year and type of update. This puts the entirety of our Future Product intelligence at your fingertips.

The new feature adds to the breadth and depth of coverage from our staff experts.

Our first deep dive covers the new metal coming from General Motors, which is in the early stages of its electrification transformation. After starting its journey with higher-end models, EVs are coming to more mainstream segments. Production has begun or is scheduled to begin this year on electric versions of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup and Equinox and Blazer crossovers.

GM CEO Mary Barra has said getting more affordable EVs in mainstream segments to mark…

Our annual Future Product Pipeline: Redesigned for 2023

The definitive guide for all-new, redesigned, freshened and reengineered vehicles hitting the market in the next five years just got an update.

Our annual Future Product Pipeline series kicks off this week with a new, interactive tool that allows you to filter our vehicle database by brand, segment, powertrain, year and type of update. This puts the entirety of our Future Product intelligence at your fingertips.

The new feature adds to the breadth and depth of coverage from our staff experts.

Our first deep dive covers the new metal coming from General Motors, which is in the early stages of its electrification transformation. After starting its journey with higher-end models, EVs are coming to more mainstream segments. Production has begun or is scheduled to begin this year on electric versions of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup and Equinox and Blazer crossovers.

GM CEO Mary Barra ha…

The vice president of autonomy at Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, breaks down the company’s “measured” approach to using self-driving technology to underpin a revenue-generating business.

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The definitive guide for all new, redesigned, freshened and re-engineered vehicles hitting the market over the next five years just got an update.

Our annual Future Product Pipeline coverage now includes an interactive tool that allows you to filter our vehicle database by brand, segment, powertrain, year and type of update. The new feature adds to the breadth and depth of coverage from our staff experts, putting the entirety of our future product intelligence at your fingertips.

Our first deep dive of 2023 covers the new metal coming from General Motors, which is in the early stages of its electrification transformation. Check out the future lineup for all GM brands and stay tuned each week through Oct. 2 as we detail the five-year product plans of all automakers and brands.

Sign up for our weekly Cars & Concepts newsletter to keep track of all product news.

The end could be nearing for Cadillac's internal combustion lineup.

As more electric vehicles debut over the next few years, including the Escalade IQ full-size SUV being revealed in August, General Motors' luxury brand also likely will begin to phase out some of its gasoline-powered sedans and crossovers. Cadillac intends to have an all-electric lineup by 2030.

John Roth, who took over as vice president of global Cadillac in June, has said internal combustion vehicles will "coexist" alongside the brand's EVs for several years. Forecasters say the gasoline-powered lineup eventually will be on its way out, though the timing is fluid.

Rory Harvey, Roth's predecessor at Cadillac before being promoted to GM's president of North America, in February said Cadillac was preparing to debut three EVs this year to enter production in 2024. The Escalade IQ was the first new EV announced since.

All future EVs will have names that end in "iq," Cadillac has sai…

Like many of you, I've been struggling of late to wrap my head around this nation's EV market and where it's heading. The latest registration data from Experian hasn't made it any easier to ascertain.

But if I had to guess, I think what we are seeing is an unnatural market, instead of just an immature one.

The Experian data in a nutshell:

Registrations of new electric vehicles — a proxy for sales — are up. Demand is up. The inventory of EVs is up, and now is over 100 days' supply, according to Cox Automotive. Prices are up, except where they're down. Tesla's $18,000 slice off the Model Y starting price fueled a huge sales bump, while Ford cut the sticker price of its Mustang Mach-E by up to 7 percent in May and the F-150 Lightning by as much as $10,000 last week.

EVs as a percentage of light-vehicle registrations are up, now representing 7 percent of the market, compared with 4.6 percent just a year ago. New EV registrations rose…

FRIEDRICHSHAFEN, Germany — Holger Klein, CEO of ZF Friedrichshafen, said young automotive brands such as Tesla, Nio, Xpeng and Lucid are pushing the old German supplier in a different way than traditional automakers.

"They have a different expectation on speed," he said. "Speed is king."

The emerging brands want ZF's newest technologies as quickly as possible, even if some bugs haven't been eliminated in development.

"If your latest innovation feature doesn't work as reliably as you would expect from a German premium brand, it's somehow OK," he told Automotive News Europe during a recent roundtable discussion at the supplier's headquarters here. "This happens when the customer wants a particular car and a particular function and is willing to accept some deficiencies."

The privately held ZF is the world's No. 3 auto supplier globally, with estimated 2022 revenues of $42.1 billion, according to Automotive News' Top Suppli…

Buick has introduced its last new gasoline-powered vehicle.

Following the debut of the Envista subcompact crossover this year, every new model Buick launches will be an electric vehicle.

The brand will begin its transition to an all-EV lineup next year, heading toward the same 2030 target as Cadillac. Upcoming EVs will expand Buick's portfolio from only four nameplates in production now.

All future EVs will use the Electra naming convention, along with an alphanumeric, the brand has said. General Motors President Mark Reuss said at the automaker's investor day in November that "as we electrify Buick, we've got an opportunity to really change the way people think about it and appeal to a whole new group of people."

Buick leaders say that work is underway with its internal combustion lineup, including the Envista, which is the first all-new vehicle to draw design inspiration from the brand's Wildcat EV concept.

"Success of the Envista and th…