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STOCKHOLM -- Volvo Cars expects business to recover in the second half of the year after reporting on Tuesday an operating loss for the first six months as coronavirus lockdowns strained supply chains and forced plant closures.

The Swedish-based carmaker also said that its planned merger with sister company Geely Automobile Holdings had been temporarily put on hold due to Geely Auto's plans to list in China. The companies will resume talks in the autumn.

Volvo returned to solid growth in China during the second quarter and expects a similar upturn in the United States and Europe.

"If the market recovers as we expect, we anticipate sales volumes to return to the levels we saw in the second half of 2019 and it is also our ambition to return to similar profit levels and cash flow," CEO Hakan Samuelsson said in a statement.

Market recovery has allowed the company to resume production in all factories, except the Charleston plant in Ridgeville, S,C., V…

TOKYO -- Toyota Motor Corp. will make 2 percent fewer vehicles globally in August than originally planned, the Japanese automaker said Tuesday, as output recovers gradually from a steep drop because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The company said it aimed to make 15,000 fewer vehicles than its initial plan, which was around 750,000, according to Reuters' calculations. August's reduction is smaller than the cut of 10 percent seen in July, and June's 40 percent reduction.

Toyota said it would produce 6,000 fewer vehicles at home, and 9,000 less overseas.

As Japan fears a second wave of infections spreading from the capital, one Toyota employee working at its headquarters has tested positive for coronavirus since developing symptoms earlier this month, the company said Tuesday. Toyota added it disinfected the affected work sites on July 17 and restarted operation shortly afterwards.

In the midst of the pandemic, the company also plans to skip media bri…

Robert Bosch is combining its automotive software and electronics activities into a new division in an effort to reduce complexity and speed up development and time to market.

The unit, Cross-Domain Computing Solutions, will have 17,000 employees, drawn from Bosch's existing Multimedia, Powertrain Solutions, Chassis Systems Control and Automotive Electronics divisions. It will be operative at the start of next year.

Harald Kroeger, a member of Bosch's management board who now oversees those divisions, among others, will be responsible for the new division, which will fall under Bosch's Mobility Solutions business sector.

A typical new car now has 100 million lines of software code, Kroeger said in an interview with Automotive News Europe, because of the growing number of safety, performance and comfort features offered by automakers -- and expected by buyers.

By comparison, he said, a computer operating system such as Microsoft Word has up to 50 m…

NEW YORK -- Uber Technologies Inc. has quietly launched a service to give public health officials quick access to data on drivers and riders presumed to have come into contact with someone infected with COVID-19, company officials told Reuters.

The service, offered free of charge, could help burnish the image of the ride-hailing giant, which recently launched a new ad campaign spotlighting its “No Mask, No Ride” policy in the United States.

Now being promoted to government health officials in all the countries where it operates, the service provides health departments with data about who used Uber’s services and when and allows health agencies to urge affected users into quarantine, the company officials said.

Information on an individual can be accessed in a few hours, the officials said, with the company considering COVID-19 an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury.

Though Uber has provided the data for months now, it ha…

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.

Larry Burns, a former vice president of R&D at General Motors, discusses the emerging trends that he believes will bring autonomous vehicles to market sooner.

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More than four months after retiring as Ford Motor Co.'s automotive president, Joe Hinrichs has resurfaced on the board of a company pioneering a unique sensor for autonomous vehicles.

Hinrichs, 53, has joined the board of directors at WaveSense, of Boston, a startup that uses ground-penetrating radar to help self-driving vehicles better understand and navigate road environments.

"WaveSense is delivering the most precise and reliable vehicle positioning system at a cost that allows broad adoption," Hinrichs said in a statement. "Knowing where you are is fundamental to enabling the next-generation safety and performance features the automotive industry is looking for."

Two other veteran automotive executives are joining the startup's efforts to bolster its industry chops as it turns toward commercialization. Former General Motors CFO Chuck Stevens and former Continental Chief Technology Officer Kurt Lehmann have been appointed to WaveSense's advisory boar…

BEIJING  -- Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer Xpeng Motors, backed by Alibaba Group Holding, said on Monday it has raised around $500 million in a new of round of funding.

As enthusiasm builds for more climate-friendly vehicles, shares of EV makers, including Tesla Inc. and Nio Inc., have surged in recent months and automakers are looking to the markets for funds.

Li Auto, Xpeng's rival, filed for a U.S. initial public offering earlier this month.

Investors in Xpeng's C+ funding round include Aspex, Coatue, Hillhouse and Sequoia Capital China, six-year-old Xpeng said in a statement, without disclosing the company's valuation.

Xpeng, led by CEO He Xiaopeng, is making electric G3 crossovers and P7 sedans with autonomous driving capabilities in two Chinese plants.

The funding will enable Xpeng to further develop intelligent vehicle technologies. The company plans to have about 200 showrooms in China by the end of the year.

Xpen…

BEIJING/HONG KONG -- Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer Xpeng Motors, backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, said Monday it has raised around $500 million in its latest funding round.

As enthusiasm builds for more climate-friendly vehicles, shares of EV makers, including Tesla Inc. and Nio Inc., have surged in recent months and auto makers are looking to the markets for funds.

Li Auto, Xpeng's rival, filed for a U.S. initial public offering earlier this month.

Investors in Xpeng's latest funding round include Aspex, Coatue, Hillhouse and Sequoia Capital China, six-year-old Xpeng said in a statement, without disclosing the company's valuation.

Last November, the EV maker raised $400 million from investors including Xiaomi Corp. Sources told Reuters at the time that investors valued the company at nearly $4 billion.

Xpeng, led by CEO He Xiaopeng, is making electric G3 utility vehicles and P7 sedans with autonomous driving capabilities in two…

PARIS -- Former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn took a swipe at his old employers in a newspaper interview on Sunday, calling the Renault and Nissan results "pathetic," and driven as much by a lack of joint leadership as by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ghosn, who was also the chairman of Mitsubishi Motors, was arrested in Japan in late 2018 on charges of underreporting his salary and using company funds for personal purpose -- charges he denies. He fled to Lebanon from Japan.

"There is a market confidence problem in the alliance. Personally, I find the results of Nissan and Renault pathetic. The two companies are looking inwards. There is no longer any real mix of management between Renault and Nissan, but a distrustful distance, " he told Le Parisien newspaper.

Ghosn compared the share price fall from November 2018 to June 2020 of competitors General Motors and Toyota of 12 percent and 15 percent respectively to Nissan dropping 55 percent and Rena…

Ford Motor Co. is laying the underpinnings for a future that involves a trove of new and enhanced driver-assist features.

The automaker said Monday it has expanded a preexisting relationship with computer-vision supplier Mobileye, which is owned by Intel Corp., to offer capabilities that enable improved collision warnings, pedestrian and cyclist detection and lane-keeping functionality.

Mobileye will provide its EyeQ computer chips and vision-processing software to enhance features within Ford's Co-Pilot360 technology package. The two companies have worked together before, but this marks the first time Ford will use the supplier's technology for the entire life cycle of its next-generation vehicles across the globe.

Michael Ramsey, senior research director at global technology consulting firm Gartner, says the deal signals Ford's commitment to spreading advanced safety features throughout its lineup and advancing efforts to deploy a system that can be u…