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Delivery's time to shine?

Coronavirus has wrought significant changes across the transportation landscape. Among them: a renewed focus on using autonomous-driving technology for delivery services.

On April 7, self-driving startup Nuro received a permit to test its driverless delivery vehicles on certain California roads.

Now comes the Yandex Rover.

On Wednesday, Russian tech titan Yandex launched a commercial rollout of its Rover delivery robot. The company deployed the six-wheeled sidewalk vehicle that's about as big as a cooler, in Skolkovo, a tech-minded suburb of Moscow. It's the first deployment of the Rover, which began road testing in November, outside the company's private campuses.

Employees of city offices will be the first to use the app-based delivery service, and the Rovers will travel "several kilometers" between buildings on public sidewalks. Along these trips, the Rover will meet pedestrians, cross streets and encoun…

LONDON -- Nissan will resume vehicle production at its U.K. plant in early June, the automaker said in a statement.

The plant is the largest car factory in the U.K. and Nissan's largest in Europe. The Qashqai and Juke crossovers, and the Leaf electric car, are built at the facility in Sunderland, northeast England. Production fell 22 percent to 346,535 units last year.

Vehicle production at the plant was halted March 13 due to the coronavirus outbreak. About 150 employees returned to work last week to begin engine production, Nissan said.

Nissan is waiting to see how car sales recover before ramping up the factory to full production.

"Our goal is to navigate through this crisis while maintaining activities critical for business continuity and to make sure we are prepared for the time when business resumes in Europe," the company said.

Nissan will reopen its other European assembly plant in Barcelona, Spain, on May 4, it said last week.

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Hear Mark Fields’ views on the industry’s return to normalcy. He also looks at the future of retailing, manufacturing, electrification and investments in autonomous driving.

Speakers:Jason Stein, Publisher, Automotive NewsMark Fields, Senior Advisor, TPG Capital

This conversation was originally broadcast on April 30, 2020 at 11am EDT as part of our Congress Conversations series. The series runs through June 4. Register to watch future Congress Conversations live at http://autonews.com/congress.

After a monthlong shutdown, BMW on Monday plans to crank up the lines at its largest assembly plant in the world, the automaker said Wednesday.

BMW's plant in Spartanburg, S.C., which employs 11,000 people, joins Hyundai and Kia in hoping to restart after efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus shuttered auto manufacturing across the nation.

Toyota and Volkswagen were expected to restart their factories May 4 but have since pushed back the start date.

BMW's German rival Mercedes-Benz holds the distinction of beating the industry in getting back to business. Daimler's Vance, Ala., assembly plant opened April 27. The factory, which builds the GLE crossover, GLS SUV and C-Class sedan, began operating with one shift.

BMW's 7 million-square-foot South Carolina plant builds the popular X-Series crossovers. About 70 percent of production volume is exported to around 125 markets worldwide, with China being the biggest.

Next week's restart …

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.

TI Fluid Systems' Bill Kozyra weighs in on restarting the industry; implementing an "extensive" list of safety protocols; how the supplier "beat the rush" to protect employees from the virus.

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In a sign of how the coronavirus is changing car buying, millions of potential Tesla Inc. customers in China just tuned in to a celebrity-led online livestream touting the U.S. company’s vehicles.

Almost 4 million viewers watched the hour-long show on the Taobao shopping platform on Tuesday afternoon, seeing livestreamer and influencer Viya demonstrate Tesla features from the music player to air conditioning, even climbing in to the cargo space of a Model S sedan to show how spacious it is. Viewers were asked to book test drives through the site, with a sales rep calling back within 48 hours to make the arrangements.

Desperate to revive sales decimated by the virus outbreak, carmakers and dealers in China are betting on novel ways to attract customers. Buyers in the world’s biggest auto market are gradually warming to the idea of buying big-ticket items like cars via apps, social media and livestreaming sites that have become an important part of the e-commerce…

Dana Inc. said Thursday that weaker demand in a key segment and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic weighed on its first-quarter sales and profits.

The axles and transmission supplier said sales fell nearly 11 percent to $1.93 billion in the quarter.

A sluggish heavy-vehicle market in January and February and production halts across all mobility markets in March as a result of the global response to COVID-19 impacted sales, the company said.

