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Chip Perry, an auto retail veteran who steered vehicle listings sites AutoTrader and TrueCar, is jumping back into the dealership technology world.

Perry, 66, has been named president and CEO of A2Z Sync, which helps dealerships transition to a one-person sales process. He took over the role in late June.

The company was founded by Colorado dealer Aaron Wallace initially to help his seven-store Schomp Automotive Group transition away from a full-time F&I office. A2Z Sync provides dealerships with a customer-facing digital menu so the sales employee and the customer can walk through options together, as well as training and support to help retailers reorganize their sales teams and processes around the single-person concept.

Under the model, also known as single point of contact, a customer works with one sales employee throughout the transaction, rather than interacting with several employees on the sales floor and in the F&I office.

“I wa…

DETROIT — Rivian, the EV startup that plans to launch three vehicles next year, said it secured another $2.5 billion in investments led by financier T. Rowe Price Associates Inc.

The company's latest investors include Soros Fund Management LLC, Coatue, Fidelity Management and Research Company and Baron Capital Group. Existing shareholders Amazon and Blackrock increased their investments, Rivian said in a statement Friday.

Rivian is spending about $750 million to overhaul the plant it bought in Normal, Ill., from Mitsubishi Motors. And it is in the process of relocating most of its product development and engineering teams from Plymouth, Mich., to Irvine, Calif., and to the Illinois plant.

Since last fall, Rivian has raised more than $5 billion. Rivian expects to launch the R1T electric pickup and R1S battery-powered SUV next year, probably in the first quarter. Also, Rivian plans to begin filling an order for 100,000 electric delivery vans from Amazon, w…

Amazon.com Inc. plans to create at least $100 million in stock awards to retain the 900-plus employees of Zoox, the self-driving car startup it offered to buy last month, and can walk away from the deal if large numbers of them turn down job offers from the technology giant.

Amazon, which is aggressively expanding into self-driving technology, announced June 26 it had agreed to acquire the Silicon Valley company, which was founded on an ambitious effort to design a fully autonomous vehicle from scratch rather than retrofitting existing cars for self-driving.

Amazon will pay $1.3 billion in cash for the takeover, which the parties hope to close by September, according to deal documents seen by Reuters.

Zoox had been valued at $3.2 billion in 2018, according to data from PitchBook. The Amazon deal documents show Zoox was burning more than $30 million each month in early 2020 and projected it would run out of cash by July. Amazon had the option to lend Zoox…

BEIJING/SHANGHAI -- Auto sales in China rose 11.6 percent in June from a year earlier to 2.3 million units, driven largely by strong demand for trucks and other commercial vehicles as Beijing ramps up infrastructure spending to revive the economy.

In a further sign the world's largest auto market is recovering from coronavirus lockdowns, auto wholesales in June rose for the third straight month to 2.3 million units, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the country's largest auto industry body.

Sales of trucks, vans and other commercial vehicles, which constitute for around a quarter of overall market, surged 63 percent, while sales of passenger vehicles rose only 1.8 percent.

"The sales of trucks were driven by investment, and they were strong in past months, which was a precursor to the recovery of economic activity," said Yale Zhang, head of Shanghai-based consultancy AutoForesight.

Overall auto sales growth …

BEIJING/TOKYO -- Japan's Honda Motor Co. will buy a 1 percent stake in Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology and the two will jointly develop EV batteries, the companies said Friday.

The move comes at a time when auto manufacturers and EV battery makers are joining forces in pursuit of an electric future. CATL said last year it would develop batteries with Honda and also supply batteries to Tesla , Toyota and Volkswagen.

Honda and CATL said in a statement they would develop battery technologies and research a battery recycling business. Honda will launch its first EV with CATL's battery in China in 2022 and will expand the partnership with a stable EV battery supply globally.

Honda has struck a number of partnerships to make electric cars, including a joint venture with China's GAC under which the Japanese automaker began selling its first all-battery EV, the Everus VE-1 crossover, in China last year.

It has also tied up with Hitac…

BEIJING -- WeRide, a Chinese autonomous vehicle startup, said on Friday it has become the first autonomous company to start fully driverless vehicle testing in China, as the world's biggest auto market accelerates development of autonomous technologies.

Three-year-old WeRide, backed by Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi, said in a statement that it started tests on Wednesday on open roads in a designated area of Guangzhou after the southern Chinese city granted permission.

In China, companies such as Toyota-backed Pony.ai, Baidu Inc., and Didi Chuxing are also testing autonomous vehicles, but all with one or two safety staff onboard. The people onboard take control in unexpected situations.

WeRide said it will use a remote center to take control of vehicles if needed.

In the United States, Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo unit is testing passenger vehicles without a safety driver. Nuro, another startup, is allowed to test driverless delivery vehicles on a small …

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. late Thursday acknowledged the Mexican state of Chihuahua's 50 percent cap on employees in manufacturing facilities, spurred by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, is unsustainable and could eventually disrupt U.S. light-vehicle production.

