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FRANKFURT -- Volkswagen Group is reconsidering which of its brands will develop a new family of small electric vehicles after its Spanish unit, Seat, lost the project.

VW Group CEO Herbert Diess said in March 2019 that Seat would lead development of full-electric city cars that will cost less than 20,000 euros. Diess said they would replace the full-electric versions of the VW Up, Skoda Citigo and Seat Mii and would be "a great step toward an even more affordable electric mobility."

One source close to Seat said the VW brand will now head the project. Executives at VW Group's headquarters in Wolfsburg believe that the decision will be "more efficient in terms of synergies," the source said.

The small EVs will be based on a heavily modified version of VW Group's MEB electric-vehicle architecture shortened to less than 4000 mm (157.5 inches), or roughly the length of the VW Polo.

MEB underpins the VW ID3, a compact hatchback due to launch this summ…

SEOUL -- General Motors' South Korean unit plans to sharply cut output this month at a factory producing its new Trailblazer as the coronavirus outbreak weighs on its U.S. exports and also disrupts parts supplies.

GM Korea is responsible for supplying some of GM's small crossovers to the U.S. market to meet a consumer shift away from sedans. But like its peers industrywide, it is grappling with shrinking exports as demand suffers from governments globally restricting movement to slow the spread of the virus.

GM Korea will run its BP1 plant in Incheon, near Seoul, for seven business days this month and idle it for the remaining 11, showed its internal production plan seen by Reuters.

A spokeswoman said the automaker has suspended the line until May 5 due to the virus impact on parts procurement and U.S. sales, and that its production plan for the rest of May is subject to change.

GM Korea started producing the Trailblazer in January and shipping it…

Vehicle listings company TrueCar on Monday rolled out a new car-buying program for military service members, veterans and their families.

Dubbed "TrueCar Military," the program will offer participants purchase incentives and maintenance benefits, as well as a dedicated customer hotline. TrueCar developed the platform as it prepares to wind down a 13-year partnership with USAA Federal Savings Bank this year.

An expanded military purchase program had been under consideration for some time, CEO Mike Darrow said, but the development timeline was "accelerated" when USAA notified TrueCar in February that it planned to exit its car-buying membership service.

"We knew all along we had military veterans shopping on our site," Darrow told Automotive News. "This was the opportunity for us to kind of expand that."

TrueCar Military will offer up to $2,000 in automaker incentives on brands from BMW, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Nissan, the company said. Additi…

The playbooks Ford Motor Co. will use to restart assembly lines and reopen offices in Europe and the U.S. have been written largely by its team in China, which was first to be hit by — and recover from — the coronavirus outbreak.

As early as February, Ford's salaried employees in China were sending videos to their U.S. counterparts showing how they were working from home and emotionally managing the abrupt changes, providing inspiration for colleagues who would soon be forced to do the same.

By early March, Ford China CEO Anning Chen and other executives shared what they learned about disinfecting vehicles at dealerships, creating safer factory shift patterns and even mining connected-vehicle data to predict recovery patterns.

The tutorials flowing back to Ford headquarters have provided some clarity in an unprecedented crisis that idled factories and choked off revenue.

"They've really helped us tremendously," Ford …

No-interest, seven-year loans did the job.

Maybe even a little too well.

Now, some dealers who worried in March about business evaporating instead fear they'll run out of the pickups their customers are clamoring for.

"The pipeline is very dry," said Mike Maroone, CEO of Maroone USA, which operates five stores in Colorado and one in Florida. Maroone's stores have only a 30-day supply of their top-selling Chevrolet Silverado.

"That is a problem for us," he said.

Pickup inventory at General Motors dealerships was already slimmer than usual in the aftermath of the 40-day UAW strike last fall, but Ram dealers also are feeling inventory pressure. GM and Ram have been particularly aggressive with incentives since the coronavirus crisis began.

With North American auto plants closed since mid-March to protect workers from contracting COVID-19, the most sought-after vehicles have become tough to fin…

Electrification and shared mobility are taking it on the chin during the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

But don't count either industry trend out, says former Ford Motor Co. CEO Mark Fields.

"Electrification has a bright future in the industry, but clearly it is going to be a bit of a collateral damage of COVID," said Fields, now senior adviser with private capital firm TPG Capital. He made the prediction last week as part of the video series "Congress Conversations," the 2020 online version of the Automotive News World Congress.

Electric vehicle and plug-in hybrid adoption rates have probably slowed as the purchasing power of American consumers has been diminished significantly, Fields said, noting that "electrified products are more expensive than [internal combustion engine] products right now."

Fields noted that depressed gasoline prices are also working against EVs, as is the pandemic's pressure on…

Tesla Inc. told furloughed employees on Friday that they will remain out of work for at least another week, postponing a plan to resume normal operations on May 4 at its California  assembly plant, according to an internal email.

"For furloughed employees, unless you are contacted by your manager about a start date, you will remain on furlough until further notice, at least for another week," the company's in-house counsel Valerie Capers Workman said in the email, which was sent to employees and seen by Reuters.

Tesla suspended production at its Fremont, Calif., plant on March 24.

The extension comes days after health officials from San Francisco County, along with five other Bay Area counties, said they would revise shelter-in-place orders that are set to expire on Sunday.

The new orders will keep the restrictions in place and extend them through May, with limited easing for a small number of low-risk activities.

The company was not i…

April 23 was supposed to be a day when about 1,000 children descended upon Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' suburban Detroit headquarters to get a taste of what their parents do every day.

But when the coronavirus outbreak scuttled the plan for "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day," the automaker came up with a Plan B: Bring the workplace to the kids.

FCA found a way to observe the day by creating a virtual experience to give children of its U.S. employees a glimpse into the company.

Its online portal, which came together in about three weeks, gives kids something educational to do while schools are closed and exposes them to the auto industry, said Kelly Tolbert, FCA's vice president of global talent, leadership and learning, who led the effort.

She said the company designed the portal so every department was represented. Youngsters can browse sections on product development, quality, human resources, marketing, design, manufacturing and other spe…

Before the coronavirus took hold in the U.S., Genesis had big plans. Not just for a new model or a few more retailers. More like a relaunch of the brand, which has suffered from its all-sedan lineup and sparse dealer network.

Genesis had been building momentum from the start of the year: Its first crossover — the GV80 — debuted in January; the freshened G90 sedan went on sale the same month; a new-generation G80 sedan was unveiled in March. And about 350 dealers had gone through the process of setting up new franchises by the end of last year.

While some automakers are pushing back plans for new and freshened models because of the COVID-19 crisis, Genesis is doing everything in its power to maintain momentum as authorities in the U.S. outline plans to reopen the economy with a patchwork of local rules, said Mark Del Rosso, who was named CEO of Genesis North America in October.

"It's a big country, and every dealer is going throu…