Trade News

Jeff Guyton, who came to Mazda's North American operations as president from its European business two years ago, has been named CEO of the U.S. subsidiary, effective June 24.

Guyton, 54, will succeed Masahiro Moro, who will assume a newly created global position of chief communications officer at Mazda's headquarters in Hiroshima, Japan.

Mazda has been gaining traction in the U.S. as of late, eking out a slight sales increase for 2020 despite the market disruption of the pandemic. Lifted by sales of fresh crossovers and the establishment of an in-house finance arm, the automaker's U.S. market share rose to 1.9 percent last year from 1.6 percent in 2019.

As CEO of Mazda North American Operations in Irvine, Calif., Guyton will assume oversight of an expanding business. In addition to managing U.S. sales and marketing, he will be responsible for Mazda Canada Inc., based in Toronto; Mazda Colombia, based in Bogota; and Mazda Motors de Mexico, based in Mexic…

David Regn, co-founder of advertising agency Stream Cos., explains how dealers can leverage digital channels and first-party data to reach more consumers and enhance the car-buying experience.

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Dealer Bernie Moreno, who last month announced he would run for U.S. Senate in Ohio, wasn't able to buy back his old Cleveland Motorsports dealership after all.

Terry Rafih, CEO of Rafih Auto Group in Windsor, Ontario, who in March 2019 bought the dealership selling Aston Martin, Bentley and Rolls-Royce in North Olmsted, Ohio, along with Mercedes-Benz and Porsche stores from Moreno, said he opted to keep the luxury dealership.

"We were doing a handshake deal, and then Bernie decided that he was going to go into politics," Rafih told Automotive News. "So the deal changed on many, many different occasions. So finally on the first week of April, I called Bernie, and I said, 'Look, I think you need to go do your politics, and I'm just going to keep the whole deal.' And that's what happened."

Moreno told Automotive News last month that he owned a 50 percent interest in the dealership and planned to buy the full interest.

But last week, More…

WASHINGTON -- A group of U.S. senators are close to unveiling a $52-billion proposal Friday that would significantly boost U.S. semiconductor chip production and research over five years sources briefed on the matter told Reuters.

Senators Mark Kelly, John Cornyn, Mark Warner and Tom Cotton have been negotiating a compromise measure to address the issue in the face of rising Chinese semiconductor production and shortages impacting automakers and other U.S. industries.

A spokesman for Cornyn said the senator has "not signed on to a semiconductor amendment."

Sources said there remains at least one sticking point over whether to include a provision on labor rates.

The chips funding is expected to be included in a bill the Senate will take up next week to spend more than $110 billion on basic U.S. and advanced technology research to better compete with China.

The proposal includes $49.5 billion in emergency supplemental appropriations to fund …

DETROIT — General Motors plans to invest $40 million in its Pontiac Stamping Plant north of Detroit to support electric vehicle production, the automaker said Friday.

GM intends to renovate the facility and install flexible fabrication machines and presses for EV production and other applications. The investment is expected to create 20 jobs, and retooling will begin immediately, GM said.

The sheet metal fabrication technology, called Flex Fab, will reduce costs for low-volume applications with repeatable, custom and precise stamping.

"This investment will bring the latest in flexible, sheet metal fabrication technology to the Pontiac team," Phil Kienle, GM vice president of North America Manufacturing and Labor Relations, said in a statement. "Our manufacturing capabilities create a competitive advantage for GM."

The plant employs 191 hourly workers represented by UAW Local 653. Pontiac Stamping opened in 1926 as part of Oakland Motor C…

Nahshun Nevils, a maintenance specialist at a Detroit Jeep plant, heard the vaccine conspiracy theories from co-workers.

From his employer, he got constant emails urging him to get a shot. In the end, an elderly coworker’s death decided it.

“She was at work three weeks ago, and now she’s dead,” Nevils, 44, said at a recent union-hall vaccine clinic. “I have children that are small, I want to stick around for them. And I just want to have the best shot at surviving it that I can.”

Nevils’ choice is a success story for Detroit’s automakers, which have been encouraging workers to get inoculated while avoiding mandates that could anger those opposed to the vaccine.

From meatpackers to steel mills, U.S. manufacturers have endured Covid outbreaks, economic shutdowns, supply-chain bottlenecks and elevated levels of absenteeism during the pandemic. Vaccine hesitancy, even among a minority of their workforce, could add further strain as they try to recove…

At their highs, five EV startups that went public through mergers with special purpose acquisition companies were worth $60 billion. The corrections that followed have been brutal.

Three of the companies plunged to new lows this week as short-seller attacks, management turmoil and execution issues led investors to reconsider their prospects. They’ve lost more than $40 billion of market capitalization combined from their respective peaks.

The sliding valuations of Nikola Corp., Fisker Inc., Lordstown Motors Corp., Canoo Inc. and Arrival Ltd. underscore the risks surrounding the blank-check boom. Unlike in a traditional initial public offering, going public via SPAC allows companies to make forward projections to investors during their listings. This was key to ginning up interest in EV companies -- all five are still working on delivering their first vehicles to customers.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s happened at each company:

Nikola

Founder…

Used-vehicle sales across China remained strong in April, advancing 34 percent from a year earlier to approach 1.49 million.

The sales gain was led by second-hand crossovers, SUVs, multi-purpose vehicles and sedans, the China Automobile Dealers Association said.

Last month, demand for used crossovers and SUVs surged 68 percent to around 161,700.

Deliveries of used MPVs rallied 46 percent to approximately 87,600 while demand for used sedans advanced 36 percent to roughly 900,000.

Sales of used minibuses also climbed up 19 percent to about 33,000.

Meantime, sales of second-hand buses and trucks also rose 13 percent and 12 percent, to 115,800 and 123,900, respectively. 

CADA didn’t divulge deliveries of other types of used vehicles such as pickups for April.

With first-quarter volume rising 97 percent from the coronavirus-stricken year-earlier period, used-vehicle sales in China through April rose 75 percent to exceed 5.4 mi…

SHANGHAI – When the tight supply of semiconductors started to dent auto production in China late last year, it was generally seen as a temporary problem. 

Now nearly six months into 2021, the threat posed by chronic chip shortages to the Chinese auto industry looms large. 

In December, Volkswagen Group became the first automaker to acknowledge the impact of the chip shortage on output in China. 

Three other automakers have sounded similar alarms.

Volvo Car Corp. in March said it would temporarily suspend or adjust production in China as well as in the U.S. due to insufficient supplies. 

The same month, Nio, a leading Chinese EV startup, was forced to suspend output for five days.

And last month, Great Wall Motor Co., the largest domestic Chinese light truck maker, admitted production at two of its major plants in China has been affected by tight chip stockpiles. 

More auto manufacturers are believed to…

Bird Rides Inc. will go public by merging with a blank-check company, securing a new source of capital after venture capitalists largely lost interest in money-losing scooter rental startups.

A special purpose acquisition company called Switchback II Corp. will take Bird public and provide as much as $428 million in funding to the business. The deal has an enterprise value of about $2.3 billion, the companies said in a statement Wednesday.

The transaction includes private funding from Fidelity Investments, which had previously backed Bird, as well as a credit facility from other firms. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter. Bird is expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

A former Uber Technologies Inc. executive, Travis VanderZanden, helped start Bird in 2017. It dropped electric scooters onto the sidewalks of major cities and let customers…