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Greg Wohlford, a General Motors shop chairman who helped run the automaker's ventilator production out of his home plant in Kokomo, Ind., died of COVID-19on Monday, according to a post from his family.

Wohlford, shop chair of UAW Local 292, which represents workers at a GM parts plant in Kokomo, and his team began building ventilators to help treat people with the virus at the onset of the pandemic in 2020. From April through August, about 1,000 workers in Kokomo built 30,000 ventilators after GM agreed to a $490 million government contract to partner with ventilator manufacturer Ventec Life Systems.

The 30,000 ventilators were more than double the number in the Strategic National Stockpile at the time.

Wohlford had been an instrumental manager and an advocate for the Kokomo plant and workers, said Local 292 President Matt Collins.

"He is just a good guy. He always had the best intentions, worked hard for the people. For me personally, it was lik…

Stellantis is bringing in a former Ford marketing executive to lead its Chrysler brand.

Christine Feuell, who held numerous roles at Ford, including director of global marketing strategy, will join Stellantis on Monday and report to CEO Carlos Tavares, the automaker said in a news release.

Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis was leading the Chrysler brand on an interim basis before the hire.

Feuell will helm a brand that is short on product and in need of direction, but she'll be given time to turn it around. Tavares said in May that he's affording each of the 14 brands melded together from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group a 10-year window to execute a business plan.

In the U.S., Chrysler sells two minivans and the long-running Chrysler 300. Dealers and analysts have said Chrysler lacks purpose and could use more product, including a crossover, to flesh out the lineup.

Feuell most recently was chief commercial officer at Honeyw…

Few companies have professed more sweeping ambitions in the automated-driving technology realm than Intel Corp. and its Mobileye subsidiary.

Now Mobileye has added fresh updates to long-standing blueprints that have included everything from engineering advanced driver-assist systems to purchasing a consumer-facing transit app to developing its own lidar sensors, and much more.

At IAA in Munich, the company unveiled the six-passenger, electric autonomous vehicle that it will use for driverless ride-hailing service, slated to start next year in Tel Aviv and Munich.

Service in Munich will be run in conjunction with a new partner, rental-car company Sixt SE, the companies said Tuesday. Mobileye will own the vehicles while Sixt handles ongoing maintenance and operations. The vehicles arise from Mobileye's partnership with Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio.

They will operate under the Sixt and "MoovitAV" banners, the latter being an updated version of…

Hyundai Motor Group is doubling down on its contrarian bet that hydrogen is the wave of the future, unveiling a bold rollout plan for fuel cell technology in everything from sports cars to commercial trucks and drones while targeting price parity with battery electrics by 2030.

The strategy, unveiled Tuesday under the banner of Hydrogen Wave, spells out the South Korean automaker’s ambition to popularize hydrogen power for “everyone, everything and everywhere” by 2040, not only in cars and trucks, but in public transport, industry, infrastructure and homes.

“Hyundai Motor Group’s vision is to apply hydrogen energy in all areas of life and industry such as our homes, work-places and factories,” Hyundai Group Chairman Euisun Chung said while announcing the road map in an online forum, which will be followed by an on-site exhibition of the hydrogen technologies, vehicles and concepts this month in Goyang, South Korea.

“We want to offer practical solutions …

MUNICH -- Volkswagen plans to crack an industry barrier and offer used-vehicle leases on its ID family of electric vehicles, including those in North America, as a strategy to keep control over their valuable batteries, VW executives told Automotive News.

Speaking on Monday with journalists here at the Munich auto show, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess said the secondary leases would allow VW to recycle the valuable battery packs into new uses, including home power centers and fast chargers.

"In Europe, we are trying to get a second lease and even a third lease, and keep the car in our hands," Diess told a group of American automotive journalists, adding later that the same plan would be rolled out in North America. "Battery life, we think today is about 1,000 charging cycles and around 350,000 kilometers [about 215,000 miles], something like that. So, the battery would probably live longer than the car, and we want to get hold of the battery. We don't want t…

BEIJING -- Japanese automakers Honda Motor Co., Nissan Motor Corp. and Toyota Motor Coirp. saw their sales in China tumble in August as a chip shortage hit vehicle production in the world's biggest car market.

Honda said it sold 91,694 vehicles in China last month, down 38 percent from a year earlier due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a shortage of components.

Nissan said it sold 113,166 cars in China in August, down 11 percent, due to "external headwinds including on-going pandemic, material shortage and natural disasters across the country".

Toyota said it sold 144,800 cars last month there, down 12 percent from the same month last year.

A prolonged global chip shortage has caught major automakers including Ford Motor, General Motors and Volkswagen off guard, forcing many to idle or curtail production.

