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PARIS — Renault said it would shut down its industrial sites in France from Monday evening "until further notice."

The automaker said it was suspending production to protect employees from the coronavirus outbreak and "in compliance with the measures taken by the French government."

Renault said 12 sites and 18,000 employees would be affected.

The situation at other plants in Europe would depend on conditions in each country, the automaker said.

Renault Group, with 1.65 million vehicle sales in 2019, is the third-biggest automaker in Europe, following Volkswagen Group and PSA Group.

Earlier, PSA Group said it was closing all factories in Europe, joining other automakers including Fiat Chrysler Automobiles that have announced full or partial shutdowns.

Renault earlier on Monday closed factories at Palencia and Valladolid, Spain, for several days due to supply shortages.

The plant at Flins, near Paris, which makes the …

Tesla Inc. delivered almost one-third of all electric vehicles in China last month, an industry group said, signaling the Model 3 maker has been relatively unscathed by the coronavirus outbreak that’s paralyzed much of the country.

The company delivered 3,958 EVs in February -- or about 30 percent of all new-energy vehicles in the country -- said Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association, in an online briefing on Monday about the country’s overall industry figures. That’s a “pretty good performance,” he said.

Comparative Tesla figures weren’t immediately available as the association doesn’t usually break out the company’s sales in its monthly briefings. And it’s unclear how many of those vehicles were sold to customers because the figures represent wholesale deliveries to dealerships. Still, Tesla’s performance came during a month when Chinese auto sales tumbled about 80 percent as the coronavirus kept consumers away from showrooms.<…

Beijing Hyundai, Hyundai Motor Co.’s joint venture with BAIC Motor Co., said output has resumed at three production sites and suppliers despite the lingering coronavirus outbreak in China.

The joint venture’s assembly plants in Beijing, the north China city of Cangzhou and the southwest China municipality of Chongqing have successively reopened, the company announced Saturday. 

None of the 10,000-plus employees at the plants have been infected by the virus, allowing full production to resume at the three sites, it said. 

Meanwhile, the joint venture’s 300-plus Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers have restarted production and nearly 90 percent of its franchised dealerships across China have reopened, it added. 

Beijing Hyundai hasn’t disclosed sales results this year. 

According to the China Passenger Car Association, a Shanghai-based consultancy, the company delivered 7,313 vehicles in February, a drop of 79 percent from a year …

Changsha, the capital of central China’s Hunan province, is joining three other major cities and subsidizing new-vehicle sales produced locally to help spur demand and minimize the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

The city will offer subsidies of up to 3,000 yuan ($429) to buyers of new vehicles built locally by five automakers from March 11 to June 30, the Changsha city government said Friday. 

The automakers include Volkswagen Group, Fiat Chrysler, Mitsubishi Motors and two domestic companies – BYD Co. and Leopard Motors. 

Changsha is the second city in Hunan province to subsidize sales of locally produced vehicles, following Xiangtan. 

On March 2, Xiangtan said it would provide a 3,000 yuan subsidy to the first 3,500 customers purchasing new cars assembled locally by Geely Automobile Holdings. 

Since last month, Foshan and Guangzhou – two cities in the south China province of Guangdong – have also rolled out subsid…

Editor's note: Luca Ciferri, editor and associate publisher of Automotive News Europe, is living under quarantine at his Italian home in Villastellone, just south of Turin. He will be filing daily updates in this blog post.

Today is the sixth of 25 days of quarantine imposed on March 10 on the entire country to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

According to the latest figures, the contagion has been contracted by 21,157 people, resulting in 1,441 deaths as of yesterday. So there’s nothing to be happy about.

Today is also the first Sunday with the entire country locked down.

It’s not clear, however, if you can still go out for a walk. In some areas it is apparently OK; in others, just walking to keep fit puts you at risk of being fined 205 euros. Since we're in the midst of a quarantine, those criminal offenses will be processed at a later date.

Cycling seems to being permitted, but it’s strongly discouraged by doctors. A simple accident wo…

European automakers are gauging the impact of last week's U.S. ban on travel to and from most of Europe — a critical issue for automakers and suppliers with operations, projects and management teams on both continents.

But their immediate response last week showed little real worry.

The ban was one of several measures announced by President Donald Trump to combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ban will prevent most foreign nationals from entering the U.S. if they have traveled in the previous 14 days to any of 26 European countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Sweden.

The announcement caught European automakers off guard, just as it did political leaders in the affected countries.

Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Volvo have major U.S. operations, including design and engineering centers, R&D hubs, manufacturing plants and supply chains.

