Trade News

Tesla Inc. plans to make adjustments to the manufacturing processes in its Chinese factory to boost production capacity in the world’s biggest car market.

The changes focus on spare-part production in Tesla’s Shanghai factory, including plans to improve the power system, chassis and electric motor, the company said in a statement on a Shanghai government website.

“The project aims to meet demand growth after the production capacity expansion in the factory, and it starts with improvements to the manufacturing process,” Tesla said in the statement.

The tweaks are the automaker’s latest effort to grow business in China, its second-largest market, where sales topped 120,000 units last year. Tesla is still ramping up production at its 42 million yuan ($6.5 million) factory on the outskirts of Shanghai, where it targets eventually to make as many as 10,000 supercharger poles annually.

China aims to boost electric vehicle sales this year by building mor…

SEOUL -- LG Energy Solution suggested that it could build a factory in the U.S. state of Georgia to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles, an official at the South Korean battery maker said on Saturday.

In a letter to U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, LG Energy Solution CEO Kim Jong-hyun said that "the company is prepared to do whatever we can to help the people and workers of Georgia," according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The wholly owned unit of LG Chem confirmed that the company had recently sent the letter to the senator, but declined to confirm the details.

Kim also said in the letter that if an outside investor acquires a separate SK Innovation plant in Georgia, LG could partner with it to run the facility, the newspaper reported.

"[The letter] was intended to clearly address the current situation that has been caused by SK's misappropriation of our trade secrets as well as to alleviate concerns about jobs in Geo…

American Honda Motor Co. will obtain two electric crossovers from its partnership with General Motors for the 2024 model year, the first volume products to emerge from the arrangement.

Under the product-sharing plan, GM will create the propulsion systems for the vehicles, "but everything above the platform will be uniquely Honda and uniquely Acura," Dave Gardner, American Honda's executive vice president of national operations, said in a phone conference with reporters last week.

He declined to say where the exact line of separation will be between GM's propulsion platform and the finished vehicles Honda and Acura will obtain through the partnership.

Gardner also said that Honda will step up its involvement with hybrid vehicles as the automaker attempts to reassert its identity as an industry leader in fuel efficiency and CO2 reduction.

He said that each of the company's core models will feature a hybrid option as its to…

As electric vehicles gain more of a presence on U.S. roads, energy companies are taking a crack at weaving networks of EV charging stations along highways.

Six major energy companies that make up the Electric Highway Coalition are looking at how to do so from the Atlantic Coast, through the Midwest and South and down into the Gulf and Central Plains.

Early this month, the coalition — which consists of American Electric Power, Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Entergy Corp., Southern Co. and the Tennessee Valley Authority — said it wants to ramp up building EV fast chargers in its service regions.

"All of the partner utilities had [EV] initiatives going on on their own for their own service territories, but American Electric Power reached out to us and we formed this group of utilities to collaborate," said Kate Staples, manager of electrification for Dominion.

The utility supplies electricity and natural gas to more than 7 million customers in 16 st…

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk and the board of the electric-vehicle company have been sued by a shareholder who accused Musk of violating his 2018 settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over his Twitter use.

According to a complaint unsealed late Thursday in Delaware Chancery Court, Musk's "erratic" tweets, including a post last May 1 that Tesla's stock price was "too high," and the failure of Tesla's board to monitor his compliance with the SEC settlement have exposed shareholders to billions of dollars of losses.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The SEC settlement stemmed from Musk's August 2018 tweet that he was considering taking Tesla private and had "funding secured" for a possible $72 billion transaction.

He and Tesla each agreed the following month to pay $20 million in civil fines to settle with the regulator, and Musk agreed to have Tesla lawyers vet some of his tweets in advance.

The sha…

DETROIT — The next generation of the Ford family is poised to begin overseeing the company their great-great-grandfather founded more than a century ago.

The automaker on Friday said Alexandra Ford English, daughter of Executive Chairman Bill Ford, and Henry Ford III, son of Edsel Ford II, have been nominated to the board of directors. They would replace Edsel Ford — Bill Ford's cousin — and John Lechleiter, who will step down from their seats in May.

Ford English, 33, joined her family's company in 2017, working as director of market and operations for Ford Autonomous Vehicles. She currently is a director in corporate strategy and sits on the board of electric automaker Rivian.

Henry Ford, 40, has been with the company since 2006 in a variety of roles, including labor relations, purchasing, and marketing for Ford Performance. He currently is a director in Ford investor relations.

"As a father, as an uncle and as an executive chairman, I think it…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co.'s upcoming compact pickup, expected to be called the Maverick, has been caught testing near the company's Dearborn, Mich., headquarters.

The automaker has not formally revealed the small truck, but it is expected to go into production in July, suppliers have been told. A prototype was spotted in January on the assembly line at Ford's Hermosillo, Mexico, plant, and the company last month reported building 21 models there of a "C pickup" on a production chart sent to investors and the media.

The vehicle is expected to slot below the Ranger midsize pickup and start under $20,000, dealers have been told. It would serve as an entry-level replacement for the company's discontinued sedans.

Ford has said publicly that it planned to launch an affordable "white space" product by 2022 but has not indicated what type of vehicle it would be.

The website Motor1.com last year posted an image of a pickup tailgate bearing …

Porsche's all-electric sports car is getting an all-wheel-drive sibling with a muscular profile and mud guards. The 2021 Taycan Cross Turismo, Porsche's second wagon after the Panamera Sport Turismo, sits 0.8 inch higher than the regular Taycan and a further 0.4 inch when the Off Road Design Package is included.

It will be launched with four variants: 4, 4S, Turbo and Turbo S.

The Taycan's standard trunk lid is replaced with a hatch and rear wiper on the Cross.

Porsche has added a dedicated Gravel mode to the wagon by raising the suspension to its highest settings and making changes to the stability control and torque management system for better grip.

The base model features up to 469 hp and vrooms from 0 to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds, with a top speed of 136 mph. The most powerful model is the Turbo S, with up to 750 hp. It goes from 0 to 60 mph in 2.7 seconds, with a top speed of 155 mph.

The Taycan Cross Tur…

Bollinger Motors, a suburban Detroit electric truck startup, plans its first deliveries of four models next year, the company said Friday at a virtual work truck show.

CEO Robert Bollinger says he has lined up "a number of" manufacturing partners to assemble the trucks and chassis-cab models his engineers have designed. Agreements with subassembly partners have been signed; a final assembly company will be named soon, the company said.

Launching at the same time in 2022 will be the B1 SUV, the B2 electric medium-duty pickup and two chassis-cab models. Those chassis-cab vehicles will be offered to fleet customers who buy the fully engineered chassis and send them to up-fitters for installation of custom bodies.

This is a segment where Bollinger will have little and maybe no competition, at least initially. Its Class 3 electric chassis-cab models appear to be the only ones available.

During a filmed presentation shown at the NTEA Work Truck Show, he…