BEIJING After poaching Bentley’s design chief last year, Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS) said on Monday that it has also secured the services of the luxury marquee’s exterior designer. Hyundai issued a statement saying Sangyup Lee will start work next month as it... More »
BARCELONA Dutch teenager Max Verstappen made Formula One history as the youngest race winner on Sunday in a sensational Spanish Grand Prix that saw dominant Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collide and crash out on the opening lap. Verstappen, ... More »
BEIJING Mobileye NV expects its China sales to increase “exponentially” after the country moves to require advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) in all buses and trucks, an executive said on Monday. A government announcement on regulations requiring basic ... More »
SOCHI, Russia An effort to show off the superiority of Russian military equipment backfired on Thursday when the door handle of a jeep fell off just as President Vladimir Putin was inspecting the vehicle. The Kremlin leader was being shown an array of military... More »
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. A car-sized sled powered by electromagnets rocketed to more than 100 miles (160 kph) an hour through the Nevada desert on Wednesday in what the Los Angeles company developing the technology said was the first successful test of a futurist... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Drivers who worked for ride-hailing service Uber [UBER.UL] in California and Massachusetts over the past seven years would have been entitled to an estimated $730 million in expense reimbursements had they been employees rather than contractors, ... More »
TOKYO Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd (7011.T) on Monday said it was too early to decide whether to offer support to sister company Mitsubishi Motors Corp (7211.T), which is facing a financial hit after admitting to falsifying fuel economy data on its vehicles... More »
BEIJING BMW (BMWG.DE) expects its car sales in China to rise by a mid-single-digit percentage this year, in line with the overall growth of the world’s biggest passenger car market, board member Ian Robertson said on Monday. Last year, BMW sold 460,000 cars in... More »
BEIJING Sales of Mercedes-Benz vehicles in China will moderate over the remainder of 2016, compared with a 39 percent year-on-year growth in the first quarter, the brand’s China head said on Monday. Mercedes-Benz’s sales in China rose three times as fast as BM... More »
BEIJING Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCHA.MI) (FCA) is targeting “significant double-digit growth” for jeep sales in China this year, said Mike Manley, Chief Operating Officer for the Asia-Pacific region, speaking at the Beijing auto show. Manley told reporters ... More »
BEIJING/DETROIT Tomorrow’s cars will be all-electric, self-driving, connected to high-speed communications networks … and free. And probably Chinese. That, at least, is the vision of Jia Yueting, a billionaire entrepreneur and one of a new breed of Chinese who... More »
TOKYO The Japanese share market plunged 3 percent on Monday after a series of earthquakes measuring up to 7.3 magnitude struck a southern manufacturing hub, killing at least 42 people and forcing major companies to close factories. About 30,000 rescue workers ... More »
TOKYO Electronics giant Sony Corp on Sunday said production at its image sensor plant in Kumamoto, southern Japan, remained suspended as it assessed damage from a powerful earthquake. Operations at its image sensor plants in Nagasaki and Oita, also on the sout... More »
WASHINGTON Major carmakers want U.S. auto insurance companies to help persuade millions of American car owners to get recalled vehicles fixed. The new push comes as a U.S. House panel will hold a hearing Thursday on efforts by the National Highway Traffic Safe... More »
TOKYO Japan’s government and auto giants Toyota Motor Corp Nissan Motor Co will join in an effort to develop intelligent maps by 2018, the Nikkei daily said, as competition heats up to improve the technology key for autonomous driving. Japanese automakers, map... More »
DETROIT Tesla Motors Inc said orders for its new Model 3 electric sedan topped 253,000 in the first 36 hours — a fast start for the company’s first mass-market vehicle, which may not begin to reach customers for another 18 months or more. Tesla Chief Executive... More »
BEIJING Cadillac, a favorite among America’s older ‘supper club set’, is revving up sales to younger luxury buyers in China through smoother designs and localized production to keep prices accessible. The General Motors (GM.N) brand is softening some hard edge... More »
FRANKFURT A former employee of Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) U.S. subsidiary is suing the company for damages, claiming he was unlawfully fired after flagging internally what he alleged was illegal deletion of data, a group of German media outlets said on Sunday. T... More »
