Trade News

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Stellantis Chairman John Elkann agree that Ferrari should steer clear of autonomous-driving technology.

The two spoke for more than 45 minutes on Friday during Italian Tech Week, an event that Elkann, who is also Ferrari chairman, attended in person and the Tesla boss joined over video feed from Texas.

The two billionaires two make for an odd couple on the surface -- Elkann discussed running newspaper and industrial companies that have been around for more than a century, while Musk talked about his brain-machine interface startup. However, they expressed a lot of common views.

Energy

Both are bullish about nuclear as an interim energy source and solar being the ideal long-term solution. Musk said he has been surprised by the recent move away from nuclear, calling it "quite safe." He encouraged building more -- or at least not shutting down -- nuclear power plants.

"We're seeing how energy prices are just going up --…

Volvo Cars subsidiary Polestar has agreed to go public through a merger with blank-check firm Gores Guggenheim at a valuation of $20 billion, the company said Monday.

Once the deal is closed, the new public company  will be named Polestar Automotive Holding UK Limited, which is expected to be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol PSNY.

The new company's enterprise value represents approximately three times its estimated 2023 revenue and 1.5 times its 2024 estimated revenue, according to the release.

Current Polestar equity holders will retain approximately 94 percent ownership in Polestar and roll 100 percent of their equity interests into the pro forma company.

The $20 billion figure matches the reported valuation of Volvo, which plans to list on the Stockholm stock exchange this year. It is also double the value of Renault Group.

Other electric vehicle startups that that are already on the market include U.S.-based Lucid Motors, …

Demand for used vehicles has been high this year, and flooding this month from Hurricane Ida just sent more customers clamoring for cars at Planet Honda in Union, N.J.

Planet Honda isn't alone facing that growing demand. In times like these, General Manager Bill Feinstein said he and other dealership leaders he knows are choosing to sometimes not certify used vehicles that would otherwise qualify for automakers' certified pre-owned programs. Dealerships, particularly in parts of the Northeast hit hard by Ida's flooding, simply need to get cars and trucks ready for sale to meet demand.

"There [are] some [dealers] saying, 'Hey, you know what, it's going to take an extra three hours in my shop to make it a CPO, and I don't have enough cars on the lot,' " he said. "I think you can make those decisions."

While the need has intensified in recent weeks for Feinstein and others because of the storm, it's been a persistent theme for retailers across the country…

TOKYO — When Toyota improves the fuel economy of its future hybrid vehicles, it won't be simply with updates to their batteries and motors — it will also be through advanced software and connectivity.

Toyota has made a breakthrough in a predictive efficiency function that helps optimize the switching back and forth between gasoline-electric hybrid driving and full-electric drive mode.

The new technology will debut in the plug-in hybrid version of the next-generation Lexus NX crossover that arrives this year. Toyota calls the system Predictive Efficient Drive.

The innovation paves the way for a more-sophisticated geofencing technology the automaker is developing to eke further gains by automatically turning hybrid mode on and off.

But getting there requires Toyota to put more software engineers on the job, says Chief Product Integration Officer Keiji Yamamoto. He outlined plans to boost the number of software engineers across the Toyota Group, ra…

DETROIT — Mike Manley joined Chrysler a couple of years after a merger, and now he's leaving after another one.

The longtime executive is departing the company now called Stellantis with a consequential legacy built on Jeep's global surge and the tie-up with PSA Group that will lead to a largely electrified lineup.

Manley took the helm of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles just before CEO Sergio Marchionne died in July 2018 and steadily reshaped the upper ranks of the automaker, turning to industry outsiders from Amazon and Nike. He also poached rival executives such as Christian Meunier, who came from Infiniti and now heads Jeep's global operations.

Manley had an eye on securing the long-term future of the company, with much of his stint as CEO dedicated to exploring combinations with Renault — FCA pulled back on a 2019 merger proposal a little over a week later — and PSA. The openness to a merger was right out of the playbook of Marchionne, who famously argued…

The CEO of lidar company Sense Photonics discusses why the company stands out in a crowded field, her experiences working for Ford Motor Co. and the importance of manufacturing expertise in lidar.

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For Toyota and its Lexus brand, this December could be one to remember — for all the wrong reasons.

Ongoing microchip and other supply chain shortages caused by the pandemic have forced Toyota Motor Corp. to continue to cut its global production. Meanwhile, U.S. retail demand for new vehicles has slowed, but not yet enough to repopulate empty dealership lots.

That's left Toyota Motor North America executives with a conundrum: Do they still hold their traditional end-of-year sell-offs — and spend the requisite marketing money — if their dealers don't have any inventory to sell off?

The answer is probably, but top leaders at the company admit that they are couching that answer in a prayer that their production woes will begin to get better soon.

"I'm optimistic the inventory situation will start to change for the better," said Jack Hollis, senior vice president for automotive operations at Toyota Motor North America. "With…

A shift in focus from market share to profit, coupled with new retailer-friendly policies, has propelled Nissan from industry laggard to middle of the pack in a key dealer survey.

The Nissan brand ranked 15 out of 32 in the latest National Automobile Dealers Association Dealer Attitude Survey — an industry insider's measure of how auto retailers feel about their franchise.

The 10-place surge from a year ago is a promising sign for the Japanese brand that until recently faced rebellious retailers fed up with its high-pressure sales program.

Nissan is "changing the conversation," U.S. sales chief Judy Wheeler told Automotive News last week.

"We're not pushing wholesale with our dealers," Wheeler said. "Instead, we're working with our dealers on: how do we help them run their business better; how do we engage better with customers; how do we use our e-commerce platform to touch the customer wherever they are in the buying…

DETROIT — It's taken Jim Farley less than one year as Ford Motor Co. CEO to accomplish what his two immediate predecessors couldn't over six: reverse the company's long stock slide.

There's much still to fix, including problematic launches of high-profile vehicles, money-losing overseas markets and slumping U.S. sales amid the coronavirus pandemic and global microchip shortage.

But Farley, 59, has changed the narrative surrounding the 118-year-old automaker by exciting Wall Street with a vision of profitable, electrified products and software services that generate recurring revenue to insulate Ford from the industry's traditional ebbs and flows. He has reshaped Ford to emphasize commercial vehicles and technology development, elevating insiders to new roles and plucking talent from the likes of eBay and Apple.

"It's been so long since we had a reasonable sense of confidence in Ford's EV/AV/mobility strategy," Adam Jonas, an analyst with Morgan Stanley,…