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Olaf Sakkers, general partner at mobility-minded venture-capital firm Red Blue Capital, considers progress toward pollution-reduction targets in terms of electric miles rather than electric-vehicle sales. He further advocates for a bolder U.S. infrastructure proposal.

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Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields jolted the auto industry last week with a series of ambitious announcements. The most significant: an initial order of 100,000 Teslas, starting with Model 3 sedans available this month.

Less surprised was Bay Area entrepreneur Ryan Levenson, 28, who has been renting out Teslas for three years. Given rising interest in Tesla in particular and EVs in general, it was about time a player such as Hertz made the move, said Levenson, who worked in recruiting at Tesla before focusing full-time on his business.

"I'm not at all shocked by this," Levenson told Automotive News last week. "At the end of the day, EVs are the future for everyone and that includes rental-car companies."

Levenson, who manages half a dozen EVs on the car-sharing application Turo, said Hertz is making a bigger bet on the electric market than many of the more timid players in the industry. Levenson's rentals are a mix of Tesla Model 3s a…

TOKYO — After making his final plea of innocence, former Nissan director Greg Kelly now begins the long wait for a verdict in a trial widely seen as a proxy case for ousted boss Carlos Ghosn.

If the three-judge panel accepts Kelly's defense argument, the human resources executive could finally be heading home to Tennessee, more than three years after his surprise arrest upon landing in Japan for a business trip. If not, Kelly could be spending another two years here locked in prison.

Despite the Japanese justice system's vaunted 99 percent conviction rate, Kelly kept his chin up.

"To be honest, I'm not nervous," Kelly said outside the Tokyo District Court on Oct. 27 after his defense team made its closing argument. "I know what happened. Others know what happened. We've got documents that show what happened. And there was no crime."

Lead defense attorney Yoichi Kitamura closed by telling the court that no crime was committed and that Kelly is an…

DETROIT — The latest signs the global semiconductor shortage may be easing? Ten cents and the Chevy Malibu.

General Motors and Ford Motor Co. reported lower third-quarter earnings than a year earlier because of the parts crisis that has kept many dealer lots bare for months, but each automaker appears to be in better position to weather the shortage, which could linger through most of next year and into 2023.

Ford, predicting increased volume in the final months of 2021, raised its full-year guidance and said it would pay shareholders a 10-cent quarterly dividend for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began. GM this week plans to resume production of the Malibu for the first time since early February, an indication that its chip supplies are stable enough to build even its lowest-priority vehicles. And Stellantis reported 14 percent lower revenue but reaffirmed its full-year profit margin guidance while predicting a "moderate" improvement on chip su…

WASHINGTON -- A $1.75 trillion Democratic spending proposal could give a big boost to electric vehicles -- especially to the Detroit 3 automakers and the U.S. Postal Service -- but it faces opposition from Republicans, foreign automakers, Canada and Mexico.

The House plan boosts EV credits to up to $12,500 per vehicle, including $4,500 for union-made vehicles and $500 for U.S.-made batteries. Vehicles would have to be made in the U.S. starting in 2027 to qualify for any credit.

The EV tax credits would cost $15.6 billion over 10 years and disproportionately benefit the Detroit 3 automakers -- General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler-parent Stellantis NV -- which assemble their U.S.-made vehicles in union-represented plants.

UAW President Ray Curry said the provision will "create and preserve tens of thousands of UAW members' jobs" and "would be a win for auto manufacturing workers."

"The framework announced today supports good paying union jobs an…

AJ Harb is general manager of Audi Milwaukee, but on the video-driven social platform TikTok, he's simply known as "The Boss."

Harb regularly appears on the dealership's rapidly growing TikTok account doing vehicle walk-arounds — sitting in the driver's seat of an S8 to show off its horsepower or the back seat of an A8 to joke that he looks 6-foot-5 when he's actually 5-foot-6.

While many viewers ask about the products, some throw playful barbs at Harb, critiquing the videos and his fashion choices.

"The people in the comments, they kind of roast him, but he gets a kick out of it," said Matt Abramczyk, the store's social media manager who runs the account. "People always are talking about his outfits or the stuff he does. I think that might be another part of the popularity of the videos. He is a character. People might come for the cars, and they might come for him, too."

Audi Milwaukee is definitely having fun with the TikTok community, …

Chevrolet is setting aside product pitches in its largest-ever outreach campaign to the LGBTQ community.

The sales push can come later. For now, Chevy wants to make clear what it stands for.

The General Motors brand has set its sights on amplifying key issues and voices in the community in an ongoing effort called "Authentic Voices of Pride" with Q.Digital, an LGBTQ media agency. The project covers topics including families, drag as activism, sports and inclusion, homelessness and justice reform through a series of documentaries and articles housed on LGBTQ Nation, Q.Digital's news site.

When the social justice movement spread through the nation last summer after George Floyd's death, GM CEO Mary Barra said she wanted the company to be the most inclusive in the world.

This is an external mission as much as it is an internal one, said Steven Majoros, vice president of Chevy marketing.

"If you're going to l…

WASHINGTON -- U.S. traffic deaths soared by 18.4% in the first six months of 2021 to the highest number in the period since 2006, the Transportation Department said Thursday.

Traffic deaths have risen dramatically after coronavirus lockdowns ended in 2020 as more drivers engaged in unsafe behavior like speeding, regulators say. NHTSA on Thursday estimated 20,160 people died in car crashes in the first six months of 2021 in the United States, up 3,140 over the same period in 2020.

Amazon.com Inc. owns a 20 percent stake in electric-vehicle maker Rivian Automotive Inc., the startup with which it has placed an order for 100,000 battery-powered delivery vans, the e-commerce giant disclosed Friday in a securities filing.

As of Sept. 30, Amazon held equity investments "including preferred stock of Rivian Automotive, Inc. representing an approximately 20 percent ownership interest," with a carrying value of $3.8 billion -- up from $2.7 billion at the end of 2020, Amazon said in the filing.

Irvine, California-based Rivian had disclosed in a seperate filing earlier this year that Amazon had invested more than $1.3 billion in the automaker and held almost 150 million shares of preferred stock. However, Amazon's voting power as a percentage was redacted.

A representative for Rivian declined to comment.

Peter Krawiec, a senior vice president of worldwide corporate and business development at Amazon, is on Rivian's board. The Seattle…

Detroit automakers would be able to offer $4,500 more in tax credits to U.S. electric car buyers than rivals such as Tesla Inc. and Toyota Motor Corp. under the $1.75 trillion tax and spending proposal unveiled by the White House on Thursday.

The plan calls for all automakers to be able to offer $7,500 to consumers for EV purchases for the first five years of the law, a win for Tesla and General Motors, which have been bumping up an existing cap that limits the number of tax credits manufacturers can offer to 200,000.

However, cars made by American manufacturers with union-represented workers would be allowed to offer an additional $4,500 in credits, according to a draft text of the bill released by the House that is subject to further negotiation. Tesla and foreign-owned automakers such as Toyota and Honda Motor Co. have argued the bill would give Detroit automakers an unfair advantage as the industry races toward an electric future.

The electric car …