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Toyota Motor Corp.’s luxury Lexus brand posted a double-digit sales gain last year, taking its 30th anniversary in stride as strength in China and Europe offset stalled demand in North America.

Sales at the brand, which debuted in 1989, grew 10 percent to 765,330 worldwide last year, Toyota said in a statement Monday, powered by strong sales of its UX subcompact crossover and best-selling RX sports utility vehicle.

China sales soared 25 percent to 202,000 vehicles in 2019 and deliveries in Europe climbed 14 percent to 87,000 vehicles. But in North America, the brand’s largest market, sales came to 325,000 vehicles — which Toyota said were “level with prior year.“

Lexus’ shift toward smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles such as hybrid gas-electric motors has proved popular in China and Europe, but an aging product lineup in the U.S. — where larger vehicles rule the road — has cost it market share and momentum.

Toyota has long sought to mak…

TOKYO -- Toyota Motor Corp. and Panasonic Corp. have agreed to set up a joint venture that will begin developing electric vehicle batteries starting in April, as the Japanese companies gear up for an expected surge in demand.

The new company, called Prime Planet Energy and Solutions, will develop prismatic - or square-shaped - batteries that will be available to any automaker, the two companies said in a statement on Monday.

It will begin operations on April 1 with more than 5,000 employees, with Toyota owning 51 percent and Panasonic holding the remainder, the companies said.

The venture, first announced in January 2019, reflects the aim of the Japanese companies to become bigger global players in the automotive battery industry, which is vital for the development of affordable EVs. Stricter environmental regulations worldwide are accelerating a shift toward environmentally friendlier cars.

"Batteries - as solutions for providing energy for autom…

TOKYO -- Toyota will roll out a new safety system that counters misapplication of the accelerator pedal as part of an upgrade of its Safety Sense package of anti-crash technologies. The recently developed system will be offered as an option on new vehicles in Japan from this summer, and the automaker expects to introduce it to other markets thereafter. The debut comes as Toyota and other Japanese automakers try to address a surge in accidents among elderly drivers in Japan, which is experiencing a rapidly aging population. The number of fatal accidents involving drivers 75 or older in Japan doubled from 381 in 2007 to 791 in 2019, Toyota said. Mistaking the accelerator for the brake is a leading cause. "We thought something needed to be done," Seigo Kuzumaki, Toyota fellow for advanced r&d and engineering, said on Monday. "We believe this will have a big impact." Toyota's countermeasure uses software to suppress acceleration when the onboard com…

Porsche doesn't want the Taycan, the brand's first battery electric vehicle, to be an outsider that's disconnected from the manufacturer's storied heritage.

So Porsche's first Super Bowl ad since 1997 had to do double duty. In addition to serving as an energetic declaration of the brand's foray into all-electric power, the ad sought to link the Taycan to Porsche's family tree.

This motivation turned "The Heist" into an up-tempo exhibit of Porsche performance through the years that shows the Taycan tearing up German roads with its cousins. Museum security guards in the spot have to track down a "stolen" Taycan while driving an array of Porsche models.

The Taycan gets plenty of time to display what 750 hp can do, but the ad also pays homage to its past with appearances by the 1971 917 K race car as well as the 1973 911 RSR and 1988 911 Turbo. The Taycan shares the road with its modern relatives, too, including the 2020 718 Cayman GT4 and the 2015 918 Spyd…

The Super Bowl won't be light on metal this year.

After a relatively dull showing in 2019, automakers are returning to the field with a slate of key products to pitch that break new ground for several companies — including spots from brands that are either new to the Super Bowl stage or haven't been there often.

So far for the 2020 broadcast, there are eight auto brands running spots, compared with five last year.

Porsche is coming back to the game's roster of advertisers after 23 years to showcase its first battery electric car, the Taycan, hoping to connect the EV with the brand's performance heritage. Audi, a Super Bowl staple, is continuing its electric evolution by pushing the e-tron Sportback crossover.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, with its legacy of iconic celebrities used in its Super Bowl ads, this year is expected to turn to Bill Murray in a re-creation of the movie Groundhog Day, as the game this year takes place on Groundhog Day. Film c…

With the Detroit auto show's move from January to June, Chicago now has the distinction of being North America's first major auto show of the year, kicking off the stream of new-vehicle premieres.

While several automakers have decided to unveil vehicles independently at private, non-auto show events over the past couple of months, Chicago will have its share of public debuts of new vehicles this week.

Ford Performance will use the show to unveil what it calls the "newest combination of Le Mans-winning design and materials" related to the GT supercar.

Chicago will mark the first auto show appearance for GM's redesigned full-size SUVs — Chevrolet's Tahoe and Suburban and GMC's Yukon and Yukon XL.

Fresh off its global unveiling in South Korea last month, Genesis' first crossover, the GV80, will make its auto show debut in Chicago. The GV80, with an optional third row, will be available with two turbocharged gasoline engines in the U.S.