BEIJING China’s production and sale of electric cars will more than double this year, the industry minister said on Sunday. More than 300,000 electric cars were sold in China last year, Miao Wei, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ... More »
WASHINGTON U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will call for higher trade standards at a Saturday campaign stop in Youngstown, Ohio, to ensure that automakers that use largely foreign parts are not given preference for producing “made in Ame... More »
LONDON Britain said it will begin trialing driverless cars on motorways for the first time in 2017, as it moves toward its goal of allowing autonomous cars to take to the streets by 2020. The government said last year there were no legal barriers to the techno... More »
WASHINGTON/DETROIT U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday stepped up pressure on federal regulators and Takata Corp (7312.T) to accelerate the recall of millions of airbag inflators, citing evidence that the Japanese company manipulated data to cover up problems with its p... More »
FRANKFURT Volkswagen AG’s (VOWG_p.DE) trucks business may pursue acquisitions or even a public listing, the company said on Monday, only days after the parent company was forced to delay publishing earnings in the wake of a diesel emissions scandal. “We’re kee... More »
MOSCOW As Russia wrestles with an economic crisis, more and more Porsches and Rolls-Royces are appearing on its roads. It seems something of a paradox- while mass-market car sales in the country have tumbled along with the rouble and oil prices, one area is bu... More »
TOKYO Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) said on Monday it would halt production at all car assembly plants in Japan from Feb. 8 to Feb. 13 due to a steel shortage following an explosion at a steel plant of one of its affiliates. The world’s biggest automaker said on ... More »
DETROIT Sales of German carmakers including Volkswagen <VOWG_p.DE>, Daimler and BMW in the United States may hold steady this year, the VDA auto industry association said on Monday. U.S. deliveries of German manufacturers may come in at about 1.4 million cars... More »
TEL AVIV Building on its expertise in technology, Israel is emerging as a leader in the race to keep cars secure and prevent the nightmare scenario of a hacker commandeering your vehicle. Most cars today are equipped with some level of connectivity and self-dr... More »
BEIJING The Swedish automaker once known as Saab has emerged as part of China’s push to make electric vehicles a mass-market alternative to petrol cars, after getting a $12 billion order for EVs. Chinese-owned National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) – the comp... More »
Google plans to make its self-driving cars unit, which will offer rides for hire, a stand-alone business under its parent company Alphabet Inc next year, Bloomberg reported. The service could be launched in San Francisco and Austin, Texas locations, where it h... More »
Mobileye NV’s (MBLY.N) stock is “short of the year: 2016”, influential short-selling firm Citron Research said in a tweet on Wednesday, pushing down shares of the driving assistant software maker nearly 7 percent. The tweet provided a link to a report on elect... More »
BERLIN Volkswagen has denied a report saying its chief executive and chairman were urged on Sunday by its third-largest shareholder to reduce the influence of VW’s powerful unions as it battles to overcome its emissions scandal. CEO Matthias Mueller and Chairm... More »
GUANGZHOU, China Automakers are betting that Chinese families will embrace the mini-van, hoping the larger, unsexy sibling of the bestselling SUV will become the next big thing just as Beijing relaxes the one-child policy. Mini-vans, or multi-purpose vehicles ... More »
LOS ANGELES Asian automakers are opening up a new front in the contest to define the future of cars in California, fielding a flock of cars powered by hydrogen in a bid to woo green car buyers from Tesla Motors Inc, the battery electric vehicle leader. Toyota,... More »
TOKYO/FRANKFURT At the recent Frankfurt Auto Show, Ford Motor Co unveiled a new feature that lets drivers pre-set their car to go at or just above the speed limit. In-car cameras and software read and react to road signs, speeding the car up or slowing it down... More »
WASHINGTON Scientists have created a battery whose technology in principle could power electric cars and other energy-hungry devices far better than current lithium-ion batteries, but it remains years away from commercial use. Researchers at the University of ... More »
DETROIT Negotiators for the United Auto Workers and General Motors Co reached a tentative agreement on undisclosed terms for a new four-year labor contract, averting a threatened strike, the union said late on Sunday night. The proposed deal will now go to a c... More »
