Trade News

NEW YORK — The Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer demonstrated a duality in the dense chaos of Manhattan and at a secluded private estate last week that underscores the brand's quest to move upstream while retaining its adventurous spirit.

A small fleet of the hulking, upscale Grand Wagoneers started the day on the brick-paved streets of New York's trendy Meatpacking District before winding through the city's urban landscape. From there, journalists guided the burly SUVs to the countryside, where a set of the less pricey Wagoneer models confronted rocky terrain and rumbled along a tree-lined path.

It was a tale of luxury and utility in a place that has a special significance for Jeep.

The metro New York area is the largest Jeep market in the U.S., accounting for around 10 percent of its sales in the first half of this year.

The Grand Wagoneer "looks great in the city," said Mike Uhlmeyer, the chief engineer for both nameplates. "I think it has a r…

The auto industry's ongoing experiment in forced inventory reduction may be great for quarterly earnings, but it is starting to take sizable bites out of sales and altering the market share landscape.

Sales in July rose an estimated 5 percent over last year as record-low inventories caused by the severe microchip shortage and other supply chain disruptions, especially among the Detroit 3, dropped the annualized pace of sales to 14.8 million — well off the 17 million-plus pace from the first half of the year, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas. It was the lowest SAAR since July 2020, when the industry was regaining steam from earlier COVID-19 related shutdowns.

Among the seven automakers reporting July sales, the differences reflected which ones were able to keep their deliveries to dealers coming. Mazda jumped 36 percent; Toyota Motor North America's sales climbed 33 percent; Hyundai-Kia rose 29 percent; Volvo was up 19 percent; an…

DETROIT — General Motors is retooling more than just cars and trucks as it plots a path toward cleaner skies.

GM envisions its batteries finding their way into other forms of transportation and possibly homes or businesses in the coming years as it seeks to maximize the profit potential and environmental benefits of the costly technologies it's developing.

"We came into this transformation of electrification as an automaker," said Charlie Freese, executive director in GM's hydrogen fuel cell and battery businesses. "We can come out as a provider of propulsion systems for other types of vehicles in different industries."

The tens of billions of dollars that GM is investing in electrification will go beyond its legacy auto portfolio. The automaker plans to implement its Ultium batteries and Hydrotec fuel cell technology in the locomotive and aviation industries — segments of the transportation landscape it abandoned decades ago. Recent partnerships and el…

WASHINGTON — With the White House outlining a voluntary, industry-supported goal for electrifying the nation's vehicle fleet alongside stricter federal emissions targets, it's up to carmakers and states to work out the details.

President Joe Biden's executive order signed last week establishes a nonbinding target for zero- emission vehicles — battery-electrics, plug-in hybrids and fuel cells — to make up half of all new passenger vehicles sold in 2030. It also directs the EPA and NHTSA to work on longer-term fuel economy and emissions standards for vehicles produced after the 2026 model year.

The ZEV goal props up the president's climate and energy ambitions. It also puts the onus back on states to set their own rules on ZEV sales and on automakers to carve out sales and manufacturing strategies so they can meet the more stringent auto pollution standards proposed last week by the EPA and NHTSA.

The EPA's proposed emissions standa…

I'm going to spend a f**king billion dollars to overturn the dealer franchise laws in America," Elon Musk told the esteemed representative of Texas auto dealers, according to the new book Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century.

Musk has said the book, by Tim Higgins, is both false and boring. I'm dubious of the former: Higgins is a friend of mine — we worked together at the Detroit Free Press and at Bloomberg News. He's also a meticulous reporter and careful writer. Most certainly, it is not boring.

It chronicles Musk's amazing rise, his unbelievable tolerance for risk, his arrogance, his success against the odds and his own poor choices. Having lived through so many years of the Tesla roller coaster, it helps to have someone write it all down so it can all be sorted out.

Much of the attention in the general business press is about another F-bomb anecdote, in which Apple contemplated buying Tesla, but Musk insisted on being CEO of the c…

Carvana Co. CEO Ernie Garcia called it a "landmark" quarter.

