(Reuters) – Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), Europe’s largest automaker, is expanding its cloud-based software and data portal, aiming to develop it into an industry-wide marketplace where business customers can buy and sell industrial applications, the company said on Thursday.

VW’s “industrial cloud” was designed in partnership with Amazon Web Services and eventually will link more than 120 VW factories around the world to the automaker’s 1,500 suppliers and their 30,000 plants.

The portal is intended as a place to exchange data and software to help accelerate the digitalization of factory processes from stamping to painting to machinery maintenance, according to Nihar Patel, VW’s executive vice president for strategic core projects.

Continue reading “Volkswagen sees Amazon-built ‘industrial cloud’ as future B2B marketplace”

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Bajaj Auto (BAJA.NS) is betting that an early recovery from the ravages of COVID-19 in motorcycle sales in its export markets will help it offset pandemic-related disruption at home, its chief financial officer said.

The Indian company, which also sells rickshaws and small commercial vehicles, is already the largest exporter of motorcycles from its domestic market, where sales have been slow to pick up due to local lockdowns.

“All our export markets were also affected but recovery has been better (there) than in India,” Soumen Ray told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday. “We will continue to remain aggressive on exports.”

Bajaj plans to open an assembly plant in Brazil within 18 months, as well as a design office in Thailand to handle sales for the ASEAN region, and another design office in Europe, Ray said.

Exports make up 40%-45% of group motorcycle sales, Ray said.

This year, however, they have predominated. Between January and June, it exported 664,000 motorcycles while selling 589,000 in India, company data showed.

Continue reading “Bajaj Auto focuses on exports as India battles pandemic”

(Reuters) – Tesla Inc’s blistering stock rally is putting Chief Executive Elon Musk in reach of a payday potentially worth $1.8 billion, his second jackpot from the electric car maker in about two months.

Musk has already achieved targets related to Tesla’s financial growth that are also required in order to vest the approaching options tranche.

Each tranche gives Musk the option to buy 1.69 million Tesla shares at $350.02 each. At Tesla’s current stock price of $1,397, Musk would theoretically be able to sell the shares related to the tranche that vested in May and the upcoming tranche for a combined profit of over $3.5 billion, or $1.8 billion per tranche.

Musk’s first tranche was worth about $700 million in May, when it vested, but its value has since increased along with Tesla’s stock price.

Tesla has surged 500% over the past year as the company increased sales of its Model 3 sedan.

Tesla last week reported higher-than-expected second-quarter vehicle deliveries, defying plummeting sales in the wider auto industry as the coronavirus pandemic slammed the global economy.

The solid delivery numbers heightened expectations of a profitable second quarter, which would mark four consecutive profitable quarters, a first for Tesla, and a key hurdle to be added to the S&P 500 index.

Musk, who is also the majority owner and CEO of the SpaceX rocket maker, receives no salary, only the options in his pay package. A full payoff of all tranches would surpass anything previously granted to U.S. executives.

When Tesla unveiled Musk’s pay package, it said he could theoretically reap as much as $55.8 billion if no new shares were issued. However, Tesla has since issued shares to compensate employees, and also sold shares in secondary offers, including a $2 billion stock sale in February.

Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Alden Bentley and David Gregorio

TOKYO (Reuters) – Uber Technologies (UBER.N) launched a ride-hailing smartphone application in Tokyo on Friday in partnership with three domestic taxi firms, even as strict regulations block its popular ride-sharing service in Japan.

The taxi-hailing app, already introduced in smaller cities, connects app users to taxis run by Hinomaru Limousine, Tokyo MK Corp and Ecosystem in the Japanese capital.

Uber is not allowed to run its own ride-sharing fleet in Japan as it does in the United States and elsewhere since local regulations ban non-professional drivers from ferrying paying customers.

Eager to build a customer base in the world’s third-biggest economy, Uber has focused on expanding its Uber Eats food delivery service, which has proven popular, particularly amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Didi Mobility Japan, a joint venture of China’s Didi Chuxing and SoftBank Corp, has also introduced a service in Japan to connect customers with taxis.

PARIS/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The coronavirus crisis has forced carmakers to speed up layoffs that must be matched with hefty payouts and deft negotiation to retain the support of powerful trade unions vital if Europe’s auto industry is to manage a shift to low-emission vehicles.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and a broader economic slowdown, demand for light vehicles is expected to shrink by 36 million globally by the end of 2022, consultants AlixPartners found.

For this year alone, this is equivalent to a market the size of Europe disappearing, AlixPartners said.

The contraction increases an existing threat to jobs from electric cars, which are quicker and easier to build than those with combustion engines and which have German and French government backing as the countries strive for a green recovery.

“Once the consensus between labour leaders and management has broken down, it is extremely difficult to implement restructuring in Europe,” Stefan Bratzel, a professor at the Centre of Automotive Management in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, said.

Continue reading “Coronavirus raises stakes as auto unions ready for a fight”

The move could provide a significant boost to electric vehicle demand along with the broader stimulus plan which included taxes to penalise ownership of large polluting combustion-engined sports utility vehicles and a 6,000 euro subsidy towards the cost of an electric vehicle.

Germany’s announcement follows a French plan to boost electric car sales announced last week by President Macron.

