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Automakers and dealers daydream of selling new vehicles to order, of washing away all the inventory carrying costs onto their respective bottom lines by delivering vehicles to ready buyers as soon as they're driven off the truck.

But if the U.S. auto retailing market is ever going to migrate to those more profitable practices — instead of just temporarily stumbling through them as happened during the pandemic — both automakers and dealers are going to have to get exponentially better at customer communications and managing customer patience.

How do I know? Let me tell you the story of "No matter what."

Nine months ago, on Sept. 16, 2022, I placed an order with my local Ford dealership for a new Maverick Lariat hybrid pickup in Atlas Blue Metallic. I knew that I would be waiting months and months for delivery, given ongoing production constraints across the industry.

I was — and still am nine months later — completely OK with that.

My order…

The supplier industry's big gainers last year were dominated by battery makers and microchip producers.

Top 10 gainers in global OE automotive parts sales Dollars in millions   2022 global OE sales 2021 global OE sales Change 1. Nifco $2,193 (f) $316 (e) 594% 2. SK On Co. $6,040 (e) $2,685 (e) 125% 3. CATL $33,500 (fe) $15,075 (fe) 122.2% 4. STMicroelectronics $5,250 $3,515 49.4% 5. Huizhou Desay SV Automotive Co. $2,210 (f) $1,484 (f) 48.9% 6. Samsung SDI $15,624 (e) $10,523 (e) 48.5% 7. Iochpe-Maxion $3,248 (f) $2,382 (fe) 36.3% 8. Visteon Corp. $3,756 $2,773 35.4% 9. CITIC Dicastal Co. $5,718 $4,311 32.6% 10. Ningbo Tuopu Group $2,146 (f) $1,656 (f) 29.6% e = estimate, f = fiscal year, fe = fiscal year estimate Source: Automotive News Research & Data Center

SUSUNO, Japan — Toyota Motor Corp. is coming to grips with Tesla trauma by rekindling its famed manufacturing mojo.

Tesla taught the world that low-cost, ultraefficient, outside-the-box production engineering is the secret sauce for making modern electric vehicles. Now the company that invented lean manufacturing is digging deep into its roots to rethink its factories, production lines and logistics. Its conclusions about a better way to assemble vehicles could help Toyota rush out a new generation of EVs in just three years.

Among the solutions it will embrace: allowing cars to drive themselves through factories without assembly lines.

Tesla may have beat Toyota at its own game in reinventing key aspects of car building. But the Japanese giant insists its world-renowned Toyota Production System still has lots of tricks in store. And executives say the coming breakthroughs, rooted in the company's tried-and-true principle of kaize…

For one small franchised dealership group in Kansas, completing the steps to certify every used vehicle — within reason — has proved to be a timely and helpful venture.

Marshall Motor Co., of Salina, Kan., aims to factory-certify all used-vehicle inventory that qualifies. The group, which has Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram and Nissan storefronts, had certified some Chrysler used-vehicle inventory since 2004. But the particular practice in focus here has been in place since May 2017, when Randall McCoy, used-car manager at the time, advocated for it. McCoy is now retired.

General Manager Jason Stroda said the dealerships look at certifying any used Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram and Nissan vehicles, most of which are five model years old or newer and don't have more than 75,000 miles on the odometer. The reasons: to capitalize on the value of those vehicles and to differentiate Marshall from other used-vehicle dealerships in the region that don't have a c…

Washington state plans to require electric vehicle charging companies to include Tesla's plug if they want to be part of a state program to electrify highways using federal dollars, an official told Reuters on Thursday.

Washington follows Texas' move to mandate Tesla's technology, The North American Charging Standard (NACS), adding momentum to CEO Elon Musk's hope of making it the national charging technology.

GM, Ford and Rivan have said they would embrace Tesla's NACS, shunning the Biden administration's efforts to make the Combined Charging System (CCS) the U.S.'s dominant charging standard.

"I'm actually really happy about NACS and how finally automakers are gearing towards one standard. We want to provide access to as many makes and models as possible," said Tonia Buell, alternative fuels program manager at Washington state's Department of Transportation.

"It hasn't necessarily been tested and certified for other auto manufacturers, so we w…

The next four years might be "some of the most uncertain and volatile for product strategy ever," according to the annual "Car Wars" Bank of America Global Research report released Thursday.

New electric vehicle launches, uncertainty around ICE launches and a challenging macro environment will shape the automotive industry's product pipeline from 2024 to 2027, the study concludes.

The study predicts EV market share overall will grow significantly as legacy automakers grow their EV offerings.

EV sales in the U.S. could grow from 1.6 million in 2023 to 4.6 million in 2026, with penetration growing from 11 percent to 26 percent over that same period, according to the study.

"Overall, we conclude that ICE dominance is over with 64 percent of powertrain offerings projected to be alternative over MY2024-2027," the study said.

