Europe

FRANKFURT — Volkswagen is accelerating plans to launch a full-electric small car that will be positioned below its ID3 compact hatchback. The entry-level EV will replace the Up minicar and potentially the Polo, company sources told Automotive News Europe. The car will be based on VW’s MEB platform like the ID3. It will start at

DUESSELDORF — A German court on Thursday referred a patent licensing dispute between Daimler and the Finnish telecoms equipment maker Nokia to the European Court of Justice to clarify the law as it applies to supply chains. The Duesseldorf Regional Court said it would suspend proceedings in Nokia’s fight against Daimler over royalties for technology

PARIS — Peugeot has launched the one-ton Landtrek pickup in Latin America, as the brand seeks a share of a global market it estimates at 2.5 million vehicles annually. The Landtrek was developed with Chinese automaker Changan, a former joint-venture partner of PSA Group. It will be built in Shenzhen, China, and at PSA’s Nordex

The merger between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group to create Stellantis is being called a merger of equals by the two companies, but recently-filed documents confirm what many analysts have believed since the deal was announced last year: The combination is actually an acquisition of FCA by PSA, at least for accounting purposes. The information

Carlos Ghosn’s detention for almost 130 days in a Japanese jail was neither necessary nor reasonable and violated the former Nissan chairman’s human rights, a United Nations panel concluded in a harsh critique of Tokyo prosecutors who led the case against him. The decision to arrest Ghosn four times in a row so as to

The second round of coronavirus lockdowns, which has closed showrooms in France and the UK, will come at a cost of about 300,000 new car sales in Europe, analyst firm LMC Automotive said.  The expected sales losses have led LMC to slightly revise downward its full-year Europe-wide sales forecast, to a decline of 22 percent

Battery cell makers are rushing to open factories in Europe, and one of the most intriguing is Svolt, a spinoff of Great Wall Motors that has decided to invest up to 2 billion euros ($2.47 billion) in Germany to create a European manufacturing base. Executives say Svolt will be the first to bring to series

PARIS — Unions at Renault have approved the automaker’s plan to cut about 2,500 technical and support positions in France through voluntary measures. Positions in engineering and similar will be cut over the next two years through early retirement, retraining and buyouts. Renault hopes to trim an additional 2,100 blue-collar positions, a plan that will be negotiated

FRANKFURT — German supplier Thyssenkrupp plans to cut another 5,000 jobs to stem losses across its sprawling empire after posting a 1.6 billion euro ($1.9 billion) operating loss in its latest financial year, the company said in a statement on Thursday. The company said it expected to make a decision about what to do with

OSLO — Tesla’s battery supplier, Panasonic, will explore opportunities to open a lithium ion battery factory in Norway with Equinor and Norsk Hydro. The factory would be “based on Panasonic’s leading technology and targets the European market for electric vehicles and other applications,” the companies said in a statement on Wednesday. The plant could supply

BEIJING/HONG KONG — BMW said on Tuesday there was no indication that its deal to increase its stake in its China joint venture with Brilliance would be affected by debt issues at Brilliance’s parent. BMW said in 2018 that it would pay 3.6 billion euros ($4.2 billion) in 2022 for a further 25 percent stake

SHANGHAI/BEIJING — China’s Huachen Automotive Group, parent of BMW’s China joint venture partner Brilliance Automotive Holdings, said Monday that its creditors had applied to a Chinese court to restructure the company. Huachen faces the prospect of restructuring after Gezhi Automobile Technology filed an application to the Shenyang Intermediate People’s Court, Hong Kong-listed Brilliance Auto said

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to announce next week a ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars from 2030, five years earlier than previously planned, the Financial Times reported. The new timetable is not expected to apply to plug-in hybrid cars that use a mixture of electric and gasoline

Nissan has revealed the unveiling date for its delayed new-generation Qashqai compact SUV, the automaker’s best-selling model in Europe. Final preparations are well underway for the introduction of the third-generation Qashqai next spring, ahead of its sales launch later in 2021, Nissan said in a statement on Friday. The replacement for the current Qashqai, which

Ford Motor’s battery-powered version of its Transit full-sized van will compete in Europe against rival vans from PSA Group, Fiat and Mercedes-Benz as more automakers pivot to electric to meet increasingly tough emissions targets for light commercial vehicles. The E-Transit will offer van buyers an alternative to diesel vehicles in cities looking to restrict entry

