STOCKHOLM, April 8 (Reuters) – AB Volvo (VOLVb.ST) expects its first-quarter operating income to take a hit from uncertainty caused by the Russia-Ukraine war and will set aside provisions worth 4 billion crowns ($423.2 million) to cover that, the Swedish truck maker said on Friday.

Russia’s six-week long incursion in Ukraine has seen more than 4 million people flee abroad, killed or injured thousands, turned cities into rubble and led to sweeping sanctions on its leaders and companies. read more

Continue reading “AB Volvo sets aside $423 million in provisions due to Russia-Ukraine war”

BERLIN, April 8 (Reuters) – Mercedes-Benz (MBGn.DE) opened a new 200 million euro ($217 million) software centre in Sindelfingen on Friday, its latest investment in boosting in-house software capabilities as it works to bring its own MB.OS operating system onto the market by 2024.

Around 750 of the 3,000 new hires the luxury carmaker plans to bring in globally to develop the operating system were hired in Sindelfingen, working on features from in-vehicle entertainment to autonomous driving.

Continue reading “Mercedes-Benz accelerates in-house software push with new tech centre”

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) – Senior officials in the Biden administration and major automotive leaders agree that charging station infrastructure for electric vehicles should offer an interoperable experience based on any car model.

The White House said a virtual meeting was held Wednesday with major automotive leaders, including Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and General Motors (GM.N)CEO Mary Barra to discuss electric vehicles and charging.

Continue reading “Biden administration, auto leaders want ‘seamless’ EV charging station use”

PARIS, April 8 (Reuters) – French shipping group CMA CGM said on Friday it has acquired nearly 100% of Gefco, the auto transport company previously co-owned by Russian Railways (RZD) and carmaker Stellantis (STLA.MI).

CMA CGM had been authorised by the European Commission to acquire Gefco’s capital immediately, pending final approval of the deal expected in the coming months, it said in a statement without disclosing financial details.

Continue reading “CMA CGM buys auto logistics firm Gefco as Russia’s RZD, Stellantis exit”

By Satoshi Sugiyama

TOKYO, April 7 (Reuters) – A Japanese battery start-up said on Thursday it would launch a commercial fleet service using electric vehicles from China’s Geely Holding Group, joining a growing field of services aimed at helping companies reduce their carbon footprint.

Yokohama-based 3DOM Inc, a university-led venture set up in 2014 to develop separators for batteries, said it would offer the carbon neutral EV service through subscription or lease so that users could avoid high purchase costs.

Continue reading “Japan start-up to offer fleet service using China’s Geely EVs”

By Phuong Nguyen

HAIPHONG, April 7 (Reuters) – Vietnamese automaker VinFast said on Thursday its Singapore-based holding company had filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with U.S. securities regulators, as it plans spending of $4 billion on its first U.S. factory complex.

VinFast, which became the first fully fledged domestic car maker in 2019, is betting big on the U.S. market, where it hopes to compete with legacy automakers and startups with electric SUVs and a battery leasing model.

Continue reading “Vietnam automaker VinFast files for U.S. IPO to fund expansion”

By Gilles Guillaume

Summary

PARIS, April 7 (Reuters) – Renault (RENA.PA) chief Luca de Meo wants to press ahead with plans to create separate divisions for electric (EV) and combustion engine vehicles despite potentially costly uncertainty over its interests in Russia, three sources told Reuters.

Playing catch-up with rivals like Tesla (TSLA.O) and Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), the French automaker first outlined its strategy shift in February, days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying its turnaround plan was ahead of schedule.

Continue reading “EXCLUSIVE Renault CEO pushes on with electric split as Russia bill looms-sources”

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, April 6 (Reuters) – The Biden administration said senior officials held a meeting Wednesday with major automotive leaders including Tesla (TSLA.O) Chief Executive Elon Musk and General Motors (GM.N) Chief Executive Mary Barra to discuss electric vehicles and charging.

The administration said in a statement “there was broad consensus that charging stations and vehicles need to be interoperable and provide a seamless user experience, no matter what car you drive or where you charge your EV.”

Continue reading “Biden administration holds EV industry meeting with Musk, Barra”

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, April 5 (Reuters) – The U.S. government may need more than 100,000 charging stations to support widespread electric vehicle use, a government watchdog told a congressional hearing on Tuesday.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in testimony that as of March, federal agencies own about 1,100 charging stations. President Joe Biden in December signed an executive order directing the U.S. government to end purchases of gas-powered vehicles by 2035.

