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DETROIT -- A year that started off well for the U.S. auto market, with only a subtle down shift expected following years of strong demand, is suddenly shaping up to be a disaster.

The coronavirus pandemic has disturbed the virtuous blend of lofty consumer confidence and low interest rates that buoyed sales in January, February and even early March. Analysts are now all over the map for how low sales will go, with virtually no one expecting a speedy recovery.

“The whole world is turned upside down right now,” said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights for market researcher Edmunds, which sees the industry’s annualized selling rate slowing to 11.9 million in March. That would be the worst reading since the 2011 tsunami that hit Japan and interrupted shipments of cars and components for months.

Even the reporting calendar will be skewed, according to a survey by the Automotive News Data Center. Most automakers will provide first-quarter numbers W…

FRANKFURT -- BMW revealed some details of the powertrain in an X5-based fuel cell vehicle that could go into small series production in 2022.  

The automaker said it will continue to cooperate with Toyota Motor Corp. to roll out the technology in the second half of the decade, depending on market conditions.

"Hydrogen fuel cell propulsion can in the longer term become a fourth pillar in our drivetrain portfolio, in particular for the upper end of our X family," BMW's outgoing R&D chief Klaus Froehlich said in a statement Monday, referring to the brand's SUV/crossover lineup.

BMW said the fuel cell stack of the BMW i Hydrogen NEXT, which is based on the X5, converts the 6 kg of stored compressed hydrogen gas fed from two 700-bar tanks into an output of 168 hp, with water vapor as a waste product.

The vehicle also has an additional battery housed above the electric motor, helping to provide additional performance, for example, when acc…

European Union regulators would like us to drive electric vehicles to reduce emissions, but is all of Europe ready for the transition?

After three weeks of living with a battery-powered car in northwest Italy, I still do not have a definitive answer to that question. Let me explain why.  

Product: I drove a Hyundai Kona Electric compact crossover in Excellence trim, which comes with a 64 kWh battery pack that is homologated for 449 km of range under the WLTP cycle. The real-world range of about 217 miles (350 km) allows for urban daily use and reasonable weekend trips. Even on battery-saving "eco" mode, the Kona's 204 hp let me outrace many internal-combustion vehicles from a stoplight.    Home charging: With a standard Italian outlet of 3 kWh, a full charge should take a little more than 21 hours. But in reality, the available power varied from 2.1 to 2.7 kWh. "Range anxiety" prevented me from running down the battery all the way, but my charging …

Peugeot has launched a plug-in hybrid version of the 3008 compact crossover, with the option of front- or four-wheel drive.

The 4wd version uses two electric motors and a gasoline engine to produce 300 hp, making it the most powerful model in Peugeot's lineup.

Peugeot will offer 4wd only on the hybrid 3008. The gasoline and diesel versions are front-wheel drive only. The rear wheels are driven by an 83-kilowatt-hour electric motor.  

The 3008 hybrid is built on PSA Group's EMP2 platform for compact and midsize vehicles. It is nearly identical mechanically to the Peugeot 508, DS 7 Crossback, Citroen C5 Aircross and Opel/Vauxhall Grandland X plug-in hybrids, all of which are also new to the market in 2020.   

Peugeot says the only difference that customers will notice in the hybrid version from the gasoline and diesel versions is that the spare tire under the cargo floor on internal-combustion versions is replaced by a charging cable…

Volvo is removing a major pain point for U.S. customers with a vehicle undergoing service — having to schlep to and from the dealership.

Volvo Valet is a new service that allows customers to schedule pick-up and delivery for vehicles that need service or maintenance. As part of the service, customers receive a loaner while their vehicle is in the shop.

The service is offered by more than 100 of Volvo's 282 U.S. dealers.

While available now for service appointments, Volvo Valet will be expanded to include lease and purchase deliveries, lease returns, and overnight test drives later this year.

"Volvo Valet gives owners the flexibility to service and maintain their vehicles in a way that works best for them," Anders Gustafsson, Volvo Car USA CEO, said in a statement.

Using the Volvo Valet app, a customer can see where their driver is and when they will arrive. After handoff and vehicle exchange, the customer can receive a notification when the…

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. is postponing for a second time the reopening of its North American manufacturing facilities amid the global surge in coronavirus cases.

