Trade News

TOKYO — Mazda's upcoming CX-50 crossover, designed specifically for American drivers, could be the brand's new hero nameplate, delivering record U.S. sales as Mazda moves up market.

The entry, to be built at a new factory in Alabama, is envisioned boosting North American volume by 150,000, an impressive 34 percent surge over this year's expected sales total.

Discussing the upcoming model while announcing Mazda Motor Corp.'s financial results last week, CEO Akira Marumoto said the CX-50 will play a crucial role in securing long-term profitability at the low-volume Japanese player. Mazda will release fresh details about the CX-50 in the United States on Monday, Nov. 15, Marumoto said.

But he teased some specs, saying the CX-50 was developed for U.S. market tastes with a wider tread and bigger cargo room. On the outside, it is expected to be around the size of Mazda's CX-5 crossover, which is currently the automaker's best-selling vehicle in the U.S.

Advanced driver-assistance systems are the building blocks of self-driving vehicles and useful tools for human-controlled cars — as long as the human is paying attention.

Advanced driver-assistance systems are the building blocks of self-driving vehicles and useful tools for human-controlled cars — as long as the human is paying attention.

WASHINGTON -- NHTSA said it is looking into a consumer report that a Tesla Model Y was involved in an accident while using the company's Full Self-Driving Beta software.

The owner of a 2021 Tesla Model Y reported to the auto safety agency that on Nov. 3 in Brea, Calif., the vehicle was in FSD Beta mode "and while taking a left turn the car went into the wrong lane and I was hit by another driver in the lane next to my lane."

The car "gave an alert half way through the turn" and the driver tried to assume control "but the car by itself took control and forced itself into the incorrect lane," the report says. The car was severely damaged on the driver side, the owner added.

"NHTSA is aware of the consumer complaint in question and is in communication with the manufacturer to gather additional information," an NHTSA spokesperson told Reuters on Friday.

Tesla did not immediately comment.

Earlier this month, Tesla recalled nearly 12,000 U.S. v…

Editor's note: This story is part of a special report on advanced driver-assist systems running in the Nov. 15 edition.

WASHINGTON — U.S. auto safety regulators could be laying the groundwork for closer scrutiny of advanced driver-assistance systems after years of forgoing a regulatory route for these Level 2 automated functions, vehicle safety and technology experts say.

NHTSA — amid an ongoing investigation into Tesla's Autopilot system after a series of crashes involving the electric vehicle maker's models and emergency vehicles — has begun piecing together a potentially more active and assertive approach to examining the safety and efficacy of driver-assist technologies offered by Tesla and other major automakers.

The agency has not yet issued specific regulations or performance standards for such systems, but actions by NHTSA in light of the investigation may signal a sea change, the experts told Automotive News.

Since opening the formal saf…

Magna International Inc. didn't get the blockbuster autonomous-driving technology deal it wanted this summer. But CEO Swamy Kotagiri indicated the Canadian megasupplier remains unfazed.

Kotagiri, 52, in his first year leading Magna, said North America's biggest auto supplier and the world's fourth largest will soldier on with its strategy on advanced driver-assistance systems, even after its bid for Swedish tech supplier Veoneer got snatched out from under him by a rival offer from Qualcomm.

Expect Magna to continue investing significantly in its existing portfolio to win new business from automakers while continuing to keep an eye out for acquisitions and partnerships that make sense for the company, he said.

"We have a really good business in terms of having the sensor suite, whether it's the cameras, the radar, the lidar, the domain controllers and the software capability," he said. "And we always have said that if there's an opportunity to augment …

The numbers told a stark story to Helmi Felfel. How many unread emails were in his inbox? More than 5,000. How many unread texts were on his phone? Zero.

In the midst of rethinking his marketing and advertising plans, Felfel, president of Planet Automotive Group, realized he needed to move beyond traditional outreach and include texting in his efforts to better engage customers across his three Charlotte, N.C.-area dealerships.

"You can call them, and they'll put you on 'ignore,' " Felfel said. "You can leave them a voicemail, and they won't listen to it. You can send an email, and they won't open it. People are busy. I know I am. So to ask people to dedicate a certain amount of time to read an email or talk to somebody? Doesn't happen. But on a text — on their own terms — they seem to want to make it happen."

Over the past year, he has been utilizing a digital advertising solution called Chatterspot that has served as a fresh advertising avenue for hi…

MIMASAKA, Japan – Toyota marshalled corporate allies this weekend to form a Team Japan dedicated to keeping internal combustion engines alive on the road to carbon neutrality even as rivals continue to gravitate toward battery electric vehicles.

Under the initiative, kicked off Nov. 13 by Toyota Motor Corp., a coalition of five Japanese companies will explore new, greener fueling options for internal combustion.

The push brings together Toyota Motor Corp., Subaru Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp., as well as motorcycle makers Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Yamaha Motor.

The companies announced the initiative at a joint press conference at Okayama International Circuit, a racetrack in western Japan where Toyoda was scheduled to drive a Toyota Corolla race car specially equipped with a hydrogen burning engine in Super Taikyu Series endurance race.

The five companies said they will:

DETROIT — General Motors will temporarily stop offering heated seats, one of the most popular options among vehicle buyers, in many of its crossovers and all but the top-end trims of its full-size pickups starting next week because of the ongoing microchip shortage.

Affected vehicles also will not be built with ventilated seats or a heated steering wheel until chip supplies improve. But GM said it's able to reinstate three other features it previously eliminated to conserve chip supplies, including digital temperature displays in some pickups.

Starting as soon as Monday, heated and ventilated seats will no longer be installed on more than a dozen nameplates — including the Chevrolet Colorado, Blazer and Equinox and the GMC Canyon and Terrain — GM told dealers in a letter dated Friday. The features also will be eliminated on all Chevy Silverados and Traverses except High Country trims and all GMC Sierras and Acadias except Denalis.

Heated steering wheels …

BUFFALO, W.Va. — Opposition from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin to a proposed $4,500 additional federal tax credit for electric vehicles built by union labor in the U.S. got a warm response from those who have spent months lobbying to kill the provision in the Democrats' nearly $2 trillion Build Back Better Act.

Manchin said this week that he opposes the additional taxpayer-funded incentive — which would give General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and potentially Stellantis an advantage over nonunionized automakers that will assemble EVs in the U.S. — at an event announcing a $240 million investment from Toyota Motor North America into a 25-year-old components plant here.

The coal-state Democrat, whose moderate political leanings have already shaped much of the massive bill that would address climate change, child care and health care coverage because of the evenly split Senate, had not previously spoken publicly about the $4,500 incentive championed by Michigan Sen. …

Elon Musk's string of Tesla Inc. share sales carried on for a fourth-straight day, bringing the total the CEO has offloaded in the wake of an unusual public poll to about $5.7 billion.

The billionaire disposed of 639,737 shares Thursday, worth about $687 million, according to regulatory filings. He unloaded $5 billion of stock earlier in the week after asking his Twitter followers whether he should sell 10 percent of his Tesla stake.

Tesla shares slipped 2.2 percent to $1,031.15 as of 4:16 p.m. in New York, extending losses this week to more than 15 percent.

The poll was controversial for a host of reasons. For one, some of Musk's transactions were carried out this week under a trading plan he pre-arranged in September, well before he consulted his vast social media following. Musk also cast his proposal as having to do with the debate raging in the U.S. over whether billionaires are paying enough in taxes, and whether levies should be placed on unrealiz…