Continue reading “U.S. government may need more than 100,000 charging stations – testimony”

MILAN, April 6 (Reuters) – Vehicle production from sites owned in Italy by Stellantis (STLA.MI) and previously its predecessor Fiat Chrysler is set to fall for a fifth consecutive year in 2022 due to the microchip supply crunch, the FIM CISL union said on Wednesday.

Fiat Chrysler and Peugeout-maker PSA merged at the start of last year to form Stellantis, the world’s fourth-largest carmaker. At the time of the merger PSA did not have any production facilities in Italy.

Continue reading “Production from Stellantis Italy plants to fall for fifth year due to chip crisis-union”

April 6 (Reuters) – New car sales in Russia fell 62.9% year-on-year in March, contracting for a ninth straight month, as the industry encountered an acute shortage and soaring prices caused by a sharp rouble drop and disrupted logistics.

The Association of European Businesses (AEB) said on Wednesday new auto sales in Russia amounted to 55,129 cars in March, around half the number sold in February.

Sales of Lada cars by Russia’s largest automaker AvtoVaz fell 64% in March from a year earlier, AEB data showed.

Continue reading “Russia’s new car sales slump 63% year on year in March”

By Hyunjoo Jin

San Francisco, April 6 (Reuters) – Toyota Motor (7203.T) unit Woven Planet has joined Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) in trying to advance self-driving technology without expensive sensors such as lidars.

Woven Planet told Reuters it is able to use low-cost cameras to collect data and effectively train its self-driving system, a “breakthrough” that it hopes will help drive down costs and scale up the technology.

Gathering diverse driving data using a massive fleet of cars is critical to developing a robust self-driving car system, but it is costly and not scalable to test autonomous vehicles with expensive sensors, it said.

Continue reading “Toyota joins Tesla in developing self-driving tech with low-cost cameras”

DETROIT, April 6 (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) on Wednesday cut its 2022 outlook for the U.S. auto industry’s new-car sales, citing the struggles in the supply-chain caused by the pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine.

The Japanese automaker’s new outlook of 15.5 million vehicles was down from its prior forecast of 16.5 million, Bob Carter, executive vice president of sales for Toyota Motor North America, said on a conference call.

Continue reading “Toyota cuts ’22 U.S. new-car sales industry outlook on supply-chain issues”

BERLIN, April 6 (Reuters) – German carmaker Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) will axe many combustion engine models by the end of the decade and sell fewer cars overall to concentrate on producing more profitable premium vehicles, its finance chief was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

“The key target is not growth,” Arno Antlitz told the Financial Times newspaper. “We are (more focused) on quality and on margins, rather than on volume and market share.”

Continue reading “VW to scrap models and focus on premium market -CFO tells FT”

April 5 (Reuters) – Electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotive Inc (RIVN.O) said on Tuesday it is on track to achieve its production target of 25,000 vehicles this year, sending its shares up 2.4% in extended trading.

The company said it had made 2,553 vehicles and delivered 1,227 cars in the first quarter. It produced 1,015 vehicles and delivered 920 last year after starting deliveries of its R1T pickup truck towards the end of the third quarter.

Continue reading “Rivian on track to meet production target of 25,000 vehicles”

By Ben Klayman

DETROIT, April 5 (Reuters) – General Motors (GM.N) and Honda Motor Co (7267.T) said on Tuesday they will develop a series of lower-priced electric vehicles based on a new joint platform, producing potentially millions of cars from 2027 in a bid to beat Tesla (TSLA.O) in sales.

The announcement expands on plans for GM to begin building two electric SUVs for Honda starting in 2024 – the Honda Prologue and an Acura model. read more

Continue reading “GM and Honda to produce ‘attainable EVs’ in bid to surpass Tesla sales”

SAO PAULO, April 4 (Reuters) – Mercedes-Benz Group (MBGn.DE) will put more than five thousand workers on collective vacation in two plants in Brazil due to the shortage of semiconductor chips, the company said on Monday.

The production stoppage will happen from April 18 to May 3 and includes 5,000 employees in the Sao Bernardo do Campo plant and 600 in the Juiz de Fora factory, located in the Brazilian states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais, respectively.

Continue reading “Mercedes-Benz puts 5,600 workers on vacation in Brazil due to chips shortage”

By Ben Klayman

DETROIT, April 5 (Reuters) – General Motors (GM.N) and Honda Motor Co (7267.T) on Tuesday said they will co-develop a series of electric vehicles based on a new joint platform, allowing production of millions of cars starting in 2027.

