News

FRANKFURT — The drama that played out in recent weeks at the highest levels of Volkswagen Group can be explained with these two facts:

1. VW is in the midst of a generational shift toward a fully carbon-neutral business over the next 30 years.

2. The software-enabled, zero-emission vehicles favored by CEO Herbert Diess will have a dramatic effect on employment at the German behemoth.

In the end, the warring factions reached a tentative cease-fire over the future of the transformation plan and its embattled architect, Diess.

With no clear succession, investors feared his potential departure would paralyze the carmaker. That could have created a power vacuum that risked torpedoing the CEO's ambitious strategy and enveloping the company in further internal strife.

Supervisory Board Chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch brokered the truce that strengthened the hand of his CEO, whose ambitions include finally achieving a p…

DETROIT — As recently as the middle of this year, UAW President Rory Gamble assumed that the 85-year-old union would soon be stripped of its power and independence by the federal government.

A 3-year-old corruption investigation was continuing to uncover crimes at the labor organization's highest level, including by Gamble's two most recent predecessors, and U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider publicly criticized the UAW's lack of "active cooperation." Schneider made clear that one option available to him involved placing the union under federal receivership through the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

"It was very dim," Gamble told Automotive News last week. "I knew I needed to sit down with the prosecutor, but I also knew I couldn't go into that meeting empty-handed. The only way we were going to be able to salvage this thing is if we took some severe actions and got some value-added, serious reforms in place. We needed to sh…

Despite efforts by automakers and U.S. safety regulators to alert vehicle owners of safety recalls beyond the required mail notification, more must be done to address recall effectiveness, says Wayne Mitchell of Stericycle Expert Solutions.

Mitchell is global director of automotive solutions for the firm, where he helps automakers and parts suppliers with various business processes including recall outreach and identifying the status and condition of recalled vehicles.

"Is that vehicle on the road anymore or is it a tin can?" he told Automotive News. "There's no use mailing to the … last registered owner for two years if that car is crushed and has been recycled."

NHTSA in summer launched a mobile app called SaferCar that automatically checks for safety recalls and alerts users when a recall has been issued. Hyundai Motor Co. also introduced license plate reader technology through its website for U.S. drivers to access open safety recalls and service c…

About a half-dozen driverless testing deployments. The unveiling of perhaps the most thoughtful self-driving vehicles produced to date. A blockbuster acquisition.

No, the final stretch of 2020 has not lacked for excitement.

In a year in which many wondered whether the pandemic would slow the pace of autonomous-driving developments, the opposite has happened, and the scramble of activity has underscored the potential of robotaxis carrying passengers around urban areas.

It also has brought into sharper focus the business models that companies are formulating to capture a slice of what Zoox CEO Aicha Evans calls a "multitrillion-dollar opportunity."

Zoox may be the most ambitious in its aspirations. From its inception six years ago, the Bay Area startup embarked on a plan to handle the major challenges involved in a ride-hailing business all by itself: Develop its own self-driving system. Create an all- electric, purpose-…

Demand for active safety systems is increasing the number of sensors in cars, but technology supplier Aptiv believes it can significantly reduce costs by using a central processor.

The Ireland-based company says it will launch a scalable platform that links sensors within a car to deliver up to Level 2-plus autonomy.

By replacing smart sensors with simpler versions that feed into a central processor, Aptiv claims it can cut an automaker's cost for an advanced driver assistance system by nearly 90 percent for vehicles using the same architecture.

The cost reduction would be 50 percent for vehicles on different platforms, David Paja, president of Aptiv's advanced safety and user experience division, told journalists during an online briefing this month.

Paja said Aptiv's new system will be available with Level 2-plus capability next year, adding that it would also be possible to provide over-the-air updates to the technol…

Tesla Inc. halted some construction work at its German plant project after failing to make a security deposit with local authorities.

Brandenburg’s environment ministry stopped tree removal activity and the installation of paint-shop machinery at the site until the funds are received, a spokeswoman for the ministry said Friday, declining to comment further.

