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TOKYO — The Toyota-led push to plug hydrogen combustion as a path to carbon neutrality has gained backing from rivals such as Honda and Suzuki as a group of Japanese minicar and motorcycle makers launch a fresh nationwide effort to promote the technology.

Honda Motor Co. and Suzuki Motor Corp. will join Kawasaki Motors and Yamaha Motor Co. to develop hydrogen combustion engines for "small mobility," a category they say covers minivehicles, motorcycles, boats, construction equipment and drones.

The new effort, announced Wednesday, injects fresh energy into a clean powertrain strategy championed by Toyota Motor Corp., which has largely been a lone voice in the wilderness on the technology.

Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda has been positioning hydrogen combustion as one route to achieving carbon neutrality since 2021. Japan's biggest automaker has been developing hydrogen-burning engines and deploying them in race cars, and the Toyoda is expected to take his tur…

At the company's annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas, Tesla CEO Elon Musk spoke about car demand, making more money than competitors in a slow economy, and also said he would conduct a third-party audit in cobalt mines that supply Tesla with a key ingredient to make batteries.

In a sign of tough times even for Tesla, the market leader in electric cars, Musk said the company would try to advertise its vehicles, something it has not done before.

"Tesla is not immune to the global economic environment. I expect things to be just at a macro economic level difficult for at least the next 12 months," said Musk.

At the meeting, shareholders voted to appoint the company's co-founder and former chief technology officer, JB Straubel, to the board. Proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis had urged investors to vote against Straubel's appointment, citing worries about his independence.

They also rejected a proposal to publish a report that sought to establis…

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Tesla Inc. and CEO Elon Musk may be under pressure at the EV maker's annual meeting to address investor concerns about the lack of a clear successor, softening demand and delays of some new models.

Investors will also vote on the appointment of Tesla co-founder and former chief technology officer JB Straubel as one of the board members.  

Ford reporter Michael Martinez talks about the automaker's hopes that its newly redesigned Ranger will help cut into Toyota’s truck lead overseas. Legacy automakers continue chipping away at Tesla’s EV lead. And Audi’s former boss admits in court to fraud by negligence.

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Senior executives of small EV brands Polestar and Smart said Tuesday they are open to new technology and investor partners as they fight for sales against larger rivals.

Smart, a joint venture of Germany's Mercedes-Benz Group and China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group  is "open for a third, fourth, fifth investor, not only for funding but technology," Dirk Adelmann, CEO of Smart Europe, said on Tuesday at the Reuters Events Automotive Europe conference.

Smart is launching two new EVs in Europe, China and other markets. In Europe, the new Smart #1, launching now, and the future Smart #3 compact crossover, will steer into the heart of the market against models such as the Volkswagen ID.3 electric car and combustion models such as the Peugeot 208. 

The brand has the backing of its two large automotive parents, but Adelmann said they expect Smart to pay back their investments "in the first life cycle" of products, or within six years.

AutoNation Inc. has hired a new CFO in what is the auto retailer's second major executive change within the last few weeks.

Thomas Szlosek, 59, an executive from outside the auto industry, will start by Aug. 7, the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., company announced Tuesday.

He replaces Joe Lower, who come August will move to a newly created role at the company overseeing "business transformation initiatives," AutoNation said.

Lower was named CFO in late 2019 after working in that role at office-supplies company Office Depot.

"I am excited to welcome a best-in-class Fortune 500 CFO and business leader like Tom to the AutoNation team," AutoNation CEO Mike Manley said in a statement. "He has delivered outstanding results across multiple industries."

Szlosek since December 2018 has been CFO of Avantor Inc., a products and services company focused on biopharmaceuticals, health care, education and government, advanced technologies and applied materials. H…

A woman has been charged with felony embezzlement for allegedly stealing about $250,000 from a Toyota dealership when it was in Louisville, Miss., local station WTOK reported.

Louisville is in eastern Mississippi, northeast of Jackson.

Latisha Jones Smith, 50, was formerly the comptroller for Doc's Toyota, according to WTOK. She had been let go by Doc's Toyota on Jan. 5 for matters unrelated to the charges, the local station reported.

The store had been auditing its books in the intervening months, according to WTOK.

Smith is also facing additional charges of felony embezzlement in Neshoba County, Miss., where Doc's Toyota is now located. She is accused of stealing about $71,000, WTOK reported in April. The store is in Philadelphia in central Mississippi.

Doc's Toyota declined to comment. Smith was not able to be contacted for comment.

Smith's bond was set at $25,000, which she met last week, WTOK reported.

Taking the auto industry into the future means making the jump to a new way of thinking about car buying.

While historically, the car buying process primarily started at the front doors of a dealership, consumers are increasingly turning to digital “doors” to initiate steps like researching vehicles, calculating their monthly payment and exploring financing options.

In this shifting world of car buying, dealers must meet consumers at multiple entry points to the process—both online and in person.

Buyers are demanding more information, transparency and choices through digital tools. They also value the in-person experience of visiting a showroom, meeting with a dealer face to face, discussing pricing and test driving the vehicle before they complete the purchase.

Addressing both the online and in-person aspects of car buying is the most important challenge dealers face today. The ones to succeed will make the jump to give car buyers the best of bo…

It's a brutal time to be introducing an electric vehicle brand from scratch in the U.S. Beyond the reservations some Americans still have with EVs, the increasingly crowded market has been roiled by surging raw material outlays, software bugs, and more recently vehicle price cuts and hikes, giving some consumers more pause and whiplash.

VinFast, the startup EV maker from Vietnam, is having a go at it and has begun leasing a electric crossover in the U.S.

The company's initial crossover is a limited version — the VF 8 City Edition — and available only as part of a $399-per-month lease, cut from $599 per month in February.

The VF 8, imported from Vietnam, is only eligible for a federal tax credit as a lease vehicle because of new incentive rules, and VinFast said the promotion was conceived "to stay competitive with other brands."

The VF 8 City Edition has a starting price of $50,200 with shipping.

Every VF 8 …

Tesla Inc.'s price cuts in the first quarter led to significant volume gains, according to U.S. new-vehicle registration data from Experian. But the benefits came mostly from the relatively fresh Model Y crossover and not the older Model 3 sedan, Model X crossover or Model S hatchback.

Analysts are closely watching Tesla's numbers after CEO Elon Musk said last month he was willing to sacrifice profits to maintain a global growth target of 50 percent a year for the foreseeable future. Tesla is targeting between 1.8 million and 2 million vehicles in total global production this year.

After deep price cuts in January and several adjustments after that, Musk said, "the overall thing we can say is that orders are in excess of production."

Tesla opened two new factories last year, in Texas and Germany, boosting Model Y annual capacity by about half a million vehicles, the company said.

In the first quarter, Tesla's U.S. registrations rose 37 percent co…

Toyota Research Institute said its partnership with top U.S. universities has resulted in developments in advanced robotic capabilities, fuel cell catalyst durability and computational governance.

The program has funded $100 million of R&D and yielded more than 1,200 research papers, including several winners of academic awards, Toyota said in a statement Monday. It began in 2016 and expanded last year to include 21 university partners and 61 projects.

Each university partner teams up with a Toyota researcher on a specific line of inquiry, working on solutions specific to parent company Toyota Motor Corp. and for the industry.

Columbia University's Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Lab has developed new robotic capabilities designed to handle nonrigid objects that can fold, bend and change shape. These robots can fold laundry and manipulate flexible bags, dynamic tasks with implications for vehicle development.

"The partnership has allowed …