The announcement expands on plans for GM to begin building two electric SUVs for Honda starting in 2024 – the Honda Prologue and an Acura model. read more

The automakers said the new deal is for “affordable” EVs, including compact crossover vehicles, built using GM’s Ultium battery technology. The compact crossover is the biggest selling auto sector in the world with annual volumes of more than 13 million vehicles, the companies said.

Continue reading “GM and Honda expand electric vehicle partnership”

April 5 (Reuters) – Thousands of auto workers have been furloughed and food prices are soaring as Western sanctions pummel the small Russian city of Kaluga and its flagship foreign carmakers, with more sanctions likely to come.

The Kaluga region, 190 kilometres (120 miles) southwest of Moscow, says it has attracted more than 1.3 trillion roubles ($15 billion) in investment, mostly foreign, since 2006.

Continue reading “Russian auto boomtown grinds to halt over Ukraine sanctions”

BERLIN, April 5 (Reuters) – Germany’s Sono Motors has signed up a new partner for its partly solar-powered cars and is sticking to its goal of commercial production in 2023, after abandoning talks with the electric carmaking arm of indebted Chinese property developer Evergrande.

Sono said on Tuesday it would produce its first vehicles in Finland with supplier Valmet Automotive, rather than in Sweden as originally envisaged.

The company had said in 2019 its production partner would be National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), the Swedish electric vehicle unit of Evergrande Group (3333.HK), but a binding agreement was not signed.

Continue reading “Sono Motors signs up new partner for solar car”

April 4 (Reuters) – General Motors Co (GM.N) will receive support worth C$518 million ($414.96 million) from Canada toward its multi-billion dollar investments in its two plants in Ontario, including one that will produce electric vehicles, the country’s government said.

Both the federal government and Ontario’s provincial government will invest C$259 million each as part of GM’s C$2 billion-plus investment at its Oshawa plant and CAMI assembly plant at Ingersoll.

Continue reading “Canada to invest C$518 million in two GM plants in Ontario”

By Tina Bellon

TUCSON, Ariz., April 4 (Reuters) – U.S. self-driving truck companies have a golden opportunity in the form of a nationwide driver shortage, but their robot drivers still are not ready and neither are their biggest potential customers.

The uncertainties surrounding autonomous trucking come at a critical time for the U.S. trucking industry, which faces a record shortage of 80,000 drivers as demand for online shopping and rapid delivery times is straining supply chains.

Continue reading “Logistics giants hedge their bets in uncertain U.S. self-driving truck race”

By Nick Carey and Barbara Lewis

WASHINGTON, England, April 4 (Reuters) – An electric car is a clean car, right? If only it were so simple.

From motor magnets with toxic histories to batteries made using copious fossil-fuel power, many challenges face carmakers seeking to purge dirtier materials from their supply chains to satisfy regulators and investors.

These obstacles represent opportunities for a growing group of companies in the electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem that bet they can capitalise on that demand.

Continue reading “Carmakers dream of clean, green, mean electric machines”

STOCKHOLM, April 4 (Reuters) – Volvo Cars (VOLCARb.ST) said on Monday car sales in March fell 22% to 58,677 cars as the automaker faced shortages of a specific semiconductor.

Volvo, majority owned by China’s Geely Holding (GEELY.UL), said the shortage is expected to impact production during the second quarter.

WASHINGTON, April 4 (Reuters) – Rental car firm Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ.O) said on Monday it would buy up to 65,000 electric vehicles over five years from Swedish EV maker Polestar, the latest move by the rental car firm to add zero-emission models.

Hertz said Polestar cars would be available beginning this spring in Europe and later in 2022 in North America and Australia.

The Florida-based rental car company said that it would initially order the Polestar 2 sedan. Hertz shares were up 1.75% in premarket trading Monday.

Continue reading “Hertz to buy up to 65,000 electric vehicles from Polestar”

By Steve Scherer

OTTAWA, April 3 (Reuters) – Canada on Monday will announce its support for General Motors Co’s (GM.N) multi-billion-dollar investment in two plants, including one that will produce electric commercial vehicles (EVs), a government source said.

Both the federal government and Ontario’s provincial government will invest in the two GM plants in Ingersoll and Oshawa, said the source, who provided no further details and was not authorized to speak on the record.

