Trade News

A tornado ripped through a suburban Philadelphia Buick GMC dealership on Thursday night, injuring four people and causing major property damage.

Faulkner Buick GMC Trevose said it will be closed indefinitely while it repairs the storm damage. Trevose is a city within Bensalem Township, Pa.

A video shared to TikTok by someone inside the store shows how the tornado severely damaged the showroom and vehicles.

Crews from the Trevose Fire and Eddington Fire companies late Thursday entered the partially collapsed building, clearing the dealership, according to the Bucks County Courier Times. Everyone inside all Faulkner dealerships was accounted for, the dealership group confirmed in a Facebook post.

Family-owned Faulkner Automotive Group has 28 rooftops in the Philadelphia area.

The tornado hit the region about 7 p.m. Thursday. Images shared on social media last night showed the damage to Faulkner Trevose dealership and urged people to avoid th…

Jeep Gladiator production at Stellantis' Toledo, Ohio, assembly complex will be idled next week, making the midsize pickup the latest casualty in the global microchip shortage.

The third-bestselling midsize pickup in the U.S. this year is built at the automaker's Toledo South Assembly Plant. Production is expected to be halted for a week, the company said.

The Gladiator sits only behind the Toyota Tacoma and Ford Ranger in the midsize pickup segment. U.S. sales of the Gladiator rose 40 percent to 48,784 in the first half.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said last week that he expects the chip shortage to drag into 2022.

He said the automaker is now making "a certain number of decisions in terms of changing the diversity of conductors."

The company's Jefferson North factory in Detroit, which builds the Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango, has been down since July 11 and will resume production Aug. 9.

The automaker said Jeep Cherokee p…

One of Automotive News' top 150 dealership groups continued its Texas expansion, while the owner of a rental car company made its first dealership acquisition.

Here's a look at the two deals that closed this month and involved domestic-brand stores.

Ed Morse Automotive Group expanded its growing Texas footprint with the purchase of two dealerships Monday.

The Delray Beach, Fla., group acquired Donaghe Buick-GMC and Donaghe Ford, both in Greenville, from Chance Donaghe. Greenville is about an hour's drive northeast of Dallas.

The group now has seven dealerships in North Texas and one in Durant, Okla., near the Texas border.

With the Greenville transaction, Ed Morse now has each of the Detroit 3 automakers represented in Texas, which CEO Teddy Morse described as "one of the greatest truck markets in the country."

"We have a presence currently in the area, and we are looking to increase that," Mo…

How the auto industry can avoid supply disruptions of maintenance, repair and operations materials such as janitorial products and PPE

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Editor's note: This story is part of a special section on the accelerating pace of automotive development, engineering, innovation and manufacturing to be published on Monday, Aug. 2.

When it comes to electrifying trucks, automakers want to make sure their vehicles will have the same brawny towing and hauling capabilities that drivers are used to, even with an electrified axle.

That can take a lot of development time, and these days, automakers are in no mood to let anything take a lot of time.

That's why North America's largest supplier is looking to speed up truck electrification — without sacrificing a truck's best utility traits.

Magna International says its eBeam approach will bring new electrified pickups and light-commercial vehicles to market faster by using new drop-in replacements for traditional beam axles, said Ryan Shaw, Magna's manager of advanced engineering driveline systems in North America.

"It's one of the purest North A…

Ford Motor Co. said Thursday it will reinstate a mask mandate for workers at facilities in Kentucky, two days after making a similar announcement for workers in Missouri and Florida.

The automaker informed workers the mandate will go into effect Saturday. Ford has two assembly plants in the state: Kentucky Truck Plant, where workers build the Super Duty, Expedition and Lincoln Navigator; and the Louisville Assembly Plant, where workers build the Escape and Corsair.

A Ford spokeswoman reiterated a statement issued Tuesday that Ford could make additional changes as necessary based on data. The delta variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 continues to spread in various areas throughout the U.S.

Also this week Ford said it will require U.S. employees to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 before any international business travel, based on recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

WASHINGTON -- The White House is negotiating to have automakers pledge that 40 percent or more of the vehicles they sell in the U.S. will be electric by the end of the decade, something the companies say will require the government to help promote the use of the cars.

UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg said the union is in discussions with the White House and automakers about a sales target, but he said an agreement has not been reached. General Motors also said no agreement has been reached.

A second person familiar with the negotiations also confirmed the talks on an EV sales target are happening but said there’s no agreement and the talks are still at an early stage. A pledge on new car sales will be significant because while some U.S. automakers have promised to convert their model lineups to electric vehicles, they haven’t made any promises on volumes.

Automakers are looking for support from the government in meeting those goals, such as subsidies or fu…

Many drivers rely on a car's in-dash fuel economy display to show the estimated number of miles the car gets per gallon of gasoline, but those estimates aren't always accurate, according to a Tuesday report from the American Automobile Association.

And when it comes to shorter trips, "miles-to-empty" estimates varied greatly in tests conducted by AAA and the Automotive Research Center of the Automobile Club of Southern California. Variance also depends on factors affecting gas mileage, such as speed and acceleration.

AAA says drivers take an "unnecessary risk" if they overly rely on the displays. Plenty of drivers may already be doing that — about 74 percent of drivers use those miles-to-empty estimates to decide when to fill up their gas tanks, AAA found in a consumer survey.

To calculate the accuracy of a vehicle's fuel economy estimations and miles-to-empty systems, AAA and the ARC used a dynamometer, an instrument that measures an engine's power out…

Many drivers rely on a car's in-dash fuel economy display to show the estimated number of miles the car gets per gallon of gasoline, but those estimates aren't always accurate, according to a Tuesday report from AAA.

And when it comes to shorter trips, "miles-to-empty" estimates varied greatly in tests conducted by AAA and the Automotive Research Center of the Automobile Club of Southern California. Variance also depends on factors affecting gas mileage, such as speed and acceleration.

AAA says drivers take an "unnecessary risk" if they overly rely on the displays. Plenty of drivers may already be doing that — about 74 percent use those miles-to-empty estimates to decide when to fill up their gas tanks, AAA found in a consumer survey.

To calculate the accuracy of a vehicle's fuel economy estimations and miles-to-empty systems, AAA and the Automotive R…