Trade News

DETROIT — UAW President Rory Gamble said the union has completed its search weeks ahead of schedule for three candidates for the role of independent monitor as part of its U.S. consent decree.

The decree, approved late last month, called for the UAW to name three candidates for the position and submit them to the court within 30 days.

Gamble, speaking Wednesday with the Automotive Press Association in Detroit, said the union interviewed five candidates, selected three and is in the process of submitting their names.

"As soon as we had the press conference with [former U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider], we got busy," Gamble said. "The ones I interviewed were all very knowledgeable and had an open approach to how it should be done. Our culture is of such now that the monitor will have a very boring job."

The government can either approve one of the union's candidates or seek additional options, but it will seek to select one within 60 days of receivi…

MEXICO CITY -- Volkswagen Group's Mexico unit said in a statement on Wednesday it would adjust the production schedule of its Jetta model until March 5 due to a global shortage of semiconductors.

The adjustment would be for three days, spread over three different weeks, starting this week, Volkswagen said.

Toyota Canada and Lyft are teaming up to give drivers working for the ride-hailing service in the Vancouver region the ability to rent a limited number of the automaker’s hydrogen-powered Mirai sedans.

Toyota, a major proponent of hydrogen fuel cell technology, hopes the partnership will showcase its zero-emissions technology and its recently redesigned Mirai. The new Mirai is equipped with an overhauled fuel cell stack the automaker hopes to eventually roll out to a range of trucks. 

“We’ve long maintained that hydrogen fuel cell technology could be a zero-emissions solution across a broad spectrum of vehicle types,” Mitchell Foreman, Toyota Canada director of advanced and connected technologies, said during a Wednesday media briefing.

Toyota launched the Mirai roughly six years ago, but by the end of September 2020 had sold only 11,100 vehicles, with consumers concerned over the lack of fueling stations and the vehicle’s resale value. Th…

Despite a pandemic that roiled the industry, Mercedes-Benz dealers are coming off their best year of profitability in nearly a decade and have a slew of electric vehicles on the horizon.

Jeff Swickard is Mercedes-Benz Dealer Board chairman and CEO of Swickard Auto Group, which operates 19 stores in Alaska, California, Georgia, Oregon and Washington. Four of those locations are Mercedes-Benz dealerships. He said the brand's strong relationship with its retail network served it well during the early days of the coronavirus crisis and that dealers are generally upbeat about where things stand, despite losing the luxury sales crown for the second-straight year to BMW.

Swickard, 48, said the company had been receptive to dealers' input on pruning its vehicle lineup and has worked well with them on its electrification efforts, which should help them better compete against brands such as Tesla.

Swickard spoke with Staff Reporter Michael M…

Longtime North Carolina dealer Don Flow wasn't even on the Audi National Dealer Council in 2020, but in 2021, he's the chairman. Flow, 65, wants to spend his term as chairman launching what he hopes will be a longer-term study about just what works and what needs work in the way Audi dealers do business with the factory.

Flow is CEO of Flow Automotive Cos., a dealership group headquartered in Winston-Salem that has 44 new-car franchises, including four Audi stores, and sold more than 30,000 new and used vehicles last year. He says Audi dealers recovered well in the second half of 2020. Flow said he anticipates a big boom in business as vaccinations spread and the threat of COVID-19 lifts.

Flow spoke with Staff Reporter Larry P. Vellequette. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: What was 2020 like for Audi dealers?

A: Audi dealers were similar to almost everybody else. From about March 15 through April was a time of just an unparal…

Volkswagen's U.S. dealers feel like their lineups will finally be equipped to conquest sales in the U.S. market and increase the German brand's market share this year when the gasoline-powered Taos and electric ID4 compact crossovers arrive by midyear, the new chairman of the Volkswagen National Dealer Advisory Council said.

Tom McMenamin, 45, owner of Toms River Volkswagen in New Jersey, said the brand has the opportunity to grow significantly this year with the new additions, along with renewed interest in the five-seat Atlas Cross Sport, which launched last March amid the pandemic. However, to hit on all cylinders, the brand must continue to improve its marketing and incentive strategies and ensure that dealers get the right mix of vehicles for their markets.

McMenamin, whose dealership sold about 1,650 new vehicles and 600 used vehicles in 2020, spoke with Staff Reporter Larry P. Vellequette. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: What are…

BMW overcame the pandemic doldrums to clutch the U.S. luxury sales crown last year, even as sales slid 18 percent from 2019.

BMW National Dealer Forum Chairman David Sloane credited the performance to decisive and early action by BMW to mitigate the effects of the COVID shutdown on the business and production.

When COVID hit, BMW and the dealer board quickly assembled a crisis committee to communicate weekly on the status of the business in different regions and the pressing needs of dealers, Sloane, 35, told Automotive News.

BMW of North America instituted a sweeping relief plan for retailers that includes financial incentives, relaxed performance objectives and loan payment relief.

"Communication and flexibility were key in helping dealers manage through the pandemic," said Sloane, president of Sloane Automotive Group in suburban Philadelphia.

BMW's 349 U.S. dealers, meanwhile, had to step up and make thei…

Acura dealers are finally getting the fresh products they have been waiting on for the past several years. And they want more.

After a year in which inventory and profitability held up fairly well, given the circumstances, retailers are ready for a brighter 2021 with the new-generation TLX sedan now on dealership lots and the redesigned flagship MDX crossover arriving this month.

In fact, dealers are eager to get the performance Type S trims sooner rather than later as Acura leverages an updated portfolio to take on the luxury leaders.

"Acura wants to be in the same conversation with the Lexus buyers and the Mercedes buyers and the Audi buyers," said John Connelly, chairman of the Acura National Dealer Advisory Board and owner of Acura Columbus in Dublin, Ohio.

Acura retailers would also like the brand to maintain its light touch on facility requirements and continue to push forward with an aggressive certified pre-owned…

Buick dealer Len Pollak had a rule for his four sons in the 1960s: No going to the NADA convention until you're 10.

That left Dale Pollak, the youngest, in an annual state of humiliation. Not only did he have to watch his brothers take off without him, he had to endure their taunts as they called home to Gary, Ind., from places such as Miami Beach and Las Vegas.

But Dale had the last laugh. He finally made the cut, to Houston in 1969. And while his brothers eventually steered away from the car business, Dale never did. He's been traveling to NADA shows every year since — 52 in all — until 2021.

This year, like every other showgoer, he's attending via computer.

"It won't have the excitement," Pollak, 62, lamented last week from his home in Paradise Valley, Ariz. "For me, the excitement wasn't about the make meetings, and it wasn't even about the parties and nightlife. The excitement was the show floor."

In r…