Continue reading “Canada to support GM multi-billion-dollar investments in two plants”

BEIJING, April 3 (Reuters) – China’s largest electric vehicle (EV) maker BYD Co Ltd (002594.SZ) said that as of last month it stopped making combustion engine vehicles and now produces full electric and heavily electrified plug-in hybrid cars only.

“In the future, BYD will focus on pure electric and plug-in hybrids in the automobile sector,” the company said in a statement filed to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Sunday.

BYD will not completely stop making gasoline engines since smaller highly efficient engines will continue to be used in plug-in hybrid cars.

Continue reading “China’s BYD ends full combustion engine cars to focus on electric, plug-in hybrids”

By Hyunjoo Jin and Akash Sriram

April 2 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) on Saturday reported record electric vehicle deliveries for the first quarter, largely meeting analysts’ estimates, but production fell from the previous quarter as supply chain disruptions and a China plant suspension weighed.

“This was an *exceptionally* difficult quarter due to supply chain interruptions & China zero Covid policy,” Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted. “Outstanding work by Tesla team & key suppliers saved the day.”

Continue reading “Tesla delivers record vehicles in first quarter; output falls during China shutdown”

By Aishwarya Nair

April 1 (Reuters) – U.S. automakers on Friday reported a slump in first-quarter domestic sales, as the entire industry was slammed by chip shortages and disruptions to supply chains.

Toyota, which in 2021 upstaged GM as the top-selling automaker in the United States, outsold the company in the first quarter on increased demand for its Lexus hybrid and electric vehicles.

South Korea’s Hyundai Motor (005380.KS)and Kia Motors (000270.KS) andJapan’s Mazda Motor Corp (7261.T) all posted a drop in overall U.S. quarterly auto sales. Hyundai said electrified vehicle retail sales surged 241% in the January-March period from a year earlier.

Continue reading “U.S. auto sales slide in Q1; Toyota outsells GM”

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, April 1 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration on Friday sharply boosted fuel economy standards for vehicles, reversing former President Donald Trump’s rollback of U.S. regulations aimed at improving gas mileage and cutting tailpipe pollution.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced it will boost fuel efficiency requirements by 8% for both the 2024 and 2025 model years and 10% in 2026. That was a slightly bigger increase than the proposal outlined in August.

Continue reading “U.S. boosts fuel efficiency rules as Biden reverses Trump rollback”

FRANKFURT, April 1 (Reuters) – Skoda, part of Germany’s Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), appoint Klaus Zellmer as its new boss, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Friday.

Zellmer is to succeed Thomas Schaefer as head of the Czech carmaker, and an announcement will be made on Monday, the people said.

Skoda was not immediately available for comment and Volkswagen declined to comment.

By Aditi Shah

NEW DELHI, April 1 (Reuters) – Carmakers in India reported a sharp rise in annual sales for the fiscal year 2022 on Friday, but warned of future risks from global supply chain disruptions.

Maruti Suzuki (MRTI.NS), India’s biggest carmaker, said sales rose 13% in the fiscal year ended March 31 to 1.65 million units, growing for the first time in two years. But the company warned that “the supply situation of electronic components continues to be unpredictable”.

Continue reading “Car sales in India rise but automakers warn of supply chain disruptions”

By Tina Bellon

March 31 (Reuters) – Washington Governor Jay Inslee on Thursday signed into law a minimum pay standard for Uber (UBER.N) and Lyft (LYFT.O) drivers, making Washington the first U.S. state to implement earnings standards for ride-hail companies.

Drivers across the Northwestern state will earn a minimum of $1.17 per mile and 34 cents per minute with a minimum pay of $3.00 per trip.

Under the new law, drivers will also have access to paid sick time, family medical leave and long-term care programs, and be eligible for workers’ compensation, a U.S. government-mandated program that provides benefits to workers who become injured or ill on the job. Drivers will also be able to appeal should they be removed from the apps.

Continue reading “Washington governor signs Uber, Lyft driver pay guarantee into law”

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, April 1 (Reuters) – Ford Motor Co (F.N) is recalling 737,000 vehicles in the United States over a part that could develop an oil leak and a software error that could hinder braking, it said on Friday.

The automaker is recalling 345,451 of its 2020-2022 Ford Escape and 2021-2022 Ford Bronco Sport vehicles with 1.5L engines because the engine oil separator housing could crack and develop an oil leak that might cause an engine fire.

Continue reading “Ford recalls 737,000 U.S. vehicles over software and fire-risk issues”