Trade News

Hindenburg Research, the firm that took aim at Nikola Corp. last year, is now turning its sights on electric pickup maker Lordstown Motors Corp.

"Lordstown is an electric vehicle SPAC with no revenue and no sellable product, which we believe has misled investors on both its demand and production capabilities," Hindenburg said in a report on Friday.

"Despite claims that Lordstown will be producing vehicles by September, a former employee explained how the company is experiencing delays and making 'drastic' design modifications, putting them an estimated 3-4 years away from production," Hindenburg said.

The truckmaker is one of a slew of electric-vehicle startups that have gone public through mergers with special purpose acquisition companies. A number have come under close scrutiny, including Velodyne Lidar Inc., whose founder left amid a fight with its board.

Hindenburg further said that despite claims that battery packs would be made in-hou…

CEO Jay Vijayan says the startup's cloud-native DMS platform is creating a more seamless car-buying experience for dealers and customers.

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Dealership marketing company AutoWeb posted a smaller loss in the fourth quarter and for all of 2020.

The Tampa, Fla., company on Thursday reported a net loss of $937,000 in the quarter, compared with a net loss of $3.2 million in the same quarter a year earlier.

Quarterly revenue fell 35 percent to $17.3 million, attributed to a drop in leads and clicks, as well as continued negative impact from the coronavirus pandemic, the company said. AutoWeb said it scaled back expenses, including lower marketing outlays.

"While we continued to purposefully manage revenue down during the fourth quarter to address market impacts from COVID-19, we generated a 6 percent increase in gross profit, marking our strongest [fourth quarter] since 2017," AutoWeb CEO Jared Rowe said in a statement. "We believe our proven and disciplined operating model, coupled with our unique and exciting strategic plan, has us well-positioned for the year ahead."

Shares of AutoWeb clo…

General Motors will idle production at a plant in Lansing, Mich., as a result of the ongoing global semiconductor shortage.

Lansing Grand River Assembly will be down from Monday until at least the end of the month, a GM spokesman confirmed. The plant employs 1,400 workers and produces the Chevrolet Camaro and Cadillac CT4 and CT5.

"We continue to work closely with our supply base to find solutions for our suppliers' semiconductor requirements and to mitigate impact on GM," spokesman Daniel Flores said in a statement.

The intent is to make up as much production lost at these plants as possible, he added.

For months, the semiconductor supply shortage has forced automakers to make production adjustments, causing headaches across the industry. The Detroit News reported earlier Thursday on GM's latest production halt.

This month, GM announced downtime at several of its plants in North America.

Assembly plants in Kansas City, Kan., and Ing…

WASHINGTON -- General Motors President Mark Reuss said Thursday the U.S. government should extend new investment tax credits for electric vehicle manufacturing and supply chains and expand consumer incentives to electric vehicle purchases, including for used vehicles.

In a LinkedIn post, Reuss also called on U.S. policymakers to invest "in infrastructure that includes fast-charging stations, particularly in urban areas and along highway corridors."

In January, GM said it was setting a dramatic goal to sell all its new cars, SUVs and light pickup trucks with zero tailpipe emissions by 2035, a dramatic shift by the largest U.S. automaker away from gasoline and diesel engines.

"2021 is the tipping point toward EVs," Reuss said Thursday in his post.

Reuss also called again for the $7,500-EV tax credit to be extended to more vehicles. GM hit the 200,000 cumulative EV vehicle sales threshold in late 2018 and the credit fully expired for all GM EV buyers…

General Motors has agreed to jointly develop its next-generation lithium-metal battery with SolidEnergy Systems. The lithium-metal chemistry could more than halve battery costs and double energy density compared with the current battery packs that power the Chevrolet Bolt, the automaker said Thursday.

The next-generation Ultium chemistry "can change the whole calculus of adoption and accessibility and having people have electric vehicles as their primary vehicle in terms of range, cost," GM President Mark Reuss said at a Washington Post Live virtual conference. "It's a breakthrough that we're very excited about."

GM has said it plans to have 30 EVs globally and invest $27 billion in electric and autonomous vehicle development through 2025. It aims for an all-electric light-vehicle portfolio by 2035.

Boosting range and decreasing battery costs have been some of automakers' key initiatives to increasing EV adoption. Last year, when GM announced its proprie…

Spanish supplier Grupo Antolin established a joint venture in Shanghai with local automotive electronics company Naen Auto Technology. 

Under an agreement signed this month, the partnership will develop electronic control units for vehicle interiors and exteriors supplied by Antolin. 

The joint venture’s first contract will supply a door control unit for a new all-electric utility vehicle developed by Volvo Car Corp. and its Chinese parent, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group., Antolin said, without identifying the vehicle. 

The new company will also supply global automakers including BMW Group, General Motors, Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., the Spanish supplier added. 

Additional information on the joint venture was not available. 

Antolin, a global supplier of vehicle interiors, created an electronic systems business unit in early 2020 to diversify into automotive electronics. 

Naen, incorporated in …

Polestar, the electric performance brand owned by Volvo Car Corp. and its Chinese parent, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, named Nathan Forshaw head of operations in China and Asia Pacific.

The appointment, effective April 1, will “strengthen the collaboration between Polestar Asia Pacific and its global headquarters, and accelerate Polestar's development in the Asia Pacific market,” the company said.

Polestar also announced this week plans to expand its Asia Pacific market footprint beyond China to include South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, beginning later this year. 

Forshaw joined Polestar in 2016 and was the brand’s head of global strategy and business development. Prior to that post, he was a senior executive of AB Volvo in charge of the Swedish truck maker’s operations in Asia Pacific, according to Polestar.  

The company said its current China president, Gao Hong, is leaving for “personal reasons.”  Read more about Polestar appoints new leader for China, Asia Pacific

Crowded cities. Nightmare commutes. Congested roads. Those are some of the challenges spotlighted in the annual Global Traffic Scorecard compiled by traffic analytics company Inrix.

The delays worsen every year. Except 2020.

The coronavirus upended travel across the world, and the company's latest report, issued this week, underscores the dramatic nature of the disruptions.

Traffic delays fell nearly 50 percent in major cities across the U.S. The average American driver spent 26 hours in traffic jams in 2020, a drop of 73 hours from just a year earlier. Collectively, motorists saved approximately 3.4 billion hours that would have been wasted sitting in traffic.

"COVID-19 has completely transformed when, where and how people move," Bob Pishue, transportation analyst at Inrix, said in a written statement. "Gover…

Light-vehicle sales rose in February from a year earlier when the coronavirus disrupted output and demand. 

It was the 11th straight month of gains for the industry.

But year-to-date volume remains lower than the same period in 2019, indicating the market has yet to fully recover from pre-pandemic levels, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Thursday.

CAAM expects vehicle sales to rise by about 4 percent this year, but has warned that a worldwide shortage of microchips may curtail production at some Chinese automakers early in the year. 

New car and light-truck deliveries approached 1.16 million last month, 4.1 times the tally a year earlier when the coronavirus outbreak shuttered businesses and showrooms across the country. 

In the first two months, volume surged 74 percent to top 3.2 million. But that figure is 1.4 percent lower than the same period two years ago, CAAM said. 

Behind massiv…