Schaeffler swung to a loss of 191 million euros ($225 million) in the third quarter on restructuring costs related to efforts to reduce its workforce and industrial capacity. The German supplier had a profit of 312 million euros in the third quarter of last year and an 8.6 percent margin. Third-quarter revenue fell 6 percent

TOKYO — Honda has received type approval in Japan to sell vehicles with Level 3 “eyes off” autonomous driving technology. The automaker said it plans to launch sales of Legend sedan equipped with the newly approved automated driving equipment by March 31, 2021.  The approval from the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism

The European Commission has rejected an industry request to delay the Jan. 1 introduction of a new emissions standard that seeks to limit harmful diesel pollutants in real-world conditions. Industry group ACEA had written to Industries Commissioner Thierry Breton in July to petition for a six-month reprieve from the coming Euro 6d ISC-FCM standard, citing

Bentley Motors believes it can maintain its presence in the UK and avoid further job cuts in the event of a no-deal Brexit, but making future products at home will be harder to justify. The ultraluxury brand must make production decisions with its parent, Volkswagen Group, which has facilities all over Europe, Adrian Hallmark, Bentley’s

WASHINGTON — Volvo Cars is recalling 54,000 vehicles for an airbag defect after one crash death tied to the issue, according to a filing with U.S. regulators. The automaker is recalling 2001-03 model year S80 and S60 cars sold or registered in high humidity U.S. states because the driver side frontal airbag inflator may rupture,

PARIS — The French government will extend coronavirus aid for buyers of new cars by six months, until July 2021, to support the auto sector, after orders fell 70 percent to 90 percent since a new lockdown was ordered at the end of last month. The government made the announcement after a meeting of the

Toyota might be losing to Tesla in terms of market value, but don’t underestimate the fact that the Japanese automaker has built more than 100 million cars, President Akio Toyoda said in unusually direct comments at a competitor. “Tesla says that their recipe will be the standard in the future, but what Toyota has is

TOKYO — Suzuki Motor on Thursday forecast operating profit to fall by a quarter to 160 billion yen ($1.53 billion) in the year to March 31 after profit in its latest quarter slumped. Suzuki posted a 73.6 billion yen operating profit in the three months ended Sept 30, compared with a profit of 55.9 billion

TOKYO – Profits at Subaru surged 18-fold in the latest quarter as the automaker rebounded from a year-earlier period when earnings were hammered by huge warranty costs. The stronger results came even as sales took a hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Subaru showed signs of recovering from that slowdown as well. Reflecting the

The resurgence of the coronavirus and an economic crisis led to the Spanish new-car market plunging 21 percent in October. Registrations for the month fell to 74,228 from 93,954 in October 2019, according to industry association ANFAC. October had one less selling day than the same month of 2019. All sales channels suffered declines, with

As automakers struggle to cope with a COVID-related collapse in vehicle demand, the European Union is relaxing state aid regulations to help car companies speed up their transition to electric cars from fossil fuels. The bloc has set an overall goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 – a plan known as the European Green

Every fourth or fifth Aston Martin sold in 2024 will be electrified, with a plug-in hybrid version of the DBX ultraluxury SUV arriving in 2023, CEO Tobias Moers said. The struggling British supercar maker can more rapidly electrify its lineup after securing access to advanced Mercedes-Benz technologies, including next-generation hybrid and electric powertrains. In exchange,

MILAN — Fiat Chrysler expects the costs of launching full-electric and plug-in hybrid cars to negatively affect its money-losing European business even more in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter. That is because the industrial costs associated with the automaker’s electrification program will increase, FCA Chief Financial Officer Richard Palmer told analysts during

Continental CEO Elmar Degenhart is stepping down amid a push by the supplier to overhaul management and speed up structural changes. Degenhart, 61, is resigning his post “for reasons of immediately necessary preventive health care,” Continental said in a statement on Thursday. The company did not name Degenhart’s successor. It said its supervisory board will

MILAN — Italy’s biggest auto show has been postponed for a second time because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Milano Monza Open-Air Motor Show is now scheduled to take place next spring, with the exact dates yet to be announced. Italian businessman and classic car enthusiast Andrea Levy, the show’s director, said the country’s auto