Trade News

Tesla Inc. is recalling more than 475,000 of its Model 3 and Model S EVs to address rearview camera and trunk issues that increase the risk of crashing, the U.S. road safety regulator said.

The EV maker is recalling 356,309 2017-2020 Model 3 vehicles to address rearview camera issues and 119,009 Model S vehicles due to front hood problems, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said.

The total number of recalled vehicles is close to the half a million vehicles Tesla delivered last year. Tesla could not be reached for comment.

For Model 3 sedans, "the rearview camera cable harness may be damaged by the opening and closing of the trunk lid, preventing the rearview camera image from displaying," NHTSA said.

For Model S vehicles, front hood latch problems may lead a trunk to open "without warning and obstruct the driver’s visibility, increasing the risk of a crash," Tesla told the agency.

Tesla is not aware of any crashes, injuries …

Ford Motor Co.’s surging stock gave it a market value greater than rival General Motors for the first time in more than five years.

Ford had a market value of $83 billion at Tuesday's close in New York, just barely ahead of GM’s $82.9 billion. The last time Ford was valued at more than its Detroit-based rival was Sept. 14, 2016, when Ford closed the day with a $48.2 billion market cap.

When the market closed Wednesay Ford shares were trading at $20.56, down nearly a percentage point.

Ford shares have more than doubled this year and have been trading around a 20-year-high. They’ve been on a tear since Jim Farley became CEO 14 months ago and accelerated Ford’s push into electric vehicles. The automaker has sold out the first year of its electric F-150 pickup, debuting this spring, and plans to produce 600,000 EVs annually by 2024.

GM has a goal to go all-electric by the middle of the next decade, but surprised Wall Street with the abrupt departure…

BERLIN -- BMW plans to create up to 6,000 new jobs next year to prepare for growing demand for its electric vehicles, the carmaker's CEO told German daily Muenchner Merkur.

BMW is on a very good path through the transformation and has its plants prepared for e-mobility, Oliver Zipse was quoted as saying in an interview published Wednesday. "That is why we will increase our workforce by up to 5 percent next year."

BMW has so far sold more than one million electrified vehicles -- including pure electric and hybrid vehicles -- and plans to reach two million sales of pure electric vehicles by 2025.

Given ongoing investments by semiconductor manufacturers, the semiconductor shortage should be over in a year, the CEO said. "I expect that by the end of next year we will see a largely normal situation."

Zipse said demand for EVs was very high. "Our i4 is sold out for months, as is the iX." The i4 is an electric compact executive car and the iX is an ele…

Mercedes-Benz removed a video advertisement from a Chinese social media website, state media said, after the clip got swept up in a charged national debate over depictions of Asian-looking features by foreign companies.

The video was posted on Mercedes-Benz’s official Weibo account on Saturday and later removed due to public backlash, the Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper said. “The makeup of the female model looked like slanted eyes and once again aroused a heated discussion from netizens with many blaming that the makeup reflects Western stereotypes about Asian people,” the paper said Tuesday.

The report included a screenshot of the video showing a woman who is apparently Chinese, though Bloomberg News hasn’t seen the full version of the ad. Emails and phone calls to Martin Sauber and Juan Zhou, the China press representatives for Daimler, were not immediately returned.

The episode makes Mercedes-Benz the latest target of consumer nationalism in…

When engineers went to work designing the fifth-generation Range Rover in 2016, the iconic luxury off-road SUV had to be capable of doing something no Range Rover has ever done before: carry seven people over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house.

Every Range Rover built since the first one in 1970 has been a two-row, five-passenger vehicle. That all changes next spring when for the first time a three-row option becomes available in the redesigned 2022 model.

Although the two-row and three-row long- wheelbase versions of the fifth-generation Range Rover share the same body panels and floorpan, adding a third row of seats was a major project that involved nearly every part of Land Rover's engineering and design teams — interior decorators, electricians, safety experts, the seat team, human-machine interface engineers and others.

