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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…

Walking through one of his empty dealerships wearing a mask and gloves earlier this month, Todd Caputo recalled why he decided to close his stores before ordered to by the state.

One of his technicians had called in sick the morning before with all the symptoms of COVID-19. It meant the technician's wife, a nurse, had to be quarantined.

"Now she can't work at the hospital," Caputo said. "Now she can't maybe save somebody else's life. You know what I mean? I couldn't deal with that."

On March 19 he decided to close his four Sun Auto Group stores in the Syracuse area. The next day, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order that effectively closed all sales operations for dealers. Service departments were deemed essential businesses and therefore could remain open.

But to Caputo it didn't matter. His mind was made up. "It wasn't worth it to me to sell one more car or to do one more oil change and one more brak…

What a crazy few weeks it's been. As a world, we're facing a global pandemic that is monopolizing the media and locking down our communities. As an industry, automotive companies are facing unique challenges and opportunities that could make or break their year.

Dealerships must go beyond a business-as-usual approach to deliver unparalleled, healthy experiences for their customers.

Manufacturers and their dealerships have seen this story before. In 2008, the automotive industry received massive bailouts because of the financial squeeze of the Great Recession in the U.S. With a "global recession" on the tip of some economists' tongues, it's time to consider major action.

We all know that during economic downturns, owners hold onto their vehicles longer and take better care of them vs. purchasing new. Dealerships also spend more time and attention caring for the pre-owned vehicles on their lot to ensure customers are enticed to buy…

Two pairs of retailers among the 10 biggest dealership groups in the country as ranked by Automotive News swapped places for 2019.

The companies in the top 10 stayed the same, with AutoNation Inc., Penske Automotive Group Inc. and Lithia Motors Inc. once again leading the annual list of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S. The groups were ranked using 2019 retail new-vehicle sales.

Hendrick Automotive Group and Sonic Automotive Inc. traded spots to come in at Nos. 5 and 6. Hendrick retailed 115,394 vehicles last year, up 3.2 percent. Sonic retailed 114,131 vehicles, down 7 percent.

Staluppi Auto Group and Ken Garff Automotive Group also swapped positions to come in at Nos. 9 and 10. Staluppi retailed 62,570 new vehicles in 2019, up 5.8 percent. Ken Garff sold 59,305 new vehicles, down 6.8 percent.

New-vehicle sales fell for all six publicly held dealership groups, with AutoNation, Sonic and Penske posting the sharpest declines. AutoNat…