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UAW leaders on Wednesday delivered a clear message to members: The union has high demands for this upcoming round of contract negotiations with the Detroit 3 and are prepared to strike if the companies don't meet them.

In a first-of-its-kind virtual town hall, UAW President Shawn Fain, Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock and the union's three vice presidents laid out priorities that include ending the tiered wage system, reinstating cost-of-living increases and adding stronger job protections to prevent future plant closures. They said Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Stellantis have made enough profits in recent years to no longer need concessions from their work forces.

"They can afford our demands, and we expect them to pony up," Fain said. "This is our time to get our fair share of the pie."

The leaders struck a defiant tone at times, using charts and graphics to contrast corporate profits with union wages. Fain said the Detroit 3 have made so much …

WASHINGTON - Ford Motor said on Wednesday it is recalling 142,000 Lincoln MKCs in the United States and advising owners to park outdoors and away from structures while it investigates the cause of under hood fires.

The No. 2 U.S. automaker said the issue in the 2015-2019 model year vehicles is believed to originate near the 12-volt batteries. Ford is aware of 19 potentially related reports of under hood fires, including seven reports since December, while the vehicle was parked and off. Ford said it is unaware of any physical injuries related to this condition.

Chevrolet is adding a specialty off-road edition of the Colorado midsize pickup, improving trail capability in a segment with multiple updated offerings headed to showrooms.

Chevy worked with off-road aftermarket equipment manufacturer American Expedition Vehicles, known as AEV, on the Colorado ZR2 Bison edition for the 2024 model year. The Bison shares the ZR2's 2.7-liter turbocharged inline-four engine, which offers 310 hp, 430 pound-feet of torque and an eight-speed automatic transmission.

The Bison is about 1.5 inches longer than the ZR2 and also offers about 1.5 inches of additional ground clearance, for a total 12.2 inches, according to Chevy. The Bison's maximum payload is 1,050 pounds, compared with 1,280 pounds for the ZR2. The Bison also offers 5,500 pounds of max trailering capacity, compared with the ZR2's 6,000 pounds.

Both the Bison and ZR2 versions come with Multimatic Dynamic Suspensions Spool Valve dampers, while …

Tesla's Model Y was the world's top-selling vehicle in the first quarter of this year. President Biden withdraws his nomination for NHTSA chief. GM and Stellantis bail out an insolvent supplier. Plus, CHAMP Titles CEO Shane Bigelow joins the show to talk about his company’s digital title clearinghouse in West Virginia.

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WASHINGTON — The nation's top auto safety regulator on Wednesday proposed requiring automatic emergency braking, including pedestrian detection, on all new light-duty vehicles and set minimum performance standards for the systems.

If the proposal is adopted, nearly all U.S. passenger cars and light trucks — with a gross vehicle weight rating of up to 10,000 pounds — would be required to have the crash-avoidance technology three years after the rule is finalized. Tougher requirements would take effect four years after that finalization.

NHTSA projects the proposal, if finalized, would prevent at least 360 deaths and reduce injuries on U.S. roads by at least 24,000 annually.

The agency estimates the proposal would cost automakers nearly $282.2 million annually across their entire vehicle fleet. The cost per vehicle is estimated at $82 for each design cycle change of the model, according to the proposal.

"We know we're throwing a challenge out here,…

WASHINGTON - The White House said on Tuesday that President Joe Biden is withdrawing the nomination of the acting head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for the job.

Ann Carlson, the agency's chief counsel, was named acting head of NHTSA in September and formally nominated for the top position in March.

She has overseen safety probes into Tesla, efforts to shrink traffic deaths and to boost vehicle fuel economy requirements.

WAIMEA, Hawaii — Toyota North American brand head Dave Christ is fully prepared if the sales of his current top-selling three-row crossover, the Highlander, decline next year.

Any losses, Toyota's group vice president said, will be more than made up by customers moving up to the larger 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander or coming back to the brand because it now has a comfortable non-minivan option for growing families.