Tesla needs to provide a 100 million-euro ($122 million) deposit with local authorities to cover the cost of tearing down the factory if the project doesn’t receive final approval, Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper reported earlier. Having missed a Thursday deadline, the U.S. carmaker now has until Jan. 4 to come up with the funds, or risk having preliminary approvals revoked, the daily said.

Any major delays would be a blow for Tesla’s ambitious timetable to have its first European factory up and running by the middle of next year. The company plans to eventually produce as many as 500,000 cars annuall…

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles plans to invest $23 million in a 250,000-square-foot vehicle customization facility in Toledo, Ohio, to support nearby production of the Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator, according to Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz.

In a Friday news release, Kapszukiewicz said the Toledo City Council would vote next week on whether to authorize the sale and development of the property, which would be operated by a supplier and employ about 300 workers. The site formerly housed operations for an automotive fabric supplier and an emergency ambulance service provider.

If approved, the city would sell the property for $1. If FCA fails to develop the site for the intended use within four years, Toledo would also have the option of buying back the property for $1.

"The iconic Jeep brand has a special connection and history with Toledo and all of its residents," FCA said in a statement. "We appreciate the City Council's consideration…

U.S. traffic deaths decreased nationwide in 2019 with a fatality rate the lowest since 2014, according to annual data released Friday from NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

NHTSA reported 36,096 fatalities in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2019, down 2 percent from 36,835 in 2018 even as travel rose 0.8 percent.

The fatality rate fell to 1.1 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, the lowest rate since 2014, compared with 1.14 in 2018. Alcohol-impaired driving fatalities decreased to the lowest percentage since 1982.

"We saw notable reductions in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities, as well as fewer lives lost in alcohol-impaired driving crashes," NHTSA Deputy Administrator James Owen said in a statement. "If we're to keep building on these numbers, everyone needs to do their part by driving sober, wearing their seat belts, avoiding speeding and distractions, and sharing the road with pedestrians and cyclists."

…

Tesla has thrilled some investors and jarred others by soaring to a valuation of as much as $649 billion, more than what the world’s seven largest automakers were collectively worth at the beginning of this year. The company is now comfortably in a category by itself, defying even CEO Elon Musk’s warnings.

“I actually said the stock is too high a long time ago,” Musk said at the start of December. “But they didn’t listen to me.”

For startups aiming to mimic Musk’s success and for traditional automakers struggling to disrupt themselves, most lingering doubts about future demand for electric vehicles have dissipated. Thanks in large part to the Tesla phenomenon, a consensus has emerged that they are undeniably the future.

“What you’ve had is a greater realization of the inevitability” of EVs, said Michael Pye, an investment manager at Baillie Gifford, which oversees about $370 billion and is one of the biggest shareholders of both Tesla and China-based EV…

DETROIT — UAW President Rory Gamble doesn't believe the Detroit 3 should mandate that its factory workers be vaccinated against COVID-19, but he hopes to make the shots widely available and encourage union members to get one.

"UAW members are American," he said in an interview. "In America, you get people with different religious beliefs, you have people who are just of the opinion that they don't take any vaccines at all. We think that should be respected. We're very willing to sit down and work out with the companies going forward how we manage those issues."

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission this week said companies can, with limited exceptions for medical or religious reasons, legally require employees to get the vaccine, which is in the early stages of distribution. But Gamble said he thinks General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will approach the process much like they handle yearly flu shots, which are not mandatory.

LOS ANGELES — Kia Motors America named Bill Peffer chief operating officer and executive vice president after serving as vice president of sales operations since July 2017.

Peffer, 50, will lead all customer-facing functions in the U.S., Kia said in a statement, including sales, marketing and service. He will report to Sean Yoon, president and CEO of Kia Motors America and Kia Motors North America.

The appointment is effective Jan. 1.

"In the most difficult of circumstances, Kia's U.S. sales have outperformed the industry throughout 2020 under Bill's leadership," Yoon said in the statement Thursday. "This promotion is well deserved, and with five all-new and significantly redesigned vehicles slated for introduction in 2021 Bill will play an increasingly important role in the growth and maturation of the Kia brand."

Prior to his arrival at Kia in July 2017 to steer sales, Peffer had been president and COO of New England dealership group Balise Mot…