Dana reported net income of $38 million, down 61 percent from the same period last year. This includes a goodwill impairment charge of $51 million resulting from the impact of the virus, the company said.

First-quarter adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization dropped 20 percent to $205 million. Dana said cost management helped mitigate the margin impact of the sales decline in the first quarter.

Dana joins several suppliers that have reported earnings during the crisis. Ma…

FRANKFURT -- Continental is postponing the planned listing of its powertrain unit Vitesco Technologies, citing ongoing economic uncertainty.

Shareholders will not be asked to sign off on the plans for a Vitesco spinoff at the annual general meeting on July 14 and the deal will not take place this year, Continental said in a statement on Thursday.

"We are now arranging the organizational and procedural requirements so that Continental and Vitesco Technologies are in a position to swiftly implement the spinoff with listing once the market environment is suitable. The decisive preparations for this will have been completed by the end of the year," Vitesco CEO Andreas Wolf said.

With the listing, Continental is hoping to capitalize on the industry's rapid move toward electrification. By 2025, Vitesco expects 40 percent of all powertrains to be electrified because of a combination of tougher global emissions regulations and rising consumer demand.

Auto…

MILAN -- Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said its Italian network of approved dealers and repair workshops would reopen on Monday, when the country is set to start lifting a national lockdown put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

A package of health and safety measures for workers and customers will be put in place across the automaker's retail network to comply with the rules set by the Italian government to prepare for a staged restart of economic activities.

A vast majority of FCA's dealers and workshops in Italy are run by private operators, while the automaker directly operates some large ones in big cities.

Dealerships of other automakers will also be allowed to reopen on Monday.

In France, dealerships will be reopen a week later than Italy, starting on Monday, May 11, as the country takes the first steps to emerge from a nearly two-month lockdown. Showrooms in Germany, Europe's largest auto market, were allowed to reopen on April 2…

Ford Credit's earnings before taxes dropped 96 percent in the first quarter as the lender clocked $600 million in credit losses as a result impacts from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Dearborn, Mich., captive finance arm attributes the drop to efforts to bolster credit-loss reserves — the funds it sets aside for auto loans it doesn't expect will be repaid — higher depreciation on off-lease vehicles awaiting sale at auction and anticipated operating lease defaults.

Ford Credit posted $30 million in first-quarter earnings before taxes, executives said Tuesday, down $771 million compared with one year ago. The added reserves and estimates for lease performance projections reflect the likely worsening financial situation caused by coronavirus closures and impacted consumers.

Ford Motor Co. CFO Tim Stone told investors Tuesday that the lender expected used-vehicle markets to rally, although he couldn't establish a timeline until auction…

Auto retail giant AutoNation Inc. has named Marc Cannon, its chief marketing officer, to a newly created position of chief customer experience officer.

The move is effective Wednesday and adds technology oversight to his responsibilities. He will continue to oversee brand, advertising, marketing, e-commerce, customer relations and communications.

Cannon, 58, with more than three decades of experience, has helped AutoNation develop digital customer experiences and has participated in strategic planning for technology relating to customer experience.

Cannon said he now oversees information technology including infrastructure, digital, phone, special projects and the company's information security group. AutoNation's Chief Information Officer Christos Kotsakis, a senior vice president, now reports to Cannon.

"We have an incredible relationship and he is very talented," Cannon said of Kotsakis in an email. "This brings al…

DETROIT -- General Motors is postponing the debut of the GMC Hummer high-performance electric pickup because of the coronavirus, a spokesman said Wednesday.

GM planned the debut for May 20 at a GMC dealer meeting in Las Vegas, but the event has been canceled. The spokesman said GM will look at all options, including a virtual event, when it reschedules the reveal "as the pandemic continues to affect all parts of business."

GM plans to build the Hummer at its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant, which was being retooled to become GM's EV manufacturing hub. Construction has been put on hold to comply with Michigan's stay-at-home order. It's unclear when the project will resume, but Michigan's governor is planning to allow construction activities to resume in the state May 7.

With GM's designers and engineers unable to go to work at GM's Tech Center in Warren, Mich., most development work has stopped. But GM says the Hummer pickup will go on sale in late 2021 …