PARIS/SINGAPORE Uber Inc’s aggressive global expansion is looking costlier and riskier than ever as the company struggles with regulatory and competitive obstacles in major markets. Just last week, the company faced a police raid on its European headquarters i... More »
BERLIN Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) supervisory board will hold an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday at which finance chief Hans Dieter Poetsch is expected to be appointed as new head of the 20-member controlling panel, two sources said on Sunday. Europe’s bigges... More »
The U.S. regulator overseeing the replacement of Takata Corp (7312.T) air bags is considering an order that would expand the recalls and has contacted seven manufacturers who could be affected, including Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) and Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA.O),... More »
FRANKFURT/HAMBURG Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) told U.S. dealers to halt sales of some 2015 diesel cars after regulators found software it designed for the affected vehicles gave false emissions data, the company said Sunday, announcing it had launched an investigat... More »
FRANKFURT The falling cost of intelligent robots may help repatriate some car manufacturing work away from low-cost locations like China back to factories in Germany and North America, Donald Walker, Chief Executive of auto supplier Magna told Reuters. Rising ... More »
Google Inc said it named auto industry veteran John Krafcik as chief executive of its self-driving car project from late September. With the hiring of Krafcik, currently the president of automotive pricing terminal Truecar Inc and a former CEO of Hyundai Motor... More »
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s (FCAU.N) U.S. arm said on Friday it would recall 7,810 sport utility vehicles in the United States to update software for radios to prevent hacking. The announcement by FCA US LLC, formerly Chrysler Group LLC, comes more than a m... More »
DETROIT Toyota Motor Corp is collaborating with two top U.S. universities on artificial intelligence and robotics research aimed at ramping up the Japanese automaker’s efforts to develop self-driving cars. Toyota said on Friday that it would spend $50 million ... More »
TOKYO Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp (7269.T) said on Sunday it would buy back the 19.9 percent stake it sold to Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) after an international arbitration court ordered the German automaker to sell its holding. Their planned partnership soured wi... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] has hired two top vehicle security researchers, the company said on Friday, high-profile additions that come as the ride-hailing service ramps up its work on technology for self-driving cars. Charlie Miller, who ha... More »
SANTIAGO When the creators of an elaborate 2013 Cadillac commercial began to scout for shooting locations three years ago, they began in Argentina, where varied landscapes and creative talent had long attracted ad producers. But when it came time to import the... More »
SAN FRANCISCO The security researcher who hacked into a moving Jeep earlier this year has resigned as an engineer at Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) after three years on the job, a person familiar with the matter said. Charlie Miller, a former National Security Agency ha... More »
DETROIT Ford Motor Co (F.N) on Wednesday will start building its medium-duty F-650 and F-750 commercial trucks at a Cleveland-area plant, moving production out of Mexico for the first time. The shift to the 41-year-old plant in Avon Lake, Ohio means that about... More »
FRANKFURT/HELSINKI German carmakers BMW (BMWG.DE), Audi (VOWG_p.DE) and Mercedes (DAIGn.DE), will pay around 2.5 billion euros ($2.75 billion) to buy Nokia’s maps business, a transformational deal that will help them to develop self-driving cars. Daimler BMW a... More »
WASHINGTON The cybersecurity issues that led Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV to recall 1.4 million vehicles this month could pose a problem for cars and trucks from other automakers, the top U.S. auto safety regulator said on Friday. Mark Rosekind, who heads the ... More »
NEW DELHI General Motors Co (GM.N) will recall 155,000 vehicles in India, its largest such exercise to date in the country, in order to fix wiring problems linked to a remote keyless entry accessory. The recall, also one of India’s biggest, follows a move in 2... More »
SAN FRANCISCO When it comes to dashboard displays that are more like smart phones, two things are clear: Customers want them, and automakers are intent on supplying them. But are they really a good idea? Car companies answer with an emphatic yes. They say outs... More »
LONDON Italian luxury car maker Maserati is showcasing its hand-crafted Quattroporte S in an unlikely setting: at the Masterpiece London art and antiques fair, which opened on Thursday in a plush tent on the grounds of Chelsea’s Royal Hospital. Featuring among... More »