The U.S. ambassador to Mexico said Ford could shutter American plants as soon as next week if restrictions there don't ease, Reuters reported Thursday. In a statement, Kumar Galhotra, Ford's president of the Americas and International Markets Group, said the automaker does not anticipate a shutdown next week but did not rule out the possibility in the future.

"Due to COVID-19, the State of Chihuahua in Mexico has limited employee attendance to 50 percent, a region in which we have several suppliers," Galhotra said in the statement. "With our U.S. plants running at 100 percent, that is not sustainable. While we do not expect any impact to production next week, we are continuing to work with governm…

Ford Motor Co.’s top executive has pushed back against some employees calling for the top seller of vehicles to U.S. police departments to exit the business.

CEO Jim Hackett sent a more than 600-word letter to senior staff in response to messages he’s received both from within and outside Ford’s ranks to reconsider producing police vehicles.

Hackett, 65, said that while he and Executive Chairman Bill Ford support the Black Lives Matter movement and believe police should operate with more transparency and accountability, first responders “play an extraordinarily important role in the vitality and safety of our society.”

“Our world wouldn’t function without the bravery and dedication of the good police officers who protect and serve,” Hackett wrote. “But safety of community must be inclusive of all members and today, it is not.”

“Holding these two thoughts together in one’s mind is possible, but now there is tension,” Hackett continued. “It’s our be…

General Motors is launching sales of its second plug-in model, a hybrid version of the Buick Velite 6 sedan, later this month, expanding the automaker’s local electrified-vehicle lineup to meet government mandates. 

The Velite 6 plug-in hybrid will offer up to 780 kilometers of driving range, including 60 km powered solely by batteries, GM’s China unit said. 

The vehicle’s electric propulsion system comprises high-performance dual motors complemented by a lithium battery pack supplied by LG Chem and a 1.5-liter, four-cylinder gasoline engine. 

The car’s intelligent electronic continuously variable transmission helps cut fuel consumption to as low as 1.4 liters per 100 km, GM says.

The vehicle is the second plug-in hybrid assembled at SAIC-GM, GM’s passenger-vehicle joint venture, following the plug-in version of the Cadillac CT6 sedan. 

SAIC-GM builds and markets sedans, crossovers and light trucks for the Buick, Chevrol…

Tesla Inc.’s promotion of its driver-assistance system Autopilot is under scrutiny in Germany, where a court is scheduled to rule next week on whether the carmaker is misleading consumers.

The maker of the Model 3 sedan says on its German website that Tesla vehicles have full potential for autonomous driving. The company also has promoted its cars as having the ability to perform automatic city driving by the end of 2019.

Tesla is promising customers more than its Autopilot system actually delivers, according to the Center for Protection Against Unfair Competition, a German non-profit financed by companies and industry groups that sued the U.S. carmaker. A Munich court indicated during a hearing last month that it may side with the group.

“A legal framework for autonomous inner-city driving doesn’t even exist yet in Germany,” Andreas Ottofuelling, a lawyer for the group, said Thursday. “And other functions aren’t working yet as advertised.”

Repres…

Sales at Mercedes-Benz and BMW Group’s BMW and Mini brands surged across China last month in another sign consumer activity is resuming in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. 

Mercedes-Benz sales jumped 22 percent to 207,107 in the second quarter, Daimler AG said. 

Mercedes-Benz first-half deliveries in China edged up 0.4 percent to 346,067, reflecting a sharp decline in the first quarter, when many showrooms and assembly plants were idled because of the coronavirus. 

Combined second-quarter sales at BMW and Mini advanced 17 percent to 212,617, BMW Group said, without disclosing separate volumes for the two brands. 

Aggregate first-half deliveries of the two brands in China dropped 6 percent to 329,069.

China is the only regional market where Mercedes-Benz and BMW have recorded sales gains during the pandemic. Daimler and BMW have stopped releasing monthly sales in China because of disruptions the outbreak had on …

Nissan extended a sales rebound in June as the negative impact of the coronavirus outbreak wanes, while demand for Honda cars and light trucks remains sluggish.

The Nissan brand’s sales rose for a third straight month, with June volume rising 4.5 percent to 136,929, the company said. 

Driving the growth were the Sylphy and Altima sedans. Sylphy sales surged 37 percent to approach 49,000 while Altima deliveries advanced 28 percent to 10,254, according to Nissan’s China office. 

In the first six months, Nissan’s China sales dropped 17 percent to 596,342. 

At Honda, June deliveries dipped 4.1 percent to 142,363. 

Hybrid products accounted for sales of 18,534, or 13 percent of all volume last month, according to Honda’s China office. 

Through June, Honda delivered 612,007 vehicles in China, a drop of 18 percent from a year earlier. 

Another major Japanese brand, Toyota, hasn’t disclosed June sales res…