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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Justice Department denied politics played a role in its decision last year to open an antitrust investigation of four automakers that reached an agreement with California on fuel-efficiency standards.

The department said it had a legitimate legal basis to believe that the companies -- Volkswagen Group, BMW AG, Honda Motor Co. and Ford Motor Co. -- violated antitrust laws, according to a June 19 letter to U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.

“We share the view that political interference from outside the Department must never govern law enforcement efforts,” according to the letter obtained by Bloomberg News. “This inquiry was, based on the information known to it at the time, entirely reasonable.”

The letter is the first detailed explanation about why the Trump administration opened the investigation. The inquiry, which was closed six months later, was widely criticized as motivated by the administration’s clash with the automakers…

South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group and battery maker LG Chem Ltd. on Monday launched a global contest to identify up to 10 electric vehicle and battery startups for potential investment and development of green vehicles.

The companies want to select startups with technological capabilities to help the development of future non-polluting vehicles through the competition, called "EV and Battery Challenge."

Automakers are making massive investments in zero-emission and self-driving technology as they look to move away from traditional internal combustion engines.

Hyundai Motor Group, which includes Hyundai Motor Co. and sister company Kia Motors Corp., has said it plans to deploy 44 eco-friendly vehicles by 2025, including 23 EVs.

Earlier this year, LG Chem was chosen as one of the battery suppliers for Hyundai Motor Group's new EVs.

Applications for the competition are open through Aug. 28.

"Start-ups that have working prototypes and ar…

MUMBAI -- A state in India has stalled a proposal by China's Great Wall Motor to invest nearly $500 million, days after a deadly border clash between the two nations, potentially delaying the company's plan to tap one of the world's biggest new-vehicle markets.

The state government of Maharashtra, home to the financial capital of Mumbai, said on Monday it had put on hold three investment proposals from Chinese firms worth a combined 50 billion rupees ($658 million) in total, including Great Wall's.

The initial agreements are not canceled, but further action is awaited, said Maharashtra's industries minister Subhash Desai, days after the state government signed them.

It is the latest setback for Chinese companies that are facing calls for boycott after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in clashes at a disputed border site, in a major escalation of a weeks-long standoff between the two nuclear-armed Asian giants.

"In the current environment, we will wa…

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.

Automotive News reporter Mike Martinez explains what's at stake for Ford as it prepares to debut the next-generation F-150 pickup. The F-Series line of pickups, of which F-150 is a part, has been the bestselling vehicle line in the U.S. for 38 straight years.

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BEIJING -- China's industry ministry said on Monday it might temporarily ease quotas designed to boost production of electric cars, in an attempt to help automakers in the world's biggest market revive sales badly bruised by the coronavirus pandemic.

China has some of the world's strictest rules regarding the production of fossil-fuel vehicles, as it battles unhealthy levels of air pollution in crowded cities.

Automakers in China are obliged to manufacture new energy vehicles, including electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, to win "points" to make up for a portion of the negative points they incur when they produce internal combustion engine vehicles.

Depending on the present situation, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a policy that it might temporarily adjust the quotas and allow automakers to use the green points they generate next year to offset their negative points this year.

Industry officials c…

Beginning this week, Manheim is bringing back in-lane bidders at five pilot locations, with three additional sites to follow next week.

The pilot locations include Manheim Darlington in South Carolina, Manheim Tulsa, Manheim Kansas City, Manheim Dallas and Manheim Dallas-Fort Worth.

Although buyers will be in lanes, vehicles still will not be running through and instead will be displayed on large screens.

Manheim President Grace Huang said the company remains committed to developing its digital platforms while balancing that with what its dealer customers want. Huang said the company has been gathering feedback and "then matching it with what we what we see in the data from a safety perspective."

It's led to a phased-in, "methodical" plan for reopening aspects of the company's auctions, she said. Sellers were allowed to come back on auction blocks to represent vehicles on June 8, for example.

Both Manheim and KAR Global's ADESA announced th…

TOKYO — Mitsubishi Motors Corp. may be preparing to scale back its efforts in the U.S.

CEO Takao Kato says the Japanese carmaker's new strategy will focus less on huge global markets where the brand is merely an also-ran.

Addressing investors during Mitsubishi's annual shareholders meeting last week, Kato said the automaker will dial down business in megamarkets such as Europe and China. He didn't mention North America or the U.S. by name. But the company later confirmed that it indeed considers the U.S. a megamarket.

The company's new plan is called Selection and Concentration. Under Mitsubishi's previous business plan, Drive for Growth, the carmaker had specifically flagged North America and China as two regions of focus.

"Even though we increased sales volume in the megamarkets, we have not yet achieved the level of profit we expected," Kato said. "We aim to increase sales in the regions where we can offer our core products. We will gradually …

DETROIT — The F-150 redesign that Ford Motor Co. plans to unveil this week isn't as risky as the switch to an aluminum body for the current generation. But the new pickup nonetheless will determine the automaker's fortunes in a segment that's increasingly volatile and soon to be invaded by electric vehicle makers.

The gamble Ford took in switching to a more expensive material on its most important vehicle has largely paid off, though perhaps less conspicuously than Ford had hoped.

Since the pickup was redesigned in 2014, sales, market share and average transaction prices have risen, and studies have shown that repair and insurance costs — a major question mark at launch — have largely remained flat. The rest of the industry, however, declined to follow Ford's aluminum gambit, choosing other routes to reduce weight and improve fuel efficiency.

Still, Ford sold more pickups in 2018 than any other year besides 2001 and 2004. It end…

Tesla Inc. will postpone its annual shareholder meeting because large gatherings won’t be allowed because of COVID-19 restrictions, company CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet.

Tesla’s shareholder meeting had been scheduled slated for July 7.

Musk said in response to questions on Twitter that he’s not sure of a new date, but guessed it may be “a month or so later,” he tweeted.

The annual meeting probably will be held in Fremont, Calif., and may also be combined with Tesla’s battery day, Musk added. 

Nissan's redesign of its flagship Rogue model delivers an improved portfolio of family-friendly technologies expected of a crossover.

But also notable is what Nissan's volume-leading nameplate will not offer — a hybrid powertrain.

When the new 2021 Rogue launches this fall, it will offer a single powertrain: a 2.5-liter inline four-cylinder engine. That's in contrast to Nissan's competitors in the critical compact crossover segment that are doubling down on fuel-sipping electrified vehicles.

Three of the Rogue's biggest rivals — the Ford Escape, Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V — are available with hybrid powertrains. At times, Nissan's Rogue has outsold all of them.

But the market is changing.

Hybrid variants give automakers a differentiator in a crowded segment, said Conrad Layson, researcher with AutoForecast Solutions.

"The RAV4 turned the virtue of a hybrid's fuel savings into a performance s…