Trade News

Ample, a San Francisco-based developer of swappable electric vehicle batteries, has raised $160 million in a new funding round, the company said on Thursday.

The company has developed a battery for EVs and an automated process for quickly swapping out depleted batteries for newly charged packs, according to founders Khaled Hassounah and John de Souza.

The Series C round brings to $230 million the total raised by the seven-year-old startup, which plans to expand testing and deployment to New York City, then Madrid and Singapore, Hassounah said in an interview.

"We've been saying for the past few months that this technology is ready for prime time, so now we intend to prove it" by expanding the fledgling service to more cities and drivers, he said.

Long charging times that are common at most public and commercial charging stations have dampened consumer and fleet demand for electric vehicles.

Ample is part of a growing group of companies, i…

DETROIT — General Motors will add downtime at several crossover and sedan plants because of the global microchip shortage, the automaker said Thursday. GM also plans next week to idle Orion Assembly, which builds the Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV, for the first time since the chip crisis began.

Until now, the chip crisis had not impacted GM's electric vehicle production. The automaker has kept plans in place to launch the GMC Hummer pickup EV later this year and the Cadillac Lyriq electric crossover in early 2022.

Orion Assembly, in Michigan, will go down Aug. 23 and is expected to resume production Aug. 30. No pickup or full-size SUV plants are expected to shut down next week, GM said.

AutoForecast Solutions estimates that total production losses resulting from the microchip shortage could climb to more than 7.1 million vehicles globally.

GM added downtime at the following plants:

Lansing Delta Township Assembly…

Great Wall Motor Co., a major private Chinese light-vehicle manufacturer looking to expand globally, signed an agreement with Daimler AG to purchase the German automaker’s factory in Brazil. 

Under the deal inked Wednesday, Great Wall will acquire land, buildings, machinery and equipment at the manufacturing site in Iracemapolis in the southeast Brazilian state of Sao Paulo, but not employees, the company said. 

Great Wall expects to complete the deal and start retooling the plant toward the end of the year.

After the renovation, the factory will have annual capacity of 100,000 vehicles and employ nearly 2,000 people, the company added.

Great Wall didn’t reveal additional details or financial terms of the deal. 

Daimler said in December it would end car production in Brazil by shutting down the factory that had produced Mercedes-Benz luxury vehicles since 2016.

Mercedes opened the factory when Brazilian industrial poli…

SHANGHAI – After being blacklisted by the Trump administration in 2019 for alleged threats to U.S. national security, Huawei Technologies is looking beyond its traditional telecommunications and smart phone operations in China.

One of the domestic industries the Chinese technology giant has quickly targeted is auto manufacturing. 

Huawei first laid out ambitious plans to become a supplier for intelligent and connected vehicles at the Shanghai auto show in April 2019. 

The first product that has enabled the company to quickly build up an automotive customer base is an in-vehicle, smart interactive system launched in late 2019.  

The system, dubbed Huawei HiCar, allows drivers to connect their cars with smartphones and enables services such as intelligent voice assistance and navigation.

Huawei HiCar was first adopted in December 2019 by Baojun, the brand owned by SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co., a light-vehicle joint venture be…

HONG KONG -- Embattled Chinese property developer Evergrande Group is in talks with smartphone maker Xiaomi and Shenzhen state-backed investment firms as it looks to sell part of a 65 percent stake in its electric vehicle unit, three sources said.

The Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group had a market capitalization of $12.5 billion on Thursday and one of the sources said the consortium is looking to buy a significant minority stake.

Evergrande, Xiaomi and Shenzhen's state asset regulator did not respond to requests for comment.

The talks were said by the sources to be at an early stage and subject to changes.

The developer said last week that it was in discussions with several independent third-party investors on the proposed sale of certain assets, including stakes in Evergrande NEV, as part of efforts to reduce debt.

Smartphone maker Xiaomi has been ramping up investments in EV suppliers after it earmarked an investment of $10 billion in M…

Formula E champion Mercedes will withdraw from the all-electric series a year from now, at the end of season 8, to concentrate on Formula One, the carmaker said Wednesday.

The announcement came three days after Dutch driver Nyck de Vries won the Formula E world championship title after finishing eighth in the season's final race in Berlin, with Mercedes also winning the teams' title after Stoffel Vandoorne's third place.

"The company will concentrate its works motorsport activities on Formula One, reinforcing the sport's status as the fastest laboratory for developing and proving sustainable and scalable future performance technologies," the automaker said in a statement.

In December, German manufacturers Audi and BMW confirmed they would exit Formula E at the end of this year.

Mercedes announced a new strategic direction for its brand in July, with the aim of going all-el…

BERLIN -- Ford has cut production again at its Cologne plant in Germany due to delivery problems with semiconductors, the automaker said.

A Ford spokesman told Automotive News Europe sister publication Automobilwoche that there had been coronavirus-related failures at a chipmaker in Malaysia, which had led to delivery problems at a door module supplier.

From the beginning of May to mid-July, Fiesta production in Cologne had already been halted due to semiconductor problems.

"Due to a production stoppage at a semiconductor manufacturer, Ford Fiesta production at our Cologne plant will be suspended from August 23 to 28," a Ford spokesperson confirmed to ANE via email. "We are working as quickly as possible to resume production."

On Monday the workforce returned to the production halls after their month-long plant vacation to resume assembly of the Fiesta.

According to the Automobilwoche report, management announced in a letter to employees th…

LOS ANGELES — Upstart luxury brand Genesis revealed its initial electric vehicle developed on a dedicated EV platform, the GV60 compact crossover.

While the Genesis EV is billed as a crossover, the automaker gave it a unique shape to appear more like a coupe.

"When viewed from the side, GV60 reveals the smooth and dynamic profile of a high-performance coupe," Genesis said Wednesday. "GV60's exterior design highlights its high-performance image along with a dynamic and smooth appearance."

The GV60 is expected to go on sale in the first half of next year in the U.S., or about the same time frame as the EV version of the G80 midsize sedan.

The GV60 is build on Hyundai Motor Group's E-GMP platform shared with the coming Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6. The electrified G80 is based on a modified gasoline-vehicle platform.

The Ioniq 5, which is coming to the U.S. later this year, comes in rear-wheel drive or all-wheel drive, with an estimated 300 m…

Two organizations involved in an ongoing Chicago-area mechanics' strike met Friday for a bargaining session, but no deal was struck.

The strike involves Local 701, a union representing mechanics at 56 Chicago-area car dealerships, and the Chicago New Car Dealer Committee, which represents the stores. The two groups have been locked in a heated debate over what a new four-year contract for the mechanics should look like.

Both sides drew up contract proposals on Friday, according to an NCDC spokesman. Neither passed.

During negotiations, NCDC offered to drop "most favored nation" language from its contract proposal if Local 701 accepted the rest of its terms. An MFN clause is finance jargon that means a first party will be entitled to terms as favorable as a second party is getting in certain circumstances.

Local 701 rejected that offer and made a counterproposal. A union spokesman said members are waiting to hear back fr…

WASHINGTON -- Ford Motor Co. said Wednesday it will temporarily shutter its Kansas City assembly plant that builds its bestselling F-150 pickup truck due to a semiconductor-related parts shortage as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia.

The one-week shutdown will begin Monday, the automaker said, adding it will also cut a shift on Saturday. The global auto industry has been hit hard by chip shortages that have caused significant production cuts.