Trade News

The armada of battery electric vehicles starting to fill up dealerhip showrooms won't make a significant impact on sales of internal combustion engine vehicles until 2025, an expert told a panel at SAE International's WCX Digital Summit.

"If we define the tipping point to be the time when we see ICE vehicles go down and that [decline] be taken up by EV, in 2025 is when that transition will start to happen globally and in the U.S. EV sales will remain relatively flat until that time," said Kiran Govindswamy, vice president of drivetrain, vehicle engineering and NVH at FEV North America, said Wednesday.

While electric motors, power electronics and other EV-specific technologies are ready for mass production, the price of EVs will have to be commensurate with internal combustion engine vehicles and consumers will need to be confident in their ability to charge the vehicle away from home, several panelists said, before EVs start threatening the gasoline engine…

SEOUL -- South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group said on Thursday it plans to launch electric vehicles in China every year starting in 2022 to enhance its presence in the world's biggest market.

The South Korean auto group said it plans to unveil 21 EV models from Hyundai Motor Co and Kia Corp. by 2030, including hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles.

The group said it also plans to cut the number of gasoline vehicles marketed in China to 14 from the current 21 by 2025.

Toyota Motor North America is recalling 279,040 older Venza crossovers because the supplemental restraint system wirings in some of them may become damaged with regular use of the driver-side door.

Damaged wires could cause the airbag sensor to become inoperable, preventing the deployment of the side and curtain airbags on the driver side and increasing the risk of injury during a crash, according to a defect information notice filed with NHTSA.

According to Toyota, only vehicles equipped with a wire harness assembly of a certain design, manufactured by supplier Yazaki North America Inc., are susceptible.

The recall will cover certain 2009-2015 model year vehicles.

The automaker said it does not have information on if any injuries, accidents or fatalities occurred in relation to the issue.

Other Toyota or Lexus vehicles sold in the U.S. don't have these specific wire harnesses, the automaker said.

The company also noted that it has r…

Toyota and Lexus will each have vehicles making global premieres at the Shanghai auto show set to begin on April 19, Toyota Motor Corp. said this week.

The Toyota-badged model will be a midsize electric crossover. The vehicle was developed on the Toyota New Global Architecture for electrified vehicles, known as the e-TNGA architecture for short.

"The highly recognizable and youthful design language, and the creation of an interior space that is closely integrated with technology and humanistic care will all interpret the Toyota brand's new thinking on all-round electric mobility," Toyota said of the EV, without disclosing additional details on the vehicle.

Lexus will introduce an updated ES midsize sedan. "The new design highlights will bring a warmer luxury travel experience for Chinese users," Lexus said of the ES changes. In addition, it will display the LF-Z concept first revealed online on March 30. 

In China, Toyota builds and markets v…

Electric-vehicle maker Polestar has raised $550 million from a group of Asian financial investors to accelerate its product development and sales as the Volvo Cars subsidiary prepares to expand its lineup beyond its first two models.

The private placement of newly issued shares marks the first time the 3-year-old brand has gotten the backing of external investors, which include the Chongqing Chengxing Equity Investment Fund Partnership, Zibo Financial Holding and Zibo Hightech Industrial Investment in China.

Those three local Chinese government investment agencies have been joined by I Cube Capital, an arm of South Korean global conglomerate SK, and a range of other investors, the automaker said in a statement.

“Our new investors have recognized that Polestar offers an alluring combination of established industrial and technological capability alongside superlative growth potential as the global auto industry goes electric,” Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath…

DETROIT — Jon Huntsman, a Ford Motor Co. board member and former governor of Utah, has been named to a new position of vice chair, policy, effective May 3, the company said Wednesday.

Huntsman, 61, will advise CEO Jim Farley and Executive Chairman Bill Ford on "strategic policy matters" and will work closely with the Office of the General Counsel, Government Relations and Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering teams. A former U.S. ambassador to multiple countries, he will "represent Ford with certain government officials and influencers" both in the U.S. and abroad, Ford said.

"Global policy is hugely important to transforming Ford and unlocking great value for customers and all stakeholders," Farley said in a statement. "Jon's background, insights and achievements are unrivaled — as an ambassador and trade representative, a state governor and a public-company executive."

Huntsman was Utah's governor twice, from 2005 to…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. is delaying by three months return-to-work plans for most of its U.S. salaried employees amid a surge in virus cases in Michigan.

The automaker had previously planned to allow non-place dependent workers the opportunity to return to the office starting in July and confirmed the timing as recently as last month when it announced a new hybrid work model.

Those plans changed this week after the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration extended emergency rules set to expire this week that banned non-essential in-person office work. The ban now extends until October 14 but can be modified or withdrawn at any time.

"The health and safety of our team is our first priority," Ford said in a statement. "Local guidelines continue to inform our return to workplace protocols and given the announcement by the State of Michigan, we will delay the gradual return to campus we had planned with our hybrid work …

Collaboration between the public and private sectors will be key to advancing smart cities of the future, industry leaders said during a panel portion of SAE International's WCX Digital Summit this week.

Public-private partnerships are key for mutually beneficial technology deployments and can help expedite these deployments, said Blaine Leonard, transportation technology engineer at the Utah Department of Transportation.

"As an agency, we used to have the luxury of allowing new developments to mature over time," Leonard said Wednesday in a session on smart cities. "In this environment today, with these kinds of technologies, it's just moving too fast to afford us that kind of time.

"The government agency has to alter its own culture to some degree to accept risk. We're sort of prone to not doing that," he added. "It's tough sometimes to turn these large ships. We just have to do that."

Part of accepting risk means allocating portions of public b…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday announced more downtime at a number of key assembly plants, including two more weeks for the F-150 pickup -- the top-selling vehicle in the U.S. -- due to the ongoing semiconductor shortage.

In a memo to employees obtained by Automotive News and confirmed with the company, Ford said the Chicago and Flat Rock, Mich., plants as well as both the F-150 and Transit van sides of its Kansas City, Mo., plant will be down the weeks of April 19 and 26. Production at its plant in Avon Lake, Ohio, will be limited to Super Duty chassis cabs and medium-duty trucks those weeks.

The downtime is in addition to what the company announced last week.

Additionally, Ford said its Kentucky Truck plant in Louisville will be down the weeks of April 26 and May 3 and will remove overtime from May 8 to 31.

Industry research firm AutoForecast Solutions estimated lost production of almost 408,000 vehicles for Ford due to the shor…

Connected and autonomous vehicles bring a lot of benefits to the transportation and mobility spaces.

But broader deployment and adoption of these advanced vehicles could impact the overall energy consumption of these sectors, industry experts warned during a panel that was part of SAE International's WCX Digital Summit this week.

A vehicle's level of automation, type of connectivity, class, powertrain type and the type of connected or automated functions it has can all influence its energy consumption, David Anderson, program manager for energy efficient mobility systems at the U.S. Department of Energy, said Wednesday in a session on the energy implications of connected and autonomous vehicles.

Technology adoption, the operating environment and vehicle test procedures all have an impact as well, he said.

A lot of opportunities for reducing energy consumption can come specifically from the light-duty sector, said Chris McCarthy, autonomous vehicle…