Trade News – FYL

Toyota axing Avalon sedan after 2022 model year

Toyota Motor North America has opted to ax the large Avalon sedan after the 2022 model year, the Japanese automaker told suppliers in a letter Monday.

The Avalon, the mass market brand's flagship sedan, was due to be refreshed in the second half of next year. However, the automaker's purchasing department informed suppliers that Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky will end output of the Avalon.

"Originally introduced as Toyota's flagship sedan in 1994, Avalon built the reputation for offering comfort, innovation, quality and safety that customers expect from a full-sized sedan," two Toyota vice presidents in purchasing and supplier development wrote in the Aug. 2 letter. "Toyota will continue to support service and parts needs of our existing Avalon customers."

A spokesman for Toyota Motor North America confirmed the decision.

"While Avalon will be discontinued after the 2022 model year, Toyota remains committed to the sedan segment and we encour…

U.S. Senate bill seeks to require vehicle tech that prevents drunken driving

WASHINGTON -- A $1 trillion infrastructure bill under debate by the U.S. Senate includes a provision that directs U.S. regulators to mandate a passive technology to prevent intoxicated drivers from starting vehicles and avert more than 10,000 deaths annually.

For more than 15 years, automakers and others have studied potential technological fixes to address the roughly one-third of annual U.S. traffic deaths that involved impaired drivers.

The legislative push has won the backing of the advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the auto insurance industry and some alcohol trade associations.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) said last year in a study that alcohol-detection systems that prevent impaired driving could save upward of 9,000 lives annually.

Drunken driving deaths cost the United States $44 billion in economic costs and $210 billion in comprehensive societal costs, according to a 2010 study. U.S. police departme…

Tesla’s India plans dealt blow as minister rules out tax cut

India said it has no plans to cut import duties on electric vehicles, weeks after Tesla Inc. appealed to the government to slash taxes, and its billionaire chief Elon Musk floated the possibility of a local factory once it starts selling wholly-built units from overseas in the world’s second-most-populous nation.

“No such proposal is under consideration in Ministry of Heavy Industries,” junior minister Krishan Pal Gurjar told parliament on Monday, referring to the ministry in charge of making policies for the auto industry. He added that the government is however taking steps to promote the use of electric cars by lowering domestic taxes and adding charging stations.

The reply to lawmakers may be perceived as part of the tug-of-war between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration, which wants to boost local manufacturing, and Tesla, which is urging India to allow it to import cars more cheaply before it commits to setting up a factory in the country. Tesl…

Qatar sovereign fund discloses 4.69% stake in QuantumScape

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has taken a 4.69 percent stake in QuantumScape Corp., which is developing solid-state lithium metal batteries, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by the company showed.

QIA's stake in QuantumScape, whose batteries will be used in electric cars, is worth around $446 million at the company's current market value of $9.5 billion, according to Refinitiv Eikon data on Monday.

Gulf sovereign funds have stepped up investments in electric cars, new technologies and renewables, as they diversify their investments away from fossil fuel.

The Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of neighboring Saudi Arabia, recently made huge gains through the listing of Lucid Group after it initially invested in the company in 2018. PIF owns 62.7 percent of Lucid.

Great thing for society, not so great for parts

All vehicles on the road by 2050 will have collision-avoidance technology, resulting in a 29 percent drop in accidents and a nearly identical reduction in repair parts needed, according to research by Carlisle & Co.

Nate Chenenko, director at Carlisle, and Gabi Salomon, senior consultant at the Concord, Mass., company, discussed their research findings during the third installment of the Fixed Ops Journal Forum.

Chenenko says declines of that magnitude would be "great for society, but not so great" for selling collision parts.

Speaking of selling collision parts, research by Chenenko and Salomon also projected a 30 percent drop in parts replaced per claim by 2050 because collision-avoidance technology results in slower-speed crashes.

