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TOKYO — Did fallen auto titan Carlos Ghosn dupe two Americans into aiding his escape in a desperate bid to evade jail in Japan before they themselves were arrested and put on trial?

That was the explanation offered by the father-son freelance security team of Michael and Peter Taylor, in emotional testimony last week before the Tokyo District Court. The duo apologized profusely to judges and prosecutors for helping Ghosn jump bail by packing him into a box and secretly flying him out of Osaka in a chartered jet. But looking back, they said, Ghosn misled them about numerous matters in the case.

Father Michael Taylor, 60, said they were led to believe Ghosn was tortured in Japan, after the former Nissan chairman's arrest in November 2018 on charges of financial misconduct.

Taylor said he was erroneously told that helping someone jump bail in Japan was not a crime in the country. And on the day of the escape, Dec. 29, 2019, he said …

You know it's been a crazy month for auto sales when one brand (Hyundai) chalks up a 45 percent gain and another (Ford) drops 26 percent.

Same goes for the quarter. Buick, Audi, Acura, Mitsubishi and BMW all rose more than 80 percent. Subaru, meanwhile, a sales juggernaut in recent years, managed just an 18 percent advance from the pandemic-stricken April-to-June span of 2020.

If that's not enough to draw a second take, Toyota for the first time found itself at the top of the quarterly charts, outselling General Motors. And Ford's F-Series pickup, the industry's perennial sales leader, was outdistanced by the Chevy Silverado and Ram pickup.

But that's the kind of numbers stew you get when you mix a pandemic rebound with production stoppages caused by a microchip shortage that has hit some automakers much harder than others.

In Monday's issue, we dive into last week's sal…

Each year since 2012, Automotive News has recognized young dealership superstars as part of our 40 Under 40 program. These standouts represent the best and brightest in automotive retail.

To date, our 400 honorees have come from nearly every corner of the country and represented all areas of a dealership - from sales to fixed operations and every department in between. This year’s class dealt with the usual fast pace and constant change of retail life but also did so during a pandemic and digital transformation.

To celebrate our 10th year of saluting dealership leaders, we caught up with three past honorees and will explore their path in automotive, what the recognition meant to their careers and much more in this 40 Under 40 Flashback podcast series.

LOS ANGELES — As the world's largest maker of internal combustion engines, Honda Motor Co. has been reluctant to join its automotive peers on the electrified bandwagon. In the U.S. market today, 93 percent of Honda's sales come from gasoline-powered vehicles and just 7 percent from hybrids. EVs are zero.

But all that's going to change.

Honda's new global CEO, Toshihiro Mibe, has pledged to sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2040 and executives in the U.S. have been given their marching orders.

By early 2024, the Honda brand is expected to sell its first volume EV, aptly named the Prologue, followed by an Acura EV later that year.

"Our viewpoint is that it signals the start of a change, the start of a transition for Honda," Dave Gardner, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., said on Automotive News' "Daily Drive" podcast last week. "It's almost like a startup business. We're at zero today, and it's going to be 100 percent of our …

DETROIT — Ray Curry, who last week became the UAW's fourth president in three years, will be challenged to grow the troubled union in a time of unprecedented change as the industry shifts to electrification. That's assuming he can win reelection next year in what could be the first direct vote by rank-and-file members in decades.

Curry, 55, was selected by the UAW International Executive Board to serve the final year of Rory Gamble's term. Gamble, 65, was barred by union age limits from running again next year and chose to retire early in the hopes of setting up Curry as a potential multiple-term leader.

The format for next year's election will depend on the outcome of a referendum later this year, when members will decide whether to adopt a new one-member, one-vote system for choosing their leaders. The referendum is one condition of the UAW's six-year settlement with the government over the corruption scandal that resulted in prison sentences for Gamble's tw…

Volvo Cars is not just changing its product lineup — it's also rethinking how its vehicles are designed and who will make their components.

In short, Volvo intends to take over the development and production of some of its key components to get closer to emerging technologies.

Roiling the company's evolution is the dawning of the electric vehicle age.

In an online presentation to journalists last week, the Swedish automaker pulled back the curtain on its R&D activity, showing that its second wave of EVs will look different, be constructed on a new vehicle architecture and rely increasingly on components Volvo will take the lead in developing.

Volvo aims to be an electric-only brand by 2030. And to increase the speed of that undertaking and reduce complexity, Volvo is adopting a more hands-on role in developing the components it will need, such as batteries, electric motors and computer systems, the company said. Read more about Volvo rethinks architecture, design, sourcing

BERLIN -- Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler plans to unveil a new business group comprising the AMG, Maybach and G-Class subbrands at the Munich auto show in September.

The move will streamline marketing costs and is part of Daimler CEO Ola Kallenius' strategy to boost productivity and profitability, with a focus on high-margin sales.

AMG boss Philipp Schiemer is expected to lead the group.

AMG is Mercedes' performance brand, Maybach is a rival to Rolls-Royce and Bentley, and the G-Class portfolio consists of luxury off-road vehicles.

"Strengthening the subbrands is an important pillar in the Mercedes-Benz strategy," a Daimler spokesperson told Automotive News affiliate Automobilwoche. "We will not only maintain the independence, strong identities and evolved corporate cultures of the individual brands, but also further expand and sharpen them."

"Currently, we are in the process of designing it and evaluating the potential in the various ar…

HORSESHOE BAY, Texas — About halfway through the most challenging off-road trail prepared for journalists here — ominously labeled the Ghost Pepper course, as opposed to the easier Jalapeño and Habanero paths — a reporter a few vehicles away in our caravan of Ford Broncos radioed that he was stuck at a steep, mud-caked rock formation.

"You're not stuck, you're just momentum-ly challenged," our trail guide called back. "You're not stuck unless you turn off the keys and give up."

Sure enough, once a spotter surveyed the situation and offered some advice, the SUV scaled the rocks and was back to crawling over the Texas terrain in a matter of minutes. It was the only real hang-up on an otherwise problem-free excursion, even with a few off-road novices — myself included — sprinkled among the participants.

That's exactly what the Bronco's developers intended.

While the most die-hard Bronco owners are eager take their new …

Electric vehicle designers have a new canvas on which to mark their brand image: the front end.

Since EVs don't contain hot combustion engines, they don't need the grilles that have shaped the look of autos for decades, with large air vents to cool what's behind them.

EVs present the industry with a fundamental change in design because electric motors require far less space, and batteries are placed low on a skateboard platform, leaving room for more flexible interior and exterior designs. Some of the key "hard points" that define internal combustion cars, particularly the engine compartment, are now fair game for experimentation on EVs.

The question facing automakers now is what to do with all the new design space.

Not surprisingly, they disagree.

"With reduced cooling needs, an EV's grille can be more about form than function," said Karl Brauer, a veteran auto analyst and executive analyst at iSeeCars.com. "That widens the EV designer's…