The automaker said Tuesday it will indefinitely delay the restart of production at plants in Mexico, Canada and the United States and declined to offer a restart date.

It was previously aiming to begin work at Hermosillo Assembly in Mexico on April 6 and a handful of U.S. plants on April 14. Those dates came after it pushed back original projections of returning to work March 30.

"The health and safety of our workforce, dealers, customers, partners and communities remains our highest priority," Kumar Galhotra, Ford president, North America, said in a statement. "We are working very closely with union leaders -- especially at the UAW -- to develop additional health and safety procedures aimed at helping keep our workforce safe and healthy."

Two UAW-Ford workers have died from the virus si…

FRANKFURT -- Volkswagen Group expects vehicle sales in China to quadruple in March, the head of its China operations said, pointing to a recovery following the coronavirus pandemic.

"We are cautiously optimistic that the worst effects of the crisis will be behind us in two to three months," said Stephan Woellenstein, head of VW Group's China business.

VW is the largest global automaker in China.

Demand was still limited, the automaker said, but it is prepared to ramp up capacity at factories in the country, 22 of which had resumed production. Two assembly plants in Changsha and Urumqi are still closed, the automaker said.

Woellenstein said he expected total market sales of up to 1 million in March, up from 250,000 in February.

"There are more and more signs that business is recovering. By the middle of the year, we could be back to last year's planning," Woellenstein said. "Hope is returning on the Chinese market."

In 2020, Volkswage…

Penske Automotive Group said it is slashing executive pay, furloughing employees, postponing $150 million in capital expenditures and taking a range of other steps to "to help mitigate the financial and operational impact of COVID-19."

CEO Roger Penske and President Robert Kurnick will accept no salary for the duration of the coronavirus outbreak, while executives and managers across the company also are taking pay cuts, Penske spokesman Anthony Pordon said Monday. Pordon said Penske was not disclosing how many employees would be furloughed, nor how many would see reductions in compensation, or how much. The company also is freezing hiring.

In addition, the board of directors has waived its cash compensation for six months, the second-largest U.S. dealership group said in a statement.

"The COVID-19 crisis is impacting our operations requiring us to take swift and decisive action to address declining business levels," Penske said in the statement. "I am …

Micromobility services have begun to feel the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as it rips through every aspect of the global auto industry.

One such example: e-scooter company Bird, which is reducing company headcounts as it braces for financial instability heightened by COVID-19. The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company is laying off about 30 percent of its employees, according to a company memo obtained by TechCrunch.

The internal memo reportedly cites Bird CEO Travis VanderZanden and says, "The unprecedented COVID-19 crisis has forced our leadership team and the board of directors to make many extremely difficult and painful decisions relating to some of your teammates. As you know, we've had to pause many markets around the world and drastically cut spending."

Bird did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Competing scooter company Lime also is considering turning to layoffs, Bloomberg reported, but Lime h…

DETROIT -- The partnership looked promising.

On March 18, General Motors CEO Mary Barra told President Donald Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow that the automaker might be able to help make much-needed ventilators, the scarce breathing machines used to keep coronavirus patients alive.

The deal would help the company, which has had tense relations with Trump. It would help the administration, which faced charges that the pandemic caught it napping. Most importantly, it would help the sickest patients, those facing death without machines to breathe for them.

But not 10 days later, Trump accused GM of foot-dragging and price-gouging in its effort to replenish the supply of medical equipment. “Always a mess with Mary B,” Trump tweeted, just hours before invoking the Defense Production Act, which allowed him to order GM to move.

Newly revealed details show that GM has been continuously engaged in the effort -- order or no order -- and company …

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump abruptly abandoned his ambition to return American life to normal by Easter, heeding advice from the government’s top doctors that reopening the U.S. economy in two weeks risks greater death as the coronavirus outbreak accelerates.

In a stark shift from two weeks of measured optimism, the president said his guidelines for Americans to practice “social distancing” would remain in place until at least April 30, and he warned that 100,000 or more people may die.

He said in a Rose Garden news conference that he hoped the country would reach “the bottom of the hill” by June 1 -- “could even be sooner, could be a little bit later.”

Trump’s about-face came after his top medical advisers -- Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Deborah Birx, the State Department immunologist advising Vice President Mike Pence -- presented alarming new projections that millions of Am…