Trade News

TOKYO – The global microchip shortage is forcing Subaru Corp. to suspend operations at its Indiana plant through the end of the month, causing the loss of 15,000 vehicles of output.

The interruption, announced April 20, comes on top of another suspension currently affecting Subaru’s Yajima plant in Gunma, Japan. That idling is taking another 10,000 vehicles out of supply.

The Indiana suspension runs from April 19 through April 30, affecting 10 workdays. 

Production at Subaru’s only U.S. plant, which builds the Impreza and Legacy passenger cars as well as the Ascent and Outback crossovers, will resume May 3.

The crimped supply comes as Subaru struggles with ultra-tight 24-day inventories in the U.S. Subaru of America’s sales were up 23 percent to 160,426 vehicles in the first quarter.

Outback helped lead the sales surge with a 27 percent increase, though the Impreza, Legacy and Ascent all posted declines for the first three months …

WASHINGTON/BERKELEY -- Texas police will serve search warrants on Tesla Inc. on Tuesday to secure data from a fatal vehicle crash, a senior officer told Reuters on Monday, after CEO Elon Musk said company checks showed the car's Autopilot driver assistance system was not engaged.

Mark Herman, Harris County Constable Precinct 4, said evidence including witness statements clearly indicated there was nobody in the driver's seat of the Model S when it crashed into a tree, killing two people, on Saturday night.

Herman said a tweet by Musk on Monday afternoon, saying that data logs retrieved by the company so far ruled out the use of the Autopilot system, was the first officials had heard from the company.

"If he is tweeting that out, if he has already pulled the data, he hasn’t told us that," Herman told Reuters. "We will eagerly wait for that data."

The crash is the 28th Telsa accident to be investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminis…

BMW's first-quarter earnings bounced back more strongly than expected from a pandemic-ravaged first three months of last year, the company said, helped by higher prices and strong Chinese demand.

In an unscheduled release on Monday, the company said its group earnings before tax surged 370 percent to 3.76 billion euros ($4.53 billion), according to preliminary figures, with sales growing in all major regions and across brands.

Earnings before interest and taxes from automotive operations rose to 2.24 billion euros ($2.7 billion).

BMW noted particular strength in China, as well as positive price developments and high demand for used cars and added earnings had exceeded market expectations.

German rival Daimler said last week soaring Chinese demand for luxury Mercedes-Benz cars and higher prices drove a better-than-expected profit in its first quarter.

BMW will report full first-quarter earnings on May 7.

BMW expects returns from autom…

Electrified vehicles will account for more than half of light vehicles sold across the globe by 2026, largely driven by sales in Europe and China, according to a new forecast from Boston Consulting Group.

The projection is an ambitious update to the group's forecast last year that electrified vehicles would account for only a third of sales by 2025.

And BCG said in the report released Tuesday that zero-emission vehicles will replace internal combustion engines "as the dominant powertrain" for new light-vehicle sales globally just after 2035.

The report examined the reasons why electric vehicles can't come fast enough amid billions of automaker R&D dollars being invested in them.

BCG said it sees the transition to EVs playing out in three phases: incentive-driven and early adopter-driven electrification; ownership cost-driven electrification; and supply-driven electrification.

First, BCG anticipates t…

Over the past 50 years, Americans have enjoyed a remarkable reduction in pollution from cars, trucks, and buses. When it comes to emissions that pollute the air we breathe, new vehicles are roughly 99 percent cleaner than vehicles sold in the early 1970s. This is one of the crowning achievements of the federal Clean Air Act and the framework it created for regulating vehicle emissions — one that will be completely upended if the Supreme Court allows a recent lower court ruling to stand.

The decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a case over Volkswagen's diesel emissions would effectively give all 50 states and some 3,000 counties license to second-guess federal regulators and impose their own requirements on cars and trucks. The resulting patchwork of rules would not only impose substantial costs on automakers (which would ultimately be borne by consumers) but would also make it more difficult for them to achieve further emission reductions.

