Trade News

As the former FCA CEO leaves for AutoNation, some retailers and employees may have hoped a top executive with history in Auburn Hills would be staying through the merger.

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co., in what it says is the largest single manufacturing investment in its 118-year history, on Monday said it would spend $7 billion and create nearly 11,000 jobs to build electric vehicles and batteries in Tennessee and Kentucky.

The investment, meant to vault Ford among the leaders in EV output, will include a 3,600-acre "mega campus" northeast of Memphis called Blue Oval City that will include Ford's first new vehicle assembly plant in more than 50 years. The site — three times the size of the automaker's sprawling Rouge Complex in Michigan — will hire about 6,000 people to assemble next-generation electric F-Series pickups and include battery cell production and a supplier park, Ford said. It's expected to open in 2025.

South of Louisville, Ford will build a 1,500-acre battery park under its BlueOvalSK joint venture with battery supplier SK Innovation. The site will comprise two battery plants making advanced lithium ion batteries, wi…

WASHINGTON -- A group of 21 state attorneys general, the District of Columbia, and several major U.S. cities has urged the Biden administration to finalize stricter vehicle emissions rules than it has proposed.

The Environmental Protection Agency in August called for reversing the Trump-era loosening of vehicle emissions rules with a new plan to boost efficiency 10 percent in the 2023 model year and aiming for a fleet average of 52 miles per gallon by 2026. But the states and cities want more stringent rules.

"There is no need to wait to require further deployment of these technologies or to delay the massive economic and public health benefits of reducing these emissions," wrote the state attorneys general, led by California. 

Canadian supplier Magna International Inc. and the University of Waterloo in Ontario announced Monday a $1.3 million ($1.6 million CAD) joint project designed to enhance the safety and cybersecurity of self-driving vehicles.

Jim Quesenberry, director of research and development at Magna, said the five-year collaboration will aim to tackle some of the big issues in the “increasingly complex” modern transportation industry.

“As we look at what Uber or Amazon Delivery has done for us in terms of convenience and efficiency — and hopefully affordability — there are things behind that that we have to ensure are done with the utmost safety and security,” he said.

Sebastian Fischmeister, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university, said the research will focus on keeping vehicles — along with the people in and around them — safe, even as automated systems take on more tasks typically relegated to drivers. The teams will also look at sa…

LOS ANGELES — Genesis Motor North America CEO Mark Del Rosso is leaving the automaker after a three-month absence for a personal matter.

Genesis informed Automotive News about Del Rosso's departure Monday in an emailed statement.

At the same time, Genesis is reviving the position of chief operating officer and has named Hyundai Motor Mexico CEO Claudia Marquez to the new post. Marquez will lead the strategy and execution of sales, after sales, marketing and growth strategies for Genesis, the company said in a separate statement.

Marquez will report to Hyundai Motor North America CEO Jose Muñoz, who has been interim Genesis CEO and will continue to hold that title.

The changes are effective Oct. 1, Genesis said.

"Claudia is a strong leader that has implemented effective strategies for growing automotive brands throughout her career," Muñoz said in the release. "As an ambitious brand with a bold vision, we are pleased to have Claudia on…

OXFORD, England -- Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz are among the automakers turning to startups such as the Daimler-owned electric motor company YASA for expertise and technology in solving the unique challenges of electrifying supercars.

Speed has always been paramount for supercar makers, and now they are racing to go electric before climate policy bans their combustion engines in regions including Europe where regulators plan to allow only zero-emissions cars to be sold after 2035.

But batteries are immensely heavy and electric motors overheat if driven too hard -- big problems for a niche industry that charges hundreds of thousands of dollars for lightweight cars designed for the track as well as the road.

This year Daimler bought YASA, which has developed an "axial flux" high-performance electric motor that weighs 23 kg (50.7 lb), a fraction of a near-300 kg V-12 engine in a Ferrari and is about the size and shape of a steering wheel.

YASA already …

MILAN -- Ferrari and its parent company Exor, the holding vehicle of the Agnelli family, have entered a partnership with Jony Ive, the creative mind behind many of Apple's iconic products, and fellow designer Marc Newson.

The duo belong to the LoveFrom creative collective of designers, architects writers, engineers and artists based in London and California.

The partnership will explore projects in the luxury business, the companies said in a joint statement on Monday.

Ive had been mentioned in the Italian press among possible candidates to replace Louis Camilleri when he suddenly stepped down as Ferrari CEO last year. In the end Ferrari turned to technology industry veteran Benedetto Vigna to drive the luxury sports car maker known for its roaring, high-octane engines into a new era of silent, electric powertrains.

In a sign of its ambition to widen the appeal of its brand, Ferrari in June unveiled its first in-house fashion collection and inaugu…

A Chicago-area auto mechanics’ strike ended Sunday after union employees voted by a slim margin to accept a tentative four-year work contract from the association representing their dealerships of employment.

Those dealerships — which are part of the Chicago New Car Dealers Committee, or NCDC — will be open for service Monday, per a statement from NCDC spokesman Mark Bilek. The strike lasted eight weeks.

The mechanics belong to Local 701, which is part of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers trade union. More than 800 of them went on strike on Aug. 2, just after a majority voted on Aug. 1 to reject a version of a four-year work contract proposal offered by the NCDC on July 31. 

Mechanics from 56 dealerships engaged in the strike when it started. Over the course of eight weeks, several dealerships indicated they no longer wanted to be part of the NCDC. That ended up dropping the number of participating dealerships to 35…

General Motors is ramping up pressure on white collar employees to comply with a corporate mandate to report their vaccination status confidentially.

The company sent out a memo on Sept. 22 warning that continued failure to do so could lead to safety violation letters and a partial loss of a company performance bonus. The Wall Street Journal reported on the memo earlier Friday. The automaker hasn’t required any workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

“We are pleased that virtually every GM salaried employee has reported their vaccine status via our confidential reporting tool,” the company said in an emailed statement. “We continue to work with a very small number of employees to reach 100% completion.”

GM ordered its U.S. salaried staff to report their vaccination status last month, though the requirement doesn’t apply to factory employees represented by the UAW. The union has said it’s reviewing details of a sweeping rule by the White House that orders …

The largest proxy advisory firm is recommending Tesla Inc. investors reject two board members who are standing for re-election: James Murdoch and Elon Musk’s younger brother, Kimbal Musk.

“Votes against directors James Murdoch and Kimbal Musk are warranted due to concerns regarding excessive compensation to named executive officers and to non-executive directors,” Institutional Shareholder Services wrote in a Sept. 24 report to clients.

Tesla’s board has nine directors. Murdoch and Kimbal Musk, both 48, are the the two incumbents standing for re-election. Tesla will hold its annual shareholder meeting virtually this year on Oct. 7 from its new factory in Austin, Texas.

Private equity investor Antonio Gracias won’t stand for re-election and won’t be replaced. Murdoch, the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, was the chief executive officer of 21st Century Fox from 2015 to 2019. Kimbal Musk is a food entrepreneur who also serves on the board of Elon Musk’s …