The shortage was unlikely to be resolved soon as the pandemic rages on in many parts of the world, China's top auto industry body said last …

BEIJING -- Geely has hired Stefan Sielaff, the former design chief of British luxury brand Bentley, as China's manufacturers increasingly turn to new styles to boost sales in the world's biggest car market.

Sielaff, who also worked for Volkswagen Group and Daimler AG, will be based in Sweden's Gothenburg and lead design of the domestic Geely, Zeekr, Lynk & Co and Geometry brands, the company said in a statement.

He will not manage design for Geely's Volvo and Polestar brands.

Chinese car companies historically rolled out models that looked similar to foreign brands. But as sales increased, many -- including Geely, Great Wall and BYD -- have built up their own studios, usually led by international designers, to create fresh designs.

Hangzhou-based Geely, which owns Volvo Cars and a 9.7 percent stake in Daimler, has turned to more sporty designs to boost car prices. Sales at rival Changan jumped this year thanks to its more futuristic designs, w…

China needs to adapt regulatory measures to guard against Internet and data security risks associated with the development of intelligent vehicles, such as the unauthorized collection of personal information, according to an official at the information technology ministry.

“If regulatory measures cannot keep up in time, network security issues such as network attacks and network intrusions may post major security risks,”  Xin Guobin, a vice minister with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at a forum in the city of Tianjin on Saturday.

Industry regulators will require companies to conduct self-inspections on automobile data security, network security and software upgrades, Xin said. It will study entrance standards for access to the intelligent-car network, according to the vice minister.

Xin, who forecast China’s sales of alternate-energy vehicles may rise to more than 1.7 million in the first eight months of this year and acc…

MUNICH -- Mercedes-Benz previewed the EQS large full-electric SUV with a concept for the ultraluxury Maybach brand.

The Concept Mercedes-Maybach EQS was unveiled at the Munich auto show on Monday.

It's a physical concept with a virtual interior designed to recreates the "feel-good atmosphere of an elegant yacht," Mercedes said in a statement.

The concept is a "near production" preview of the first full-electric model from Maybach, Mercedes said.

"We are extending our leadership aspirations in the high-end segment to the area of electric mobility," said Philipp Schiemer, head of the Top End Vehicle Group at Mercedes Cars. The Top End group includes Maybach, AMG and the G-Class.

The concept has Maybach's signature two-tone paint finish but otherwise presents a "completely new appearance" for the brand with its smooth exterior design, Mercedes design chief Gorden Wagener said in the statement.

"We are completely redefining the luxury S…

China's Great Wall Motors is returning to Europe with a new premium strategy after failing to win over customers for budget vehicles.

Great Wall Europe launched a plug-in hybrid under the premium Wey brand and a more youth-focused electric small car from its Ora brand at the Munich IAA auto show on Monday.

The launch country for Wey will be Germany, followed by either Italy or Spain, then a Europewide rollout, Johnson Qiang, Great Wall's executive vice president for Europe, told Automotive News Europe on the eve of the show.

Qiang said Germany was chosen because it is Europe's largest vehicle market and because Wey wants to establish itself as a premium automotive brand. To do that it needs to compete against powerhouses such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

"We have confidence in the product," he said.

Qiang said Ora will debut in one of Europe's five largest markets -- Germany, the U.K., France, Italy and Spain -- or in one of the Nordic …

BMW's i Vision Circular concept previews "a sustainable car of the future," CEO Oliver Zipse said.

The concept is built almost entirely from recyclable materials, Zipse said at the car's unveiling at the IAA Munich auto show on Monday.

The four-seat electric car shows the automaker's mindset when it comes to sustainable mobility, Zipse said.

Its design is optimized to use materials that have already completed a product life cycle alongside organic raw materials.

The concept's solid-state battery is 100 percent recyclable.

"It will achieve much higher energy density with significantly reduced use of the most valuable resources," BMW said in a statement.

Zipse said the concept does not preview the automaker's upcoming electric cars based on the Neue Klasse (German for New Class) architecture.

Instead, BMW is looking ahead to a compact model for the year 2040 with the i Vision Circular concept.

"We appreciate there are m…

As the global microchip shortage drags on, depleted dealership lots are sending some customers into a frenzy.

When one shopper at Burns Chevrolet in Rock Hill, S.C., saw another customer peering into the Tahoe that he wanted to buy, he began shouting at her.

"The woman only wanted to look inside," said Claude Burns, president of Burns Chevrolet, Burns Cadillac and Burns Ford of York. "And he's hollering, 'Get away from that truck. I'm buying it.' That was uncomfortable for everybody."

Customer frustration likely will worsen this month as shuttered plants and slowing production lines prevent dealerships from being able to restock.

This week, only four of General Motors' 14 North America assembly plants are scheduled to be online. One Ford F-150 plant is dark, and the other is operating on only one shift. And Toyota Motor Corp. is in the midst of a production cutback that is expected to cost the automaker 360,000 vehicles of output globally this mo…