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. on Monday said hourly and salaried workers at a handful of its U.S. manufacturing plants could begin to receive COVID-19 vaccinations on-site.

The automaker said it is partnering with the UAW and various pharmacies and health care providers to offer the shots in southeast Michigan; Lima, Ohio; and Kansas City, Mo.

In Michigan, workers at Ford's Flat Rock Assembly Plant, Rouge Complex, Van Dyke Transmission Plant and Rawsonville Components Plant can receive the Moderna vaccine through Rite Aid. Workers at its Lima Engine Plant and Kansas City Assembly Plant can receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine through local health systems.

"COVID-19 vaccines are a major tool to help reduce the risk of infection, so we want to ensure our employees have access to vaccines," Dr. Francesca Litow, Ford corporate medical director, said in a statement. "We are grateful to partner with various health providers across the country to protect the health a…

TURIN -- Spanish executive Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos will be Alfa Romeo's new design chief, sources said, as the troubled brand heads for a turnaround under its new owner, Stellantis.

Mesonero will join Alfa's design team based in Turin in July, people familiar with the matter told Automotive News Europe.

Mesonero, 53, will replace Daniele Calonaci, who will continue to lead Jeep design for Stellantis in Europe.

Stellantis was formed in January by the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group.

Mesonero quit as design boss at Renault's Dacia budget brand earlier this month after just six months in the post. He had been recruited to Renault by CEO Luca de Meo. He had worked under de Meo at Seat, Volkswagen Group's Spanish brand.

Mesonero's appointment to Alfa was first reported by Auto & Design magazine.

A Stellantis spokesman declined to comment on the appointment to ANE.

Mesonero strengthens the top management t…

Volvo has signed an agreement to provide cars to the autonomous driving technology unit of China's top ride-hailing firm, Didi Chuxing, for its self-driving test fleet.

Volvo will provide XC90 crossovers equipped with backup steering and braking systems that DiDi Autonomous Driving will integrate with DiDi Gemini, its new self-driving hardware platform, the automaker said in a statement on Monday.

Didi is currently working toward an initial public offering with a valuation of at least $100 billion.

Last week self-driving startup Cruise, which is backed by General Motors, said it had raised $2.75 billion in its latest funding round from investors including retail giant Walmart, taking its valuation to more than $30 billion.

Volvo, which is owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding, will initially provide Didi with hundreds of vehicles, with the aim of adding more as the self-driving test fleet expands, head of strategy Alexander Petrofski told Reuter…

TOKYO -- Genesis unveiled a battery-powered version of its G80 sedan as the brand's first full-electric model, promising sporty acceleration and a generous driving range.

The South Korean premium brand revealed the model on Monday at the Shanghai auto show, foreshadowing the marque's electrification strategy in the important Chinese market.

Automakers worldwide are developing EV models for the Chinese market, where stringent emissions regulations require them to have robust lineups of electrified vehicles. Genesis said the Electrified G80 will be the leadoff nameplate for other full-electric offerings down the road.

"Electrification is one of the key strategies for Genesis as it aims to design and provide new experiences for customers with electric models," Genesis said in a release.

Genesis announced its entry into China only on April 2, launching the brand into the world's biggest auto market and tapping a potential driving force for internati…

SHANGHAI -- Auto industry executives are rattled by a global shortage of semiconductors which is hitting production in China, after hoping the world's biggest car market could spearhead global recovery in the sector.

Automakers around the world have had to adjust assembly lines due to the shortages, caused by manufacturing delays that some semiconductor makers blame on a faster-than-expected recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Volkswagen Group said the impact of the shortage remains unabated in the second quarter this year.

Stephan Woellenstein, Volkswagen's China chief, told reporters on Sunday it was hard to gauge how much production the company might lose week to week or even month to month because of the chip shortage.

"It's really like fire-fighting. In some cases, we have switched to another chip so we changed suppliers," he said, ahead of the Shanghai auto show which opens on Monday.

China, where over 25 million vehicles were s…