News

Editor's note: All financial figures in this story have been translated from Canadian to U.S. dollars at current exchange rates.

Unifor members overwhelmingly ratified a new three-year contract with General Motors that includes a commitment to invest up to $1 billion to revive its Oshawa assembly plant in Canada.

Unifor said 85 percent of workers who voted did so in favor of the three-year deal. The contract covers about 1,600 GM workers, most of them at a St. Catharines powertrain plant. The Oshawa plans call for an additional 1,400 to 1,700 workers to be hired by 2022.

“This contract solidifies and boldly builds on GM’s Canadian footprint,” Unifor President Jerry Dias said in a statement.

The ratification of the GM contract wraps up 2020 auto bargaining between Unifor and the Detroit 3 automakers. During the talks, Unifor and the automakers agreed to as much as $3.5 billion in investments in Canadian assembly plants, in addition to new spending …

Cars.com lost money in the third quarter on lower revenue, though the dealership services company showed signs its business is recovering from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Chicago company, which provides vehicle listings and other dealership services, reported Monday that it posted a net loss of $12.3 million in the quarter that ended Sept. 30. That compares with a net loss of $426.2 million in the third quarter of 2019, which included a charge against earnings related to the end of a nearly yearlong strategic review process.

Cars.com said Monday that its net loss in the third quarter of this year includes a $30.9 million non-cash charge against earnings to correct an income tax valuation calculation error related to the company's first-quarter results.

Revenue in the quarter fell 5 percent to $144.4 million, which Cars.com said mostly was driven by a pandemic-related drop in national advertising revenue and in its dealership customer cou…

MILAN -- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA unveiled the logo of Stellantis, the company resulting from their planned merger.

The automakers said the logo was a further step towards the finalization of their deal to combine into one company.

The automakers agreed in December to merge in a $38 billion all-share deal to create the world's fourth-biggest carmaker, uniting brands such as Fiat, Jeep, Dodge, Ram and Maserati with Peugeot, Opel, Citroen and DS.

"The logo symbolizes the rich heritage of Stellantis' founding companies and the unique combined strengths of the new group's portfolio of 14 storied automotive brands, as well as the diversity of professional backgrounds of its employees working in all the regions," the two automakers said in a joint statement on Monday.

FCA and PSA in July said they had picked 'Stellantis' as a name for the merged group. They said it was in reference to the Latin verb "stello," which means "to brighten with stars…

Editor's note: NHTSA gave Nuro approval to deploy up to 5,000 R2 vehicles over two years. An earlier version of this story from Reuters had the incorrect time frame. Also, Mountain View, Calif., is the only city testing the vehicle in California. The earlier version misstated the number of cities testing the vehicle in California.

Self-driving delivery company Nuro, whose R2 unit has no pedals or steering wheel and only room for packages, said Monday it has raised $500 million as e-commerce gets a huge boost from the pandemic.

Nuro joins other self-driving firms that raised big money this year. Earlier this year Google affiliate Waymo raised $3 billion, helping to boost the total raised in 2020 by autonomous car companies to $7.1 billion as of Nov. 4, according to data firm PitchBook. While that slightly exceeds 2019’s total, it falls short of the record $9.4 billion raised in 2018. Also far fewer startups are getting funded.

Early last year Nuro raised …

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.

Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke says the stars are aligning for U.S. retailers to have a robust spring selling season. He believes the rosy outlook will be driven by key factors such as tax-refund season, a new round of stimulus and consumers' changing attitudes toward car buying.

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PARIS -- A trademark dispute over its logo has left Polestar, the electric-vehicle brand owned by Volvo Cars and Geely, temporarily unable to launch its cars in France. 

Ruling in a case that dates back to 2017, a French has court found that Polestar’s logo is similar enough to Citroen’s “double chevron” design as well as the logo of DS Automobiles, formerly a Citroen sub-brand, to potentially confuse car buyers. 

The court, in a ruling dated June 4 and published in July, ordered Polestar to pay Citroen 150,000 euros in damages as well as legal fees, and banned the use of the Polestar logo in France for six months.

Polestar this spring launched the Polestar 2, a Chinese-built full-electric sedan that is positioned as a rival to the Tesla Model 3, for the Chinese, European and U.S. markets. The first Polestar 2 models arrived in Europe in at the end of June. 

But French visitors to Polestar’s website see only a white page with the m…

In the still-male-dominated auto industry, women often carefully navigate their approaches as leaders. Their strategies vary, but many say learning to strike a balance between assertive and collaborative is key.

Several of Automotive News' 100 Leading Women described having low confidence early in their careers, often because they lacked experience or were the only women on their teams. Other honorees in the 2020 Leading Women class said they were more aggressive than they needed to be as they were getting started to ensure that their voices were heard.

The balance comes down to "listening to understand but not being run over," said Janet Barnard, chief people officer at Cox Automotive. "We have to find ways to communicate differently than men do generally. I hate to have to give myself over to that, but I think that's the reality."

Women often won't apply for a new position unless they believe they can check every box for skills …

Samatha Chamarthi credits a Chrysler women's resource group event in the 1990s for sparking a dream career milestone.

She intently listened as some of the automaker's female executives such as Sue Unger and Nancy Rae described how they broke through barriers and ascended the industry ladder; they were role models.

"I was in the auditorium," recalled Chamarthi, who was born in India. "I still remember sitting somewhere in the middle inspired by these women thinking one day I should become a CIO of an automotive company. I was a software programmer back then."

Chamarthi now is chief information officer for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in North America and Asia Pacific — and is one of Automotive News' 100 Leading Women honorees. She made her remarks during an Automotive News virtual roundtable in August.

She is one of many Leading Women honorees who say they feel compelled to help other women excel and climb the ladder in th…

19 CEOs

11 presidents

6 CMOs

5 COOs

2 CIOs

78 are on the list for the first time

68 have at least one postgraduate degree

75: Age of the oldest

31: Age of the youngest

18 were college athletes

72 companies represented

2/3s are extroverts

1 has been on all five lists

Smashing the auto industry's remaining glass ceilings can be difficult work — but it's much more fun if you have a friend who's always standing by with a hammer.

That's the case with Leah Curry and Susan Elkington. In the early 2000s, the two met as managers in the welding shop of Toyota's massive assembly plant in Princeton, Ind. Though vastly different, they quickly became lifelong friends, trusted confidantes and, over time, champions of each other's careers.

Today, they command two of Toyota Motor Corp.'s largest assembly plants and are among the 2020 Automotive News 100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry.

Elkington, 49, is president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky — the automaker's largest assembly plant in the world — which makes the Camry and Camry Hybrid, Avalon and Avalon Hybrid and the RAV4 Hybrid, as well as the Lexus ES 350 and ES 300h.

Curry, 59, is president of Toyota Motor Manufact…