“It’s a very clear commitment to battery-powered vehicles and establishes electric mobility as a technology of the future,” energy storage specialist The Mobility House, whose investors include Daimler (DAIGn.DE) and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, said.

“Internationally this puts Germany in the leading group of battery electric vehicle support.”

Continue reading “Germany will require all petrol stations to provide electric car charging”

LONDON (Reuters) – Nissan’s (7201.T) car manufacturing plant in Sunderland, northern England, which employs 7,000, is “unsustainable” if Britain leaves the European Union without a trade deal, it said on Wednesday.

Ashwani Gupta, the Japanese company’s global chief operating head, told the BBC its commitment to the car plant, the United Kingdom’s largest, could not be maintained if there was no tariff-free access to the bloc.

The EU is the biggest market for the factory, which made just under 350,000 vehicles last year and builds the Qashqai, Juke and Leaf models.

The United Kingdom left the EU on Jan. 31 but the main terms of its membership remain in place during a transition period until the end of this year, allowing it time to negotiate a new free trade deal with the bloc. However, the talks are at an impasse.

Continue reading “Nissan warns UK plant ‘unsustainable’ without EU trade deal: BBC”

BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany unveiled sweeping incentives for cheap electric cars, providing a boost to Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) electric push while penalising heavy sports utility vehicles (SUVs) with new staggered taxes for polluting combustion-engined cars.

Buyer incentives for passenger cars, including a lowering of value added tax (VAT) to 16% from 19% were included as part of a 130 billion euro ($145.74 billion) stimulus but analysts said it would not be enough to significantly boost car demand.

“The lowering of VAT will hardly provide an impetus,” said Peter Fuss, a partner at EY, adding that electric cars are still too much of a niche product to lift the overall market.

Germany included a 6,000 euro incentive for battery electric cars costing below 40,000 euros, bringing consumer incentives for electric cars to 9,000 euros once a 3,000 euro manufacturer stipend is included. [nL8N2DH2E8]

Continue reading “German auto stimulus to boost VW’s electric push”

PARIS (Reuters) – Renault (RENA.PA) finalised on Wednesday a 5 billion euro ($5.60 billion) loan from with the French government, strengthening the carmaker’s finances in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic which has ravaged the auto industry.

Renault said that the credit facility carried a guarantee from the French state – which owns a 15% stake in Renault – of up to 90% of the total amount borrowed.

Renault also said in a statement that the loan would help finance the company’s liquidity requirements.

The announcement sparked weekend protests at some factories, including at Maubeuge in northern France, although Renault’s chairman Jean-Dominique Senard has pledged the site will not be closed.

($1 = 0.8925 euros)

DETROIT, June 3 (Reuters) – Top executives of the Detroit Three automakers and other major Michigan employers on Wednesday condemned racism and injustice in the United States following the death last week of an unarmed black man at the hands of Minneapolis police, carefully joining a charged national debate.

General Motors Co Chief Executive Mary Barra, Ford Motor Co Executive Chairman Bill Ford, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA) North America Chief Operating Officer Mark Stewart were among the nine executives who called for independent prosecution of those involved in Floyd’s death, and agreed to invest in programs and policies to help transform communities with racial disparities.

“We unequivocally condemn intolerance,” Barra said at the event at Detroit’s municipal office which was livestreamed. “When hatred exists in our house, we will root it out.”

Barra said inclusion would be GM’s guiding principle, and called on GM employees to speak up and tell her what needs to be done. “We want to be part of meaningful, deliberate change,” she said. “We will act.” Barra said earlier this week she will form a new “inclusion advisory board” to advise the company’s top executives.

Continue reading “Heads of U.S. automakers, other Michigan companies condemn racism, injustice”

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DETROIT (Reuters) – Ford Motor Co on Wednesday closed two U.S. assembly plants as the coronavirus pandemic wreaked early havoc with the No. 2 U.S. automaker’s plan to restart North American production and begin making its most profitable vehicles again.

Ford closed its Dearborn, Michigan, plant due to a positive COVID-19 test by one worker, while its Chicago assembly plant was closed due to a parts shortage, Ford spokeswoman Kelli Felker said.

Ford declined to say which supplier had the issue, but a person familiar with the matter told Reuters that Lear Corp had closed a plant in Hammond, Indiana. Lear later confirmed in an email that it had closed the plant due to a positive test.

Continue reading “Ford shuts two U.S. assembly plants due to COVID-19 infections”

DETROIT (Reuters) – Factory workers began returning to assembly lines in Michigan on Monday, paving the way to reopen the U.S. auto sector but stoking fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections as strict lockdowns are eased across the country.

With millions of Americans out of work and much of the economy at a virtual standstill, a growing number of states are relaxing tough restrictions on commerce and social life put in place to slow the outbreak.

Some auto suppliers in Michigan, a Midwest industrial powerhouse hard hit by the pandemic and its economic fallout, reopened plants on Monday with skeleton crews to get ready for a resumption of vehicle production next week.

Skilled-trades workers and salaried employees also began returning to auto assembly plants to prepare for the wider restart.

Continue reading “U.S. auto industry workers return to jobs amid concerns of second virus wave”