Automakers were reticent to publicly discuss…

TOKYO — Greg Kelly, the Nashville auto executive fingered by Nissan as the "mastermind" of Carlos Ghosn's alleged compensation misconduct, is rolling out a detailed defense ahead of his pending trial in Japan, and international pressure is mounting to bring attention to his legal battle.

Kelly claims that Nissan money earmarked for Ghosn was not part of a scheme to provide the automaker's ousted chairman deferred compensation, as Nissan Motor Corp. and Japanese prosecutors allege.

Instead, Kelly, who rose from Nissan's top U.S. human resources executive to become an alliance executive vice president and eventually a director on Nissan's board in Japan, said it was a legal draft of a postretirement contract intended to keep Ghosn as an adviser to the Japanese carmaker and prevent him from bolting to a competitor.

Writing in a recent commentary for Japan's Bungei Shunju news journal, Kelly added that the contracts in question, dev…

BMW is ending production of the i8 sports car, six years after its introduction.

The i8 was BMW's first plug-in hybrid. The production version of the i8 was unveiled at the 2013 Frankfurt auto show and it went on sale in the United States in 2014.

BMW freshened the i8 coupe and introduced a roadster version in 2018.

U.S. sales of the car rose 43 percent to 1,102 last year.

As BMW closes the chapter on the i8, the automaker is preparing to release several battery-powered models as part of ambitious plans to market 25 electrified models by 2023.

Production of the iNext crossover will begin in the middle of 2021. That will be followed by the start of i4 sedan output toward the end of 2021.

Plans to bring an electric crossover, the iX3, to the U.S. next year have been scrapped for now.

The i4 and iNext have a range of more than 370 miles, compared with the iX3's 273-mile range, based…

LOS ANGELES — In response to coronavirus fears, Hyundai is relaunching its Assurance job-loss protection program for new vehicles, offering to make up to six months of payments for customers who buy or lease over the next six weeks through its captive financing arm. Genesis is offering a similar program.

The protection is available for vehicles sold or leased starting March 14 and ending April 30, and financed by Hyundai Capital, the company said Friday. Hyundai, which has bucked the industry's downturn in retail sales, is also allowing deferred payments for 90 days, at a customer's request, toward the purchase of select vehicles, including the Accent and Elantra sedans, and Venue, Kona, Tucson and Santa Fe crossovers.

The "Genesis Cares" program is similar, covering new purchases and leases from March 14 through April 30 using Genesis Finance for customers who suffer an involuntary job loss any time this year, Genesis said. Payments can be de…

MILAN -- Ferrari said on Saturday it closed its two plants until March 27 in a response to the coronavirus outbreak in Italy and an emerging shortage of parts.

Ferrari adds to a string of Italian manufacturers that have closed plants or slowed production rates in response to the virus emergency, threatening to disrupt Europe's struggling automotive industry.

Ferrari said in a statement it had so far ensured production continuity, as it already implemented all the health measures required by the Italian government at the two sites, located in Maranello, its global headquarters, and in Modena, in the northern Emilia Romagna region.

However, it added the company was "now experiencing the first serious supply chain issues, which no longer allow for continued production."

Brakes specialist Brembo, which supplies Ferrari as well as other premium and supercar makers, said on Friday it would temporarily close its four Italian plants next week.

All non-…

Editor's note: Luca Ciferri, editor and associate publisher of Automotive News Europe, is living under quarantine at his Italian home in Villastellone, just south of Turin. He will be filing daily updates in this blog post.

Italy is mourning the first known death of an active member of the auto industry community to the coronavirus.

Umberto Falchetti, who for many years was the guiding force at supplier MTA, died after a short battle with the virus.

He was 86 and otherwise very healthy before developing a fever and never recovering, his daughter, Maria Vittoria Falchetti, told me during an emotional phone call.

MTA, short for Meccanotecnica Codognese, makes electronic and electromechanical components supplied to BMW, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, PSA Group and Renault. The company was founded in 1954 by Antonio Falchetti, Umberto's father and Maria Vittoria's grandfather. The company is based in Codogno, 36 miles southeast of Milan, one of the two e…

OTTAWA -- The Canadian Parliament rushed through ratification of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact on Friday before taking a three-week break to help stop the spread of the coronavirus, a top government official said.

Canada was the last of the three signatories to formally adopt the pact, prompting congratulations from the United States and Mexico.

The House of Commons lower chamber, which had weeks of deliberations left, agreed the instant approval on Friday after opposition legislators dropped their objections. The upper Senate chamber backed the pact later in the day, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters.

"(This) was entirely within the power of Canadian legislators to do, something we were able to do to help the Canadian economy at this challenging time, and I would like to thank legislators from all parties," she said.

The only remaining step is formal approval by the governor-general - the representative of Queen Eliza…