News

A theft of a $120,000 Maserati from a dealership in New York City was foiled by a red light in the next block.

An employee of Maserati of Manhattan who noticed a white 2019 Quattroporte GTS missing from the showroom June 26 spotted it running on the street near the exit from the service department, according to the New York Post. The thief sped away but made it only about 500 feet before getting stuck in traffic at a red light.

At that point, he jumped out, handed over the keys and ran off. But other dealership employees chased down the man and held him until police arrived.

Prosecutors charged the 30-year-old with grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and unauthorized use of a vehicle. He also appears to be guilty of bad planning.

The Case of the Briefly Missing Maserati was solved a day after the same dealership reported that someone stole an $87,000 Ghibli SQ4.

That theft happened at night and was captured on surveillance…

What good is a Lamborghini that can drive only on land when 71 percent of the earth's surface is covered in water?

The Italian automaker has just the solution. It's collaborating with the Italian Sea Group to produce the first seaworthy Lamborghini, the Tecnomar for Lamborghini 63.

It's a 63-foot yacht with a starting price of about $3.4 million.

The Tecnomar, which pays homage to Lamborghini's founding in 1963, borrows design cues from the automaker and has a helm made to resemble a Lamborghini cockpit. The plan is to sell 63 of the boats, which are powered by a pair of 2,000-hp MAN V-12 diesel engines.

"If I had to imagine a Lamborghini on water, this would be my vision," Stefano Domenicali, CEO of Automobili Lamborghini, said in a statement. "I'm delighted to celebrate this successful collaboration."

The Tecnomar, which has a top cruising speed of 69 mph, goes on sale in 2021. Until then, it's best to ke…

The pickups that dealers have been clamoring for are at last arriving on their lots — at least in small numbers. But the dealers' sigh of relief is followed by a jolt of fear: How will such small shipments get them through the rest of the summer?

Bert Ogden Auto Group typically carries about three months' worth of inventory, which helped it boost sales in May and June while many stores had scarce inventory and lost sales. Last week, the 18-store dealership group in Texas was down to about one month of inventory.

"July worries me," said Jorge Gutierrez, corporate strategist for Bert Ogden. "July will be an atypical month because of the inventory pinch we're in."

Nationwide plant shutdowns from mid-March to mid-May wiped out many dealers' inventories. Rebounding de- mand, combined with that loss of production, has reduced inventory levels to the lowest the industry has seen in nearly nine years, according to Cox Automotive. Six weeks a…

Ford Motor Co. has committed to achieving global carbon neutrality. It's an ambitious goal for such a large-scale manufacturer, but it's also a safe bet that hardly anyone who works for Ford today will still be on the job to see if it happens.

The automaker said in its 21st annual Sustainability Report that it would offset all of its carbon emissions by 2050. Ford said it's primarily focused on three areas that make up 95 percent of its carbon emissions: vehicle use, supply base and company facilities. The company listed a number of potential hurdles to its target, including customer acceptance, government regulations, economic conditions and the availability of renewable fuels.

"We can develop and make great vehicles, sustain and grow a strong business and protect our planet at the same time — in fact, those ideals complement each other," Bob Holycross, Ford's chief sustainability, environment and safety officer, said in a statement. "We don't …

Workers at a key General Motors assembly plant want a break for coronavirus safety, but the automaker isn't interested in shutting down.

The UAW local in Arlington, Texas, has asked GM to temporarily close its SUV plant in the city for the safety of its workers as cases of COVID-19 rise rapidly in the state.

"Due to the most recent data on the COVID-19 outbreak, the Bargaining Committee has asked General Motors to shut down Arlington Assembly until the curve is flattened for the benefit and well-being of our members," UAW Local 276 said on its website. "Every day we are setting new records in the number of people who are testing positive in the Dallas-Fort Worth area."

Confirmed cases in Texas have been rising by more than 5,000 a day in recent weeks, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Tarrant County, where the plant is located, had 11,739 confirmed cases and 225 deaths as of Wednesday, July 1.

Th…

China has changed the global auto industry over the past couple of decades. But China itself has changed, too.

During the previous recession — the Great one — while the U.S. was stumbling and shepherding two automakers through a bankruptcy reorganization, China was growing like mad. It became the largest market in the world — by far — for motorized vehicles.

But if it seemed that China's rise was going to be inexorable and all-encompassing, well, it hasn't turned out exactly that way. But neither has China swollen up and collapsed under its own weight.

It's complicated.

In this week's print edition of Automotive News, we begin a five-part series that explores what is working in China and what isn't — and what it means to the North American auto industry. This idea didn't appear to me fully formed. Reporters kept suggesting enterprising stories about Chinese companies adapting to the economic contraction triggered by COVID-19. It didn't take a…

TOKYO — Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida tried selling the automaker's new revival plan to skeptical shareholders last week amid an angry showdown over everything from his management style and corporate vision to board member pay and the company's plunging share price.

Some attendees at the June 29 annual shareholders meeting even harked back wistfully to the Carlos Ghosn era: One praised the indicted former chairman's strong leadership, another blamed his downfall on a conspiracy among Japanese prosecutors and government bureaucrats.

It was Uchida's second faceoff with shareholders since taking office Dec. 1. An equally contentious exchange erupted in February at an extraordinary shareholders meeting called to appoint him, as the newly minted CEO, and other executives to the board of directors.

In his latest appeal, Uchida pledged that the midterm plan unveiled in May would restore the embattled carmaker to a growth trajectory, but he warned a full rebound sti…

Britain's Ineos Group, one of the world's largest chemical companies you've likely never heard of, is preparing to enter the auto industry with a new-from-the-wheels-up utilitarian SUV.

It's a boxy, rugged-looking, midsize four-by-four whose size and shape makes it a near doppelganger for the classic Land Rover Defender 110 wagon that ended production in 2016. And it could land in the U.S. in 2022.

The Grenadier's perhaps-too-strong resemblance to the iconic Land Rover could be a risky bet.

Jim Ratcliffe, the Richard Branson-esque chairman of Ineos Group, tried to buy the classic Defender's production tooling from Jaguar Land Rover in 2016 and continue production. When JLR declined, Ratcliffe, one of Britain's richest men, decided his company would build its own utilitarian SUV aimed it at the same market — adventurers, sportsmen, builders and farmers, a segment Ratcliffe believes Land Rover left in the dust with the 2020 Defender…