The EV market might look different by 2026, the study said. As legacy automakers race to produce new EV models, Tesla's …

WASHINGTON — UAW President Shawn Fain on Friday harshly criticized the U.S. Energy Department plan to lend $9.2 billion to a joint venture of Ford Motor Co. and South Korea's SK On to build three U.S. battery plants.

Fain called the loan a massive "giveaway" with "no consideration for wages, working conditions, union rights or retirement security" that would help create low-paying jobs adding, "Why is Joe Biden’s administration facilitating this corporate greed with taxpayer money?"

The wages of workers at battery JV plants are expected to be a key issue in contract talks that start next month with the Detroit 3 automakers.

The $9.2 billion low-cost government loan for the BlueOval SK joint venture is the biggest ever from the government auto lending program that will help finance construction of three plants in Kentucky and Tennessee. SK is a unit of South Korea's SK Innovation.

The joint venture is building battery plants in Kentucky and …

Battery-electric trucks were affected by a fire at the Phoenix headquarters of commercial truck manufacturer Nikola Corp. early Friday morning.

Foul play is suspected, according to the company. A vehicle was seen near the trucks just before the fire, Nikola said on its corporate Twitter account. An investigation is underway.

A company spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the Twitter report. The company said five trucks were impacted.

"Once the situation is further assessed, we will have more information," Nikola spokesperson Nicole Rose said.

The Phoenix and Tempe fire departments responded to the incident, the company said.

The fire is the latest in a series of setbacks for the beleaguered commercial truckmaker once dubbed the "The Tesla of Trucking."

Last week, Nikola, announced 270 layoffs, with 150 at its European factory and 120 at its Phoenix and Coolidge, Ariz., facilities. The layoffs came as the company seeks to redu…

Holman Automotive Group and FedEx are accused in a lawsuit of conspiring to sell thousands of diesel fleet delivery vehicles with replaced odometers at inflated prices.

The plaintiffs — five consumers who purchased the vehicles in question and are seeking class-action status — say the companies' actions have hurt small-business owners, who have significantly overpaid for delivery vehicles that are past their useful life expectancies. The lawsuit was filed June 13 in U.S. District Court in New Jersey.

Typically, courier services such as FedEx and United Parcel Service retire older vehicles. Holman helped FedEx identify and scrap diesel fleet vehicles that had reached the end of their useful lives, around 350,000 miles, according to the lawsuit.However, the lawsuit states, FedEx beginning in or around 2011 pursued another revenue stream by remarketing the fleet vehicles instead of destroying them. Holman is accused mutually agreeing with FedEx to commit odometer …

Ford Motor Co. is planning additional layoffs to its salaried work force in the coming weeks, according to people with knowledge of the matter, although the cuts are not expected to be as large as previous rounds.

The automaker, which could announce the moves as early as next week, is expected to prune workers from multiple business units, including its Ford Blue combustion vehicle division and its Model e electric vehicle unit, according to the people.

The Wall Street Journal reported the impending job cuts Thursday.

"We've got nothing to announce," a Ford spokesman said in a statement to Automotive News. "We've consistently said that we'll align our staffing around the skills and expertise needed to deliver on the Ford+ growth plan and provide customers with leading product and services. That includes hiring in key areas."

Last year, Ford laid off about 3,000 workers around the globe, mostly in the U.S. The company said this year it would slas…

Used-car retail giant CarMax Inc. said Friday that net income slipped in its fiscal first quarter amid continuing challenges with vehicle affordability and inflation, as well as tightened lending standards and decreased consumer confidence that hindered how many vehicles it sold.

CarMax reported net income of $228.3 million in its first quarter ending May 31, down 9.5 percent year over year. The company's net revenue was $7.7 billion, down 17 percent.

CarMax retailed 217,924 used vehicles in the quarter, down 9.6 percent from the year-earlier period. Its comparable store used-vehicle sales fell 11 percent, an improvement over last year's third and fourth fiscal quarters. Comparable store sales fell 22 percent in the third quarter of 2022 and 14 percent in the fourth quarter.

The company also benefited from a $59.3 million legal settlement stemming from economic losses related to the decadelong industrywide recall of defective Takata airbag inf…

<!--*/ */ /*-->*/ Level 3 presents a complicated, ‘mushy middle’ in automated driving

An automated driving breakthrough set to reach public roads this year likely will motor into a thicket of legal complications and other hurdles.

Mercedes-Benz plans to sell vehicles equipped with Drive Pilot, a Level 3 automated system and the first of its kind in the marketplace. Such a system can maintain control and responsibility of a car in certain scenarios. However, the human driver must take control upon the system's request.

When active, Drive Pilot allows motorists to shift their attention from traffic, according to Mercedes.

Volvo and Audi tried to offer similar systems years ago, abandoning them after finding they could not untangle the legal, regulatory and safety quandaries that still accompany Level 3 driving.

Level 3 systems are "an engineer's dream and a plaintiff attorney's next yacht," said Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at …