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Automotive sales will pick up in 2021, credit bureau TransUnion predicts, though primarily for customers with prime and above credit. As the U.S. economy continues to muscle through the deadly coronavirus pandemic, nonprime customers will steadily vanish from the market.

This slowdown in nonprime originations isn't likely to stem from auto lenders tightening their underwriting practices, said Satyan Merchant, senior vice president and automotive business leader at TransUnion. Rather, a slowdown in demand from consumers in these credit tiers will curtail purchases in the new year.

Subprime automotive balances reached historic lows in the spring as the economy buckled under shelter-in-place orders and unemployment rates not seen since the 1930s. Strong consumer demand and aggressive automaker incentives drove sales and profits in the second half of the year, though consumers in the lower credit tiers were largely left out of the recovery.

Xpeng Inc., the Chinese electric-vehicle maker that’s surged since its August U.S. stock listing, has started entering the European auto market with an initial batch of deliveries to Norway.

The Guangzhou-based company has begun handing over the first 100 of its G3 sport utility vehicles to customers in the country where EVs have seized a dominant market share. The model starts from 358,000 krone ($41,000).

Xpeng will enter more nations in Europe but will spend the next 12 months deciding where to go next and laying the groundwork for sales, President and Vice Chairman Brian Gu said in an interview.

“In the long run, if you want to be a successful EV company, you have to be a global one,” Gu said. “We’re starting the effort to build our presence, doing limited testing in certain markets and treating this as a very long-term strategy.”

Xpeng and Chinese peers Nio Inc. and Li Auto Inc. are among EV companies catching a slipstream behind Tesla Inc. t…

Join Automotive News Publisher Jason Stein for a daily podcast series about the coronavirus crisis. He’ll speak with industry experts, insiders and Automotive News reporters about how the virus is impacting and reshaping the automotive industry.

Galpin Motors President Beau Boeckmann says business has stayed strong at the Los Angeles-area dealership group despite lower sales volume, fewer customers in showrooms and a second wave of shutdowns in California.

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A federal judge is weighing a request to move the tax fraud case against former Reynolds and Reynolds Co. CEO Bob Brockman closer to his home in Houston.

Attorneys for Brockman, who until last month was chairman and CEO of the Dayton, Ohio, dealership management system provider, expanded on arguments they made in earlier court filings during a hearing Tuesday — namely, that government prosecutors have not alleged that Brockman personally committed any criminal acts in the Northern District of California, where the indictment against Brockman was filed, and the judge should give weight to Brockman's age and failing health when making a decision.

Prosecutors oppose transferring the case to U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, where Brockman's lawyers want it to be tried, and say California is the correct venue for all of the charges filed against Brockman.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup did not rule on the change-of-venue request duri…

WASHINGTON -- Honda Motor Co. said Tuesday it is recalling 1.4 million vehicles in the U.S. under four separate campaigns, including some linked to reported fires.

The Japanese automaker said one recall covers 268,000 2002-06 model year CR-V crossovers to replace power window master switches. Honda said there had been no reported injuries, but 16 fires reported related to the issue.

Honda conducted a prior recall of the power window master switches in 2012. The new recall is in response to moisture-related failures of switches repaired under the previous action.

Honda is also recalling about 735,000 2018-20 Accord and 2019-20 Insight vehicles to update the body control module software. A programming flaw could disrupt communication causing illumination of several warning lights and malfunction of electronic components, it said.

Honda is also issuing two recalls covering 430,000 Acura and Honda vehicles in 22 U.S. states to inspect and potentially …

Jack Thompson, dealer principal of Thompson Organization, a four-store dealership group in Doylestown, Pa., died Dec. 8 of COVID-19. He was 89.

A love for cars inspired Thompson to fulfill a dream of owning an automotive franchise.

He opened his first store — one of the initial Toyota dealerships in the U.S. — in 1969. He also had a passion for racing, which pushed him to acquire a BMW franchise in 1981.

In 1989, he added Toyota's luxury Lexus brand. The dealership group now owns and operates Thompson Lexus Doylestown and Thompson Lexus Willow Grove.

Throughout his 50-year career as a dealer, he acquired numerous franchises. In addition to the Lexus stores, the group now consists of Thompson Toyota and Thompson BMW. Thompson Collision Center and Thompson Detail Center also operate under the organization.

"He was passionate about this dealership and his employees and his customers," his daughter Laura Bar…

Jerry Sloan, who was Ford Motor Co,'s executive director of public affairs before becoming a professor at his alma mater, died Thursday, his 84th birthday.

Sloan began his public relations career at Ford in 1960 as editor of the employee publication at a Cleveland stamping plant. He rose to become director of corporate information in 1980 and joined American Motors Corp. three years later. He was AMC's vice president of public relations before returning to Ford in 1987, after AMC was bought by Chrysler Corp.

Jim Trainor, director of communications at Hyundai Motor America, worked under Sloan at Ford in the late 1980s.

"He was special," Trainor told Automotive News. "You wanted to be like him, and you wanted to work like him."

Trainor remembers Sloan's sense of humor and outsize personality. But Sloan was also tough and expected the best, Trainor said.

Sloan was instrumental in starting a master's degree program in communications for Ford PR…

Self-driving truck company Gatik and Walmart announced Tuesday that their autonomous vehicle pilot in Bentonville, Ark., is going driverless.

Last year, the companies began moving orders on a 2-mile route between a dark store, one that is not open to the public, and a neighborhood market, Walmart's name for its smaller-footprint locations. The autonomous vehicles successfully completed more than 70,000 miles on that route.

The expansion of the pilot, coming in 2021, will include the elimination of safety drivers on the Arkansas route and the start of a second, longer route in Louisiana with autonomous deliveries to a Walmart pickup point, a place where customers can receive goods they have ordered.

"This achievement marks an historic technological and regulatory milestone for the industry, signifying the first ever driverless operation carried out for the supply chain's middle mile — with the safety of all road users firmly entrenched at the heart of our…

President-elect Joe Biden announced Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday as his nominee to lead the U.S. Transportation Department, making him the first of Biden's Democratic rivals for the presidency to land a role in his Cabinet.

Biden also is expected to choose former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm as secretary of energy in his administration, according to two people familiar with the decision.

Buttigieg, 38, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who has never held federal office, would be the first LGBTQ person nominated to Biden's administration and, if confirmed, the first LGBTQ Cabinet secretary to be approved by the U.S. Senate.

Granholm, 61, was Michigan's first female governor, serving two terms in the battleground state, from 2003 to 2011. She worked with Biden, who was vice president under former President Barack Obama, on the 2009 bailout of automobile manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler .

A spokesman for Biden's transition team did …

The CEO of Intel Corp-owned Mobileye on Tuesday laid out plans for a self-driving car system for 2025 that could use house-built lidar sensors rather than units from Luminar Technologies Inc.

Luminar shares closed down 17.6 percent after Reuters reported the move. In November, Mobileye signed a supply agreement with Luminar to use its lidar units in the first generation of Mobileye's driverless vehicle fleet.

Luminar told Reuters that there has been no change to that agreement and that Luminar has also supplied lidar units for Mobileye development vehicles for nearly two years. Luminar said its units, which are only one part of Mobileye's broader self-driving system costs, are priced at less than $1,000 and exceed Mobileye's cost and performance requirements.

Amnon Shashua, CEO of Mobileye and an Intel senior vice president, told Reuters that Mobileye's first generation of full self-driving kits -- which will include Luminar's lidar units along with a ra…