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Global auto supplier Marelli said it will open an interior unit manufacturing plant next year in Bowling Green, Ohio.

The company is hiring 75 employees to work in manufacturing, assembly and warehousing operations to support two new bulkhead programs. A bulkhead is a structural component with attachment spots for headlamps, the radiator and the hood latch.

"There are many factors that go into building a business case for a new site," Chris Bradford, regional head of interiors at Marelli, said in a Wednesday statement. "Our key considerations were affordability, proximity to customers, quality of the local work force and the opportunity to expand."

The company declined to identify which automakers the plant will supply, but said it expects the operation to make about 760,000 components per year. Plant construction is expected to be completed by early 2021. Bowling Green is about 80 miles south of Detroit on Interstate 75.

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The strength of GM Financial has been a bright spot for General Motors during the coronavirus crisis. GM's captive has enough liquidity to stand largely on its own, the ability to defer existing customers' loan payments and the power to attract new buyers with generous financing incentives.

At the end of the first quarter, GM Financial had $24.9 billion in liquidity, which would cover at least six months of net cash needs without tapping capital markets or GM, CEO Dan Berce said. Under its support agreement with GM, the lender has a $2 billion cushion before it would need any additional capital from the automaker.

GM expects 2020 credit losses to range from 2 to 2.5 percent and for used-car values to decline 7 to 10 percent industrywide.

"We could experience double that credit loss expectation and double that decline in used-car values, and it wouldn't eat up the whole $2 billion capital cushion. And GM wouldn't have to pay capital," Berce said.

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Amid much uncertainty in the broader mobility industry, Waymo has added fresh funding to its coffers.

The self-driving tech company said Tuesday it has raised an additional $750 million in an extension of its first external funding round. The addition brings outside investment in the Google-backed company to $3 billion.

New investors include T. Rowe Price Associates Inc., Perry Creek Capital and Fidelity Management & Research Co. Other investors were undisclosed.

"COVID-19 has underscored how fully self-driving technology can provide safe personal mobility and delivery services," CEO John Krafcik said in a written statement. "We're grateful these partners share our mission to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they're going."

Waymo did not specify a valuation of the company. Investment bank Morgan Stanley estimated its value at $105 billion in September, though a year earlier, the firm had said Waymo was worth $175 billio…

LONDON, BEIJING, FRANKFURT -- James Li, a public relations account director, would rather spend an hour sitting in Beijing traffic than risk 30 minutes exposed to crowds on a train.

"Traffic is as bad as it could be" but the subway is still too dicey," he said.

In Frankfurt, real estate assistant Anna Pawliczek is driving to work for the first time in her career. "I definitely have always preferred to chill out in the train, instead of being stuck at traffic lights," she said.

But days after Germany ended its lockdown, her company is asking returning employees to avoid public transportation at all costs.

Gasoline demand is rebounding, suggesting that the car -- at least for now -- is making a comeback. As lockdowns ease and parts of the world reopen for business, driving has emerged as the socially distant transportation mode of choice and is offering some near-term relief to an oil market fresh off its worst crash in history and reeling from an u…

DETROIT — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on Tuesday released plans detailing how it will resume North American production next week.

The automaker is implementing new policies in its U.S. and Canada manufacturing centers to ensure that cleanliness and social distancing are in line with the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

"We have drawn on our collective global expertise and best practices to rethink our production processes to put in place comprehensive protocols to keep our work force safe," FCA CEO Mike Manley said in a statement.

In preparation for reopening in North America, FCA cleaned and disinfected more than 57 million square-feet of production floor and will implement a daily health risk assessment that must be completed by employees.

The assessment consists of employees taking their temperature less than two hours before reporting to work and com…

The RAV4 compact crossover is released by Toyota on May 10, 1994, in Japan, ushering in the era of car-based crossovers and SUVs.

Beginning with briefings in 1986, Toyota engineers sought to create a vehicle that passenger-car operators could easily drive, with greater maneuverability and a relatively high driver's seat to enhance visibility.

The small crossover debuted as the RAV Four concept at the 1989 Tokyo Motor Show. Toyota introduced a revised version of the concept at the 1993 Tokyo auto show that more closely resembled the final production version. In addition to Japan, the RAV4 was initially sold in Europe, with U.S. sales beginning in early 1996.

The RAV4 named was a contraction of "recreational active vehicle" with "four-wheel drive."

The first-generation RAV4 featured a frameless, car-like monocoque body and a front-wheel-drive-based, full-time four-wheel-drive system, making it a new type of four-wheel-…

Uber Technologies Inc. has made an offer to acquire food-delivery company Grubhub Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

The companies are in talks about a deal and could reach an agreement as soon as this month, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public.

Deliberations are ongoing and talks could still fall through, the people said. A representative for Grubhub couldn’t immediately comment, while a spokesperson for Uber couldn’t immediately be reached.

Grubhub shares climbed as much as 37 percent in New York trading after being temporarily halted, valuing the company at $5.6 billion. Uber, with a market value of about $57 billion, rose as much as 6.1 percent.

Uber is shuttering its own food-delivery unit, Uber Eats, in seven countries where the service has proven unpopular, it said last week. Those markets represented 1 percent of Uber Eats gross bookings and 4 percent of the b…

Since the Lamborghini Huracan was freshened for the 2020 model year and given the Evo moniker, the automaker has quickly rolled out additional variants of the sports car.

The rear-wheel-drive Huracan Evo Spyder is the latest to join the mix with an online debut last week. Like the rwd coupe introduced this year, power is supplied by a V-10 engine with 610 hp and 413 pound-feet of torque.

Just as important, the convertible gets the new performance traction-control system that debuted in the coupe. Lamborghini says the system delivers torque when the vehicle is realigning after drifting or side-slipping.

"With rear-wheel drive that means basically [you] go back to your instincts, go back to your senses, be yourself and experience the purest technology and excitement of rear-wheel drive with an advanced traction-control system that allows the driver to have a lot of fun," Alessandro Farmeschi, CEO of Automobili Lamborghini America, said in an interview. Read more