Af…

The Model 3 sedan sent Tesla Inc. to "production hell," but the automaker believes it can bypass that particular stop with its next big product launch, which is approaching faster than many outside the company had anticipated.

Tesla last week reported a fourth-quarter profit that fell 25 percent from the same period a year earlier, though its stock soared on the news that the company started building the Model Y in January at its California plant. The electric-vehicle maker said it expects to begin delivering the three-row compact crossover to customers by the end of March.

The company originally predicted a fall 2020 delivery date when it unveiled the vehicle last year. It's a rare instance of Tesla and CEO Elon Musk, known for blowing deadlines, being ahead of schedule.

In addition to the timing surprise, Tesla said it had boosted the all-wheel-drive Model Y's battery range to 315 miles from the originally announced 280 miles.…

DETROIT — The CT6 was supposed to be the flagship sedan that led Cadillac's rebirth. It was the first full-size Cadillac with rear-wheel drive in two decades, the only Cadillac offering a high-powered Blackwing V-8 and the only way to get Super Cruise, a driver-assist system that many critics say outperforms Tesla's Autopilot.

But four years after its arrival, the car that former Cadillac chief Johan de Nysschen introduced as "prestige luxury reimagined" is kaput. The Michigan plant that stopped making it last week is slated to instead churn out electric vehicles starting next year.

GM looked at a number of options to keep the CT6 alive, GM President Mark Reuss said. But executives didn't find a viable solution."To transform the business you sometimes need to make tough decisions; this is one of those times," Reuss said in an email to Automotive News. "But the Cadillac portfolio is in a great place. With the addition of the CT5 and CT4 sedan…

Hyundai Motor America is adding another enticement for new-vehicle shoppers: Free routine maintenance for three years/36,000 miles.

The brand will introduce the Hyundai Complimentary Maintenance program in an ad that will air Sunday during the Super Bowl pregame show.

The program is available for new 2020 Hyundai models purchased or leased on or after Feb. 1 and covers scheduled oil and filter changes and tire rotations during the three-year/36,000-mile period.

"Complimentary Maintenance helps dealers ensure that our owners keep rolling with peace of mind," said Barry Ratzlaff, Hyundai Motor America's chief customer officer, in a statement. "These programs, along with five years of roadside assistance and three years of Blue Link connectivity, give owners confidence that we will take care of them once they've joined the Hyundai family."

Along with the roadside assistance and Blue Link services, the maintenance program will be packaged with Hyundai…

SHANGHAI — The Chinese government's decision to extend its long national New Year holiday gave the world's auto industry a small break as it confronts the fears and uncertainties of the potentially deadly coronavirus.

The major holiday, in which all of Chinese society typically closes for business, would have ended Wednesday, Jan. 29, when thousands of automotive employees would have been due back to work, worsening the risk of spreading the illness.

Instead, Chinese authorities declared the holiday would continue until Sunday, Feb. 9, in populous Shanghai and the south China province of Guangdong and Sunday, Feb. 2, for the rest of the country, giving the virus more time to peter out.

Aside from the human toll it is taking, the international spread of the coronavirus last week added more worry and inconvenience to an auto industry that is increasingly interwoven with Chinese factories and consumers.

Auto supplier ex…

LAS VEGAS — Inside the parking garage at the Hard Rock Cafe, one of the human safety drivers from Russian self-driving tech company Yandex opens the car door and climbs aboard the Prius V for a quick ride around the city.

Today, he's riding shotgun.

Showcases of autonomous-driving technology have become so commonplace at CES in recent years that they've become almost ho-hum affairs. But Yandex added a fresh twist this time, removing its human safety drivers from behind the wheel and placing them in the passenger seat instead. Without any human behind the wheel, Yandex rolled two vehicles onto public roads and delivered a week's worth of uneventful rides through Las Vegas' traffic-clogged arterial four-lane roadways.

This was something of a public-road milestone for these particular city streets, but Dmitry Polishchuk, head of self-driving cars at Yandex, downplayed the complexity of the moment.

"People are more polite driving here," he said…

The New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers is suing Ford Motor Co. and its Lincoln luxury brand over what it says are unfair discounts for certain retailers who comply with a commitment program requiring standalone showrooms.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in New Jersey State Superior Court, alleges that the program -- which Lincoln reworked last year in an attempt to appease unhappy dealers -- would create an illegal two-tier pricing program. Dealers who uncouple their Ford store and build standalone Lincoln showrooms are eligible for up to 5.75 percent in potential discounts per vehicle, the suit says, while those who do not participate would not receive the financial reward.

"Two-tier pricing programs, like the one being pushed on Lincoln dealers at this time, tear at the very fabric of the franchise system," Jim Appleton, president of the dealer group, said in a statement.

"The New Jersey Legislature, in 2011, outlawed such programs, because lawmak…