The Carlisle study also found prices of replacement parts that have expensive collision-avoidance technology will peak around 2024.

That will be followed by a natural decline "mainly due…

Marelli, DHL aim to move parts quicker

A new partnership between a global Tier 1 auto supplier and a logistics company demonstrates how critical the push for greater supply chain efficiency is as manufacturers try to speed up the movement of parts and materials to customers.

Marelli — the Japanese-Italian supplier of electronics, lighting, advanced driver-assist systems and powertrain solutions — has signed a five-year service agreement with logistics provider DHL Supply Chain in a project to accelerate the movement of its materials and finished products.

Seeking to drive efficiency at a lower cost, Marelli believes it will reduce its customer delivery times by introducing new visibility tools, real-time inventory tracking and tracing for customers from DHL, said Bharat Vennapusa, head of transformation for Marelli North America.

"When we look at the complexity, to bring everything under one supply chain organization, it has become a top priority for us, especially und…

Can vehicle communications keep the pace?

The quest to speed things up in the auto industry even includes the movement of electrons that carry the data for vehicle functions and communications.

At TE Connectivity, engineers know that their electronic hardware can only work as fast as data can pass from point A to point B to be processed and acted on.

In the future, says TE Connectivity President Sameer Pagnis, "it will be very important that the car is connected to infrastructure, that cars are talking with each other, that the cars have architecture which can collect data, transport it back and forth, and can create insights about the data."

The keys to supporting the complex vehicle architectures that make features such as advanced driver-assistance systems possible are fast-moving data and fast processing.

"Truly high-speed data networks in a car have become more of a necessity for building the future architecture of the car," Pagnis said. "To simplify thi…

Defender awards a Trophy

The first special edition Land Rover Defender arrives this month, priced at $91,350, including shipping. The Defender Trophy Edition sports a wrapped exterior and black exterior pack, air suspension, V-8 engine, deployable roof ladder, front undershield, integrated air compressor and other off-road equipment. Only 220 will be built this year. Buyers get an opportunity to compete in a one-day off-road adventure in Asheville, N.C. The Defender, revived in 2020, has become the brand's second-highest volume vehicle globally behind the Range Rover Evoque.

Honda’s crossovers getting a redesign

Honda is at the front end of a major overhaul of its crossover lineup. At the same time, the brand is expected to launch additional hybrid versions of its existing vehicles and add its first mainstream battery-electric crossover in 2024.

Honda vehicles coming to the end of their current design lifecycles include the HR-V subcompact crossover, which is in its first generation from the 2016 model year, as well as the CR-V compact crossover and the Passport and Pilot midsize crossovers. The marque's passenger cars are relatively fresh. The Civic compact was redesigned in both its sedan and hatchback versions this year, and the Accord midsize was freshened for the 2021 model year. Honda discontinued the Fit subcompact hatchback and the Civic coupe last year.

Civic: One of America's favorite entry-level cars for decades, the sedan was redesigned as a 2022 model and is on sale now. The 11th generation of the hatchback will also go on sale this year.

Some trim…

GM cruises into yet another fight — this time with Ford

Watch out, Tom Cruise. General Motors might come after you next.

Ted Cruz, too. Who knows how far GM's lawyers will go at this point.

For now, GM — despite having failed to get any traction yet with its 2019 racketeering lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles — is now burning bridges with its other crosstown rival, Ford Motor Co.

At issue is Ford's decision to call its upcoming hands-free driving technology "BlueCruise."

The lawsuit, filed July 23, calls BlueCruise "a brazen attempt" by Ford to take advantage of positive press about GM's hands-free Super Cruise technology and Cruise, the San Francisco company GM bought in 2016.

BlueCruise, the complaint says, is "far less advanced than Cruise's technology and thus likely to yield an inferior consumer experience, with the potential for comfort and safety issues."

Ford called the suit "meritless and frivolous," saying the name is a reference to its Blue Oval logo and cruise control…