Trade News

BMW raised its profit expectations for this year after higher car prices outweighed a worsening semiconductor shortage that is hampering output across global automakers.

The automaker sees earnings before interest and taxes on automaking of between 9.5 percent and 10.5 percent on sales, up from a previous view of 7 percent to 9 percent, according to a statement Thursday.

"Whilst the semiconductor supply restrictions are expected to further impact production and deliveries, the continuing positive pricing effects for both new- and pre-owned vehicles will overcompensate these negative sales volume effects," the company said.

BMW's earnings before tax are expected to rise "significantly," it said, adding free cash flow is seen at around 6.5 billion euros ($7.5 billion).

Chip shortages have plagued the auto industry for months, prompting companies from Renault to Toyota to warn of longer-term hits to output, but higher prices have allowed some to off…

PALMER, Texas -- Self-driving startup Aurora says it has discovered a path to turn costly self-driving vehicles into a profitable business, showcasing its technology to investors this week ahead of a public listing it hopes will provide some $2 billion in additional funding.

The move comes as several autonomous trucking companies prepare to launch driverless routes in the coming years and begin signing up industry partners and customers in an effort to turn long-elusive self-driving into a profitable reality.

Unlike some of its competitors, Aurora wants to provide both autonomous freight trucking and robotaxi services, saying the combination will lower costs, provide greater revenue streams and allow technology transfer.

"Trucking allows us to build a profitable, scalable business that funds the further development of ride-hailing and brings down the cost of hardware," Sterling Anderson, Aurora's co-founder and chief product officer, said in an intervie…

WASHINGTON -- Rohit Chopra was officially confirmed as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, signaling a return to more aggressive oversight of financial services companies at the agency.  

The U.S. Senate voted Thursday 50-48 to approve Chopra’s nomination on party lines. As CFPB director, he’ll face intense pressure from progressive Democrats, who expect him to revive the agency they say was put to sleep during the Trump administration. If he succeeds in turning the agency around, life may get less pleasant for auto dealerships, banks, credit bureaus, credit-card companies and student and payday lenders.

“The industry didn’t have to dedicate any mindshare whatsoever to the CFPB’s activities for nearly four years,” said Isaac Boltansky, a policy analyst at Compass Point Research & Trading. “But with Chopra taking the chair, the bureau suddenly jumps up to the top of the worry list for most consumer finance companies.”

Chopra ha…

CarMax posted record net revenue in its fiscal second quarter on a double-digit increase in unit sales, while net earnings dipped.

The largest used-vehicle retailer in the U.S. pointed to its omnichannel retail efforts, and in particular its instant cash-offer tool, as having driven its top-line success in the period, ended Aug. 31.

Net revenues climbed 49 percent to $8 billion in the quarter. Total unit sales grew 20 percent to 419,895, and included retail used-unit sales of 231,797, up 6.7 percent, and record wholesale sales of 188,098, up 41 percent. Same-store retail used-unit sales rose 6.2 percent.

In an auto retail market where demand is fierce and inventory often tight, CarMax bought 364,263 vehicles from consumers in its second quarter. That was a 59 percent increase over the year-earlier period. About 188,000 of the vehicles were bought through the company's instant appraisal and cash offer tool, which the company launched as a joint effort wit…

A Chinese driver has successfully sued Tesla Inc. for fraud over his purchase of a second-hand Model S, adding to a run of setbacks for Elon Musk’s EV pioneer in its key overseas market.

A Beijing court found Tesla had misrepresented the condition of the car bought by Han Chao for 379,700 yuan ($58,700) on the automaker’s official used-car platform, according to a copy of the verdict Han posted to his Weibo account. The car was found to have undergone major repairs following an earlier accident, with the court dismissing Tesla’s defense that signs of welding indicated no “structural change.”

Tesla was ordered to refund the cost of the car and pay damages of three times the purchase price -- taking the total payout to more than 1.5 million yuan, according to the copy of the ruling Han posted. It’s the first time California-based Tesla has been hit with such a large penalty in China, local media outlet Caijing reported. Calls to the ruling court, Beijing No. 2 I…

The Genesis GV60, the first dedicated electric vehicle from the South Korean premium player, will get one battery for all configurations, but optional rear- and all-wheel drive layouts along with a “Boost Mode” that takes the new entry from 0-62 mph in just 4 seconds.