It was certainly one that could hush naysayers, at least for now.

The online used-vehicle upstart achieved its first profit — $45 million in net income — as it continued rapid revenue and volume growth.

Carvana executives didn't talk about how sustainable that bottom-line profit would be. But they did credit 2021's second-quarter performance in part to topping $2,000 in gross profit per vehicle retailed for the first time.

And they made it clear that higher profitability long term is linked to continued success in two initiatives Carvana has been focused on of late: buying cars from customers to buoy inventory levels and improving its reconditioning capacity and speed.

Carvana's total per-vehicle gross profit was $5,120 in the second quarter, compared with $2,726 in the year-ago period and $3,656 in the first quarter of 2021. Gross profit per vehicle retailed was $2,022 vs. $1,1…

PLANO, Texas — Toyota's captive finance company has quietly employed a clever way to add some heft to the automaker's broad diversity efforts, using bond issues led exclusively by minority- and women-owned financial firms to boost their profiles while giving clients access to lucrative offerings.

Toyota Financial Services, which serves Toyota and Lexus buyers — and now Mazda customers as well under a licensing agreement — has been issuing "Diversity & Inclusion Bonds" since 2013. Last year, the company issued a fifth, $750 million tranche of two-year, fixed-rate D&I bonds to underwrite its ongoing consumer lending, and it will continue to do so going forward, Mark Templin, the captive's CEO, told Automotive News in June.

"We've had great success with our D&I bonds," he said, adding that the company had issued more than $3 billion in D&I bonds over the last eight years.

In the transaction last year, the lead book-buildin…

Lear Corp. is planning to set up a new manufacturing plant and create hundreds of new jobs on Detroit's east side after landing a contract to supply seats for General Motors' electric vehicles.

The seating and electronics supplier said the just-in-time seating manufacturing plant is planned for the site of the former Cadillac Stamping Plant. It will support the company's supply to GM's battery electric vehicles that will be built at Factory Zero, Lear confirmed.

"We are excited to be supporting GM's vision of moving to an all-electric future, and even more excited to be supporting that vision here in Detroit," the company said in an emailed statement to Crain's Detroit Business, a sister publication to Automotive News. "The facility will be one of our most energy-efficient plants in North America, and not only create hundreds of new jobs, but will be another important step forward in the redevelopment of Detroit's eastside neighborhood."

Lear CEO Ray S…

NHTSA has opened an investigation into how Ford Motor Co. proceeded with issuing a September 2020 recall of several of its newer-model vehicles.

Ford ended up recalling more than 700,000 vehicles, including 620,246 in the U.S., from the 2020 model year for poor electrical connections that could have caused vehicles' rearview cameras to intermittently show blank or distorted images.

NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation now wants to examine "both the timeliness and scope of Ford's rearview camera recall," according to a document outlining the investigation. The agency indicated it will also look into Ford's compliance with reporting requirements.

The faulty images could have reduced drivers' visibility and led to crashes. Magna Electronics supplied the cameras.

The extensive recall included certain Ford Edge, Escape, Expedition, Explorer, F-150, F-250 SD, F-350 SD, F-450 SD, F-550 SD, Mustang, Ranger and Transit vehicles. The 2020 Lincoln Corsai…

Lear Corp. swung to net income of $175 million in its second quarter despite a $1 billion sales hit from production and supply issues that are hurting the business more than executives had anticipated.

The Southfield-based automotive seating and electronics supplier reported $4.8 billion in sales in the quarter, up 95 percent from the same quarter last year, which was marred by COVID-19 shutdowns.

However, revenue fell significantly from the $5.4 billion Lear recorded in the first quarter, due primarily to major customers such as General Motors halting production because of the microchip shortage.

The company lowered its full-year guidance range to $19.7 billion to $20.5 billion in net sales, compared with the $20.35 billion to $21.15 billion it predicted in May.

“Our customers experienced significant production disruptions, which reduced Lear’s second quarter revenue by approximately one billion dollars,” senior vice president and CFO Jason Car…