Trade News

Chipmakers, such as Samsung Electronics, will need a couple of weeks to resume production in Texas after shutdowns caused by severe weather, and customers could face knock-on effects in several months' time, a representative of a trade body said.

Samsung, NXP Semiconductors and Infineon Technologies were ordered to shut factories in Texas last month after a winter storm killed at least 21 people and left millions of Texans without power.

The shutdown threatens chip supplies to customers, when the industry is scrambling to meet demand, which is rising especially from the auto sector, but also for laptops and other products as economies recover from the impact of the pandemic.

Chipmakers now have the power, water and gas they need to operate, but they need time to restart tools and clean the factories, said Edward Latson, CEO of the Austin Regional Manufacturers Association.

He said the process was slow and "very expensive".

The plant suspens…

Dana Inc. said it acquired Pi Innovo, a suburban Detroit company that develops embedded software programs and electronic control units.

Dana, an Ohio supplier of axles, driveshafts, transmissions, thermal management and more, on Monday said it will fold in Pi Innovo to build on its already-established vehicle electrification capabilities and to support Dana's continued forays into light-vehicle, commercial vehicle and off-highway markets.

The transaction has been completed and terms were not disclosed.

The move adds a "strong library" of turnkey EV application software, vehicle level controllers and auxiliary controllers to Dana's business.

"Integrating Pi Innovo with Dana's leading e-Propulsion software capabilities will further enhance our ability to provide value for our customers as they continue to accelerate their electric vehicle portfolio development," Dana CEO James Kamsickas said in a statement.

The acquisition comes just after Da…

Six major utilities unveiled a plan Tuesday to add electric vehicle fast chargers to connect major highway systems across the U.S.

The Electric Highway Coalition – made up of American Electric Power, Dominion Energy Inc., Duke Energy Corp., Entergy Corp., Southern Co. and the Tennessee Valley Authority -- is looking to provide charging stations within the utilities' service territories, stretching from the South and Gulf regions to the Midwest and Central Plains.

The initiative comes as President Joe Biden has made boosting electric vehicles a top priority and pledged to build 550,000 new EV charging stations. Automakers including Tesla Inc., BMW and General Motors plan major expansions in EV production.

"The path to cleaner transportation is a robust charging infrastructure along the nation's major highways," said Lang Reynolds, director of electrification strategy for Duke Energy. "Range anxiety is a barrier to more EV ado…

Nissan Motor Co. chairman Carlos Ghosn was smuggled out of Japan in a corporate escape plot worthy of Hollywood. Fifteen months later, the American man accused of orchestrating his clandestine exit arrived back in the country with his son to face charges.

Japanese authorities said they took custody of Michael Taylor and his son Peter in Massachusetts, after the U.S. authorized their extradition for concealing Ghosn inside a large black box as he fled criminal charges in December 2019. Prosecutors in Tokyo confirmed their arrival after they landed at Narita International Airport Tuesday on a 14-hour flight from Boston.

A role reversal months in the making was finally complete. The Taylors face a possible three-year sentence in Japanese prison. Meanwhile, Ghosn is a free man in Lebanon.

Prosecutors in the U.S. and Japan have cast the Taylors as master escape artists. And after their arrest in May, the father-son duo did everything they could to stop the e…

Lithia Motors Inc. has purchased another five dealerships in Florida, this time buying from Fink Automotive Group in the Tampa area in a deal that includes the largest-volume Hyundai store in the U.S. for eight straight years.

The nation's third-largest new-vehicle retailer said Tuesday that the store purchases are expected to add $430 million in annualized revenue. The acquisition, which closed Monday, more than doubles Lithia's exposure in the Southeast region.

Lithia, which entered Florida in fall 2019 by acquiring three Williams Automotive Group stores in the Tampa area and last month bought two stores in the Orlando market from Fields Auto Group, says it now has more than $1 billion in revenue stemming from the Southeast region.

The latest acquisition involves Hyundai-Genesis of New Port Richey, Volkswagen of New Port Richey, Hyundai-Genesis of Wesley Chapel, Mazda of Wesley Chapel and Chevrolet of Wesley Chapel. The Hyundai dealership in New Port …

An Atlanta-based dealership group has expanded northward with its first purchase in the Midwest, last month acquiring five dealerships from the Mike Raisor Automotive Group in Lafayette, Ind.

Five Star Automotive Group on Feb. 20 closed on the Ford-Lincoln, Buick-GMC-Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Volkswagen Mike Raisor stores. Terms of the transaction weren't disclosed.

The dealerships have been rebranded Lafayette Ford-Lincoln, Lafayette Buick-GMC-Cadillac, Mercedes-Benz of Lafayette, Audi Lafayette and Lafayette Volkswagen.

The Five Star group, a family-owned operation, was founded in 1986 with one Dodge dealership in Macon, Ga. It has grown to 26 dealerships in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee and now Indiana. The dealership group is owned by Dick Pope and Charlie Cantrell.

Wesley Pope, who oversees the group's stores, said the deal includes two new brands for Five Star: Audi and Volkswagen.

"We think Lafayette is just a…

Last September, in the arid hills of northern Nevada, a cluster of flowers found nowhere else on earth died mysteriously overnight.

Conservationists were quick to suspect Ioneer Ltd., an Australian firm that wants to mine the lithium that lies beneath the flowers for use in electric-vehicle batteries.

One conservation group alleged in a lawsuit that the flowers, known as Tiehm's buckwheat, were "dug up and destroyed." The rare plant posed a problem for Ioneer because U.S. officials may soon add it to the Endangered Species List, which could scuttle the mining project.

Ioneer denies harming the flowers. Their cause of death remains hotly debated -- as does the fate of the lithium mine.

The clash of environmental priorities underpinning the battle over Tiehm's buckwheat -- conservation vs. green energy -- is a microcosm of a much larger political quandary for the new administration of President Joe Biden, who has made big promises to environmentalis…

Groups representing the auto industry are supporting legislation unveiled Monday by two Democratic senators that would incentivize manufacturers to retool, expand or build facilities to produce clean-energy parts or technologies such as electric vehicles, batteries and semiconductor chips.

The American Jobs in Energy Manufacturing Act — introduced by Sens. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — would provide $8 billion for a 30 percent tax credit to certain manufacturers seeking to expand or update their facilities. Companies eligible to apply for the tax incentive include those making electric and fuel cell vehicles, batteries, semiconductor chips and other components necessary to produce renewable energy products and reduce carbon emissions.

The American Automotive Policy Council, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation and the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association are endorsing the bill.

Groups p…

A New York-based company that develops hydrogen-powered commercial trucks is going to begin producing fuel cells near Chicago later this year.

Hyzon Motors said it will begin manufacturing in a 28,000-square-foot facility by year's end and eventually hire about 50 people. The Bolingbrook, Ill., facility could produce enough fuel-cell membrane electrodes for up to 12,000 trucks a year and will be the largest plant of its kind in the U.S., the company said. Most of the production for hydrogen fuel-cell components is overseas, Hyzon said.

Hyzon, based near Rochester, N.Y., plans to go public through a SPAC, or special-purpose acquisition company, in the second quarter. 

Hydrogen-vehicle technology has been in development for decades. Such vehicles make their own electricity, which is an advantage over EVs, which rely on power produced at plants that also emit carbon to produce energy.

But hydrogen hasn’t been adopted nearly as widely as E…