In unveiling the specifications for the GV60 compact crossover on Thursday, Genesis said the standard rear-wheel-drive version will get a single 168-kilowatt motor.

The all-wheel-drive variant, meanwhile, gets two motors. The rear-wheel motor will deliver 160kW while the front achieves 74kW, for a total system output of 234kW.

Finally, a third variant called the Performance Model will be all-wheel drive and achieve output of 320kW in Sports Mode and top out at 360kW in Boost Mode.

A Boost Mode button on the steering wheel injects oomph in 10-second spurts, powering the GV60 from 0-62 mph in 4 seconds, the company said in a statement.

Engineers also gave the GV60 a D…

TOKYO – Honda Motor Co., which will phase out internal combustion products by 2040, has now unveiled plans to reinvent the company in business areas that are truly out of this world.

Under a road map unveiled Thursday, the automaker said it will branch into electric air mobility vehicles, avatar robots and even reusable rockets to launch satellites into space.

The rocket ambitions position Honda as a kind of Japanese answer to Elon Musk’s SpaceX aerospace company.

Honda’s new vision expands on CEO Toshihiro Mibe’s efforts to cultivate new businesses as the world shifts toward high-tech carbon neutrality and Honda reimagines its product portfolio.

Earlier this year, Mibe said Honda would go completely gasoline-free by 2040, marking a major transformation for a company that is one of the world’s biggest builders of combustion engines.

Keiji Ohtsu, president of Honda R&D Co., the automaker’s development arm, conceded the new technologies …

Lordstown Motors Corp., the electric-truck maker running low on cash, is near an agreement to sell its highly politicized Ohio factory to Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

The companies are set to announce the pact as soon as this week, said the people, who asked not to be named as the plan isn’t yet public. They didn’t disclose the value of the transaction. Lordstown Motors struck a deal with General Motors in late 2019 to buy the plant the automaker opened in 1966.

The sale, if completed, could bring in much-needed funds and potentially help Lordstown Motors realize the benefits of large-scale manufacturing faster by building multiple models in the same facility along with Foxconn. For the biggest assembler of Apple Inc.’s iPhone, the plant would establish the company’s auto manufacturing footprint in the U.S. as it pushes into EVs.

A Lordstown Motors spokesperson declined to comment. Foxconn representa…

When Asbury Automotive Group Inc.'s pending acquisition of Larry H. Miller Dealerships is complete, Asbury CEO David Hult will have gone from leading the industry's smallest publicly traded dealership group to one of the largest.

The $3.2 billion megadeal for Larry H. Miller's 61 stores announced Wednesday positions Asbury to spread its dealership network coast to coast, add thousands of new customers for its Clicklane digital retailing platform and operate its own finance-and-insurance company.

"We believe that this acquisition is truly transformative for Asbury," Hult said in a statement.

In addition to the $5.7 billion in expected annual revenue from Larry H. Miller, Asbury also announced Wednesday that it has stores representing another $900 million in annual revenue under contract. It's the second supersized deal since Hult was promoted to the CEO post in 2018, following Asbury's $735 purchase of eight Park Place luxury dealerships in Texas last ye…

ZURICH -- ABB has launched the world's fastest electric-car charger, the Swiss engineering company said, as it presses ahead with plans to float the business which could be valued at around $3 billion.

The company's new Terra 360 modular charger can charge up to four vehicles at once and can fully charge any EV within 15 minutes, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

The device, which can deliver 62 miles of range in less than 3 minutes, will be available in Europe by the end of the year, the company said.

The U.S., Latin America and the Asia Pacific regions are due to follow in 2022.

CEO Bjorn Rosengren said in July that investor materials for the IPO of its EV charging business will be ready in the fourth quarter of this year, with a potential flotation targeted for early 2022.

ABB has seen rising demand for chargers and has sold more than 460,000 units across more than 88 markets since it entered the e-mobility business in 2010.…