"We do expect some cannibalization, people that may have bought a Highlander in the past," Christ told Automotive News here during a media drive. "I'm a great example. I have three kids; the youngest one is just now getting out of a car seat, and my oldest is five-foot-five with shoes as big as mine. Putting him in the third row of a Highlander was a little tight."

Arriving in dealerships this summer, the 2024 Grand Highlander is 2 inches wider, 2 inches taller and — most important — 6 inches longer than the current three…

Veteran Stellantis designer Chris Benjamin has joined Scout Motors to lead design for the EV-focused Volkswagen brand that will specialize in utility vehicles and trucks.

Benjamin, most recently the interior design chief for Stellantis North America, becomes chief design officer at a critical time for Scout, which plans to begin vehicle production at a plant near Columbia, S.C., by the end of 2026. The brand said the first retail sales of its electric pickups and SUVs will start soon after. He has officially joined the company, a spokesperson said.

Volkswagen hatched plans to resurrect the Scout brand in 2022 and establish a firmer foothold in the expanding market for off-road vehicles in the U.S.

Benjamin graduated from Detroit's College for Creative Studies. He launched his automotive design career at Mercedes-Benz. After that, Benjamin did design work for BMW, Volvo and Stellantis, where he spent time in Europe and the U.S.

Toyota’s Hino Motors and Daimler’s Mitsubishi Fuso are teaming up on heavy-truck development. Chipmaker Nvidia approaches a trillion-dollar valuation as investors applaud its aggressive growth targets. And Kumar Galhotra explains why he sees Ford Blue as a growth business – at least for now.

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Automotive Ventures raised $13 million for a new fund backed by dealerships hoping to invest in novel technology that could help them do their jobs better.

The firm's DealerFund is much smaller than originally intended, however. When fundraising began more than a year ago, the goal had been to raise as much as $50 million. The fund closed in April.

"The fundraising environment over the past year has softened significantly," Automotive Ventures CEO Steve Greenfield told Automotive News. "We had one commitment of $5 million pull out and a couple of other softer commitments that failed to materialize."

Angel and seed-stage startups have been able to raise money, but investors are more risk averse than they were "writing checks only to companies with strong fundamentals, healthy burn rates and solid strategies to preserve" a growth path, PitchBook said in its Q1 2023 US VC Valuations report.

At the same time, Greenfield noted, DealerFund attracted 48 …

General Motors' pair of midsize pickups — the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon — are retooled for 2023, and beyond a few common features, carve out separate roles.

The Colorado offers more powertrain choices and, with a lower base price, remains GM's mainstream midsize truck.

The Canyon is a more posh professional grade truck that adds more off-road chops. It is available only as a crew cab, like the Colorado, with rear- or four-wheel drive available. For off-road use, the 2023 Canyon is available in four trims, starting with Elevation, AT4 and Denali, that provide progressively increased ground clearance and capability, culminating in the new AT4X.

Riding on a new chassis, with what GMC bills as extra-wide track width, the Canyon's wheelbase has been stretched by 3.1 inches compared with the outgoing short bed crew cab. The reduced front overhang helps improve the truck's ability to approach steep inclines in off-road settings. T…

A question lingers about Tekion as it pursues market share for its cloud-based dealership management system: What happens next?

Automotive News recently told you how the DMS startup bought two auto dealerships and used them as laboratories for its Automotive Retail Cloud system. The system welds artificial intelligence and big data to streamline the retail sales process and interactions between automakers, retailers and consumers.

After three years, Tekion is putting those dealerships up for sale as the California company focuses on growing the commercial presence of its signature product.

It's not an easy task. As a venture-backed company, Tekion must deal with venture capitalists who eventually want a return on their investment.

Tekion, launched in 2016 by former Tesla Chief Information Officer Jay Vijayan, employs roughly 3,000 people and has raised $451 million in venture capital.

Previously, companies of its size and equivalence in mon…