The job was complicated by several things:

Elon Musk sold a further $1.02 billion of Tesla Inc. shares, taking him close to his target of reducing his stake in the electric-car maker by 10 percent.

Tesla's CEO -- also the world’s richest person -- sold 934,090 shares, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.

Musk has been offloading Tesla stock since asking his Twitter followers in November whether he should sell some of his stake. Musk said in a tweet last week that he was “almost done” trimming his Tesla holding by 10 percent.

The latest sale takes Musk’s total to about 15.6 million shares, or approximately $16.4 billion. He’d need to dispose of about 17 million shares to offload 10 percent of his stake, assuming his pledge excludes exercisable options.

Tesla shares were down .21 percent to $1,086 when the market closed Wednesday.The shares have gained 54 percent this year.

It’s unclear whether the poll in November had any actual bearing on Musk’…

Logan Brown admits to being a bit skeptical when he heard about a competition to find the best automotive technician in the country.

"I thought it was a scam," said the Lebanon, Pa., tech.

Once convinced the inaugural U.S. Auto Tech National Championship was legitimate, he drove to Boston in early October to compete — and win — a qualifying event. His reasoning was simple: "Forty grand," he said, citing the $40,000 first place award for the championship. "And a free trip to Nashville," site of the finals, he added.

On Dec. 14, Brown, a tech at a local Pennsylvania repair shop, bested 31 other competitors in Music City to win the professional division, a trophy and that $40,000 check. The runner-up in each division took home $20,000 in prize money, and third place received $10,000.

"I almost passed out," Brown said when his name was announced as the winner. "I really didn't think I won."

Randy Giroux, who …

Geely Holding said its premium electric mobility brand, Zeekr, will make electric vehicles for Waymo, Alphabet Inc.'s self-driving unit, to be deployed as fully autonomous ride-hailing vehicles across the United States.

The vehicles will be designed and developed at Zeekr's facility in Sweden, and later integrated with Waymo's self-driving technology, Geely said on Tuesday.

Waymo said it would introduce the vehicles to U.S. roads "in the years to come."

Concept images Waymo published on Tuesday show a roomy, low-to-the-ground minivan with seating for about five riders and sliding doors on each side serving as the lone entryways.

Waymo is the first and only fully driverless taxi service in the United States. It has driven thousands of people since launching the service a year ago in Phoenix.

The partnership with Zeekr will help Waymo expand a driverless ride-hailing service in the face of increased competition, and also create inroads for Ch…

Rivian Automotive Inc. is delaying deliveries of electric pickup truck and SUVs equipped with Max battery packs to 2023, CEO RJ Scaringe said in a letter to customers on Tuesday.

Scaringe said the majority of Rivian's roughly 71,000 preorders for the R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV in the United States and Canada were for a version of the vehicles with a smaller battery pack option providing 314 miles of range on one charge.

"In order to serve the largest number of preorder holders, we will be prioritizing building the Adventure Package with Large pack battery during the next year," Scaringe said in the mail posted by Rivian on the social media platform Reddit.

Rivian shares closed down 3.9 percent at $102.87.

After the electric vehicle maker reported its first quarterly results as a listed firm earlier this month, Scaringe had outlined production challenges citing global supply-chain constraints, the COVID-19 pandemic, a tight labor market and short…

Chip shortages have delayed the launch of a key new McLaren model — again.

Deliveries of the Artura have gotten pushed to early July, the third delay of McLaren's plug-in hybrid supercar.

The original October 2020 market launch was delayed to June 2021 because of operating challenges caused by the pandemic. Supplier-related issues then pushed U.S. deliveries to early fall.

The Artura introduces McLaren's Carbon Lightweight Architecture platform and combines a twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 engine — the first in a McLaren — with an electric motor and a 7.4-kilowatt-hour battery.

McLaren spokesman Roger Ormisher confirmed the latest delay.

"We held on longer than everybody else in terms of stopping production, but unfortunately, our semiconductor supply dried up," Ormisher said. "That made us have to reduce production across the board."

McLaren is far from alone in its predicament. Supply-chain shortages have gummed up assembly lines …