Europe

Volkswagen Group raised its earnings outlook following robust first-quarter earnings, helped by a swift market recovery in China and higher demand for battery-powered vehicles. Operating return on sales is forecast to come in between 5.5 percent and 7 percent this year, compared with a previous range of 5 percent to 6.5 percent, VW said in

Skoda has increased the size of the new Fabia small hatchback and expanded safety and comfort equipment, but it will not offer a hybrid version to keep down costs. Skoda unveiled the Fabia online on Tuesday ahead of its sales launch in Europe in September. A station wagon version will follow later. The fourth-generation Fabia

The HR-V will become the second vehicle offered in Europe by Honda only with a full-hybrid drivetrain. The crossover will use the same drivetrain as the Jazz small-segment hatchback with two electric motors and a 1.5-liter gasoline engine that make a combined output of 129 hp, Honda said in a statement. The e:HEV powertrain has

The global semiconductor shortage roiling a wide range of industries likely will not be resolved for a few more years, according to Intel’s new CEO Pat Gelsinger. The company is reworking some of its factories to increase production and address the chip shortage in the auto industry, he said in an interview with CBS News. It

With an eye on rapidly rising demand for German electric vehicles, power and mining companies alike are striving to bring to the surface lithium trapped in underground springs of boiling hot water thousands of meters below the Rhine river. Straddling an area 300 km (186 miles) long and up to 40 km wide, the Upper-Rhine

TURIN/MILAN – Stellantis has approved the Jeep and Fiat versions of three new SUV/crossovers that will be built in the former Fiat Chrysler Automobiles plant in Tychy, Poland. Production of a small Jeep SUV will start in November 2022, followed by a Fiat small crossover in April 2023, Stellantis documents seen by Automotive News Europe

Renault workers blocked a car-parts site in western France for a third day in a standoff that could jeopardize cost-cutting plans as the government grows anxious over automotive jobs. Workers led by the CGT union demonstrated on Thursday against a plan by Renault to sell the Fonderie de Bretagne in Caudan that makes cast-metal parts

LONDON — British car production rose by 47 percent in March compared to the same time last year when factories halted output midway through due to the coronavirus pandemic. Volumes stood at 115,498 cars last month, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). “Output was always going to be up but it

LONDON — The UK government on Wednesday became the first country to announce it will regulate the use of self-driving vehicles at slow speeds on motorways, with the first such cars possibly appearing on public roads as soon as this year. Britain’s transport ministry said it was working on specific wording to update the country’s

AUSTIN — Toyota will acquire Lyft’s self-driving technology unit for $550 million, the companies said, as the Japanese automaker steps up its automation ambitions with the newly created Woven Planet division. Woven Planet, which Toyota set up in January to develop connected vehicle, autonomous and semi-autonomous driving technology, will take over all of the more

BERLIN — Porsche is speeding up its e-mobility drive with plans for a German factory to manufacture battery cells for electric vehicles, CEO Oliver Blume told a German newspaper. “Battery cells are a key technology for Germany’s automobile industry which we must also have in our own country,” Blume told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. Porsche

MILAN — Alfa Romeo’s new CEO, Jean-Philippe Imparato, said his passion for the Italian sports-car brand led him to accept what could be the toughest role of his career. Imparato, a veteran of PSA Group, was chosen to lead Alfa’s Romeo’s latest turnaround by Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares in January after Alfa owner Fiat Chrysler

A planned battery cell plant in Kaiserslautern, Germany, will be able to supply 500,000 vehicles a year when it is fully up and running, Opel CEO Michael Lohscheller said. The cell factory is part of a joint venture between Stellantis and energy giant Total called Automotive Cells Company. It is scheduled to come online in

Consumer Reports engineers said they “easily tricked” a Tesla vehicle to drive via its Autopilot feature without anyone in the driver’s seat, just days after a fatal crash in Texas where police said they found no one behind the steering wheel of a Tesla car. In a test conducted this week, test drivers took several

MILAN — Ferrari unveiled initial details of its new supercar, the first of three new models it has promised for the coming months. An aggressive roll-out of new models, which was not delayed last year by the COVID-19 pandemic, has been a key part of the company’s recent strategy to support growth. Powered by a

Federal prosecutors unsealed charges against two Italian nationals Tuesday for their alleged role in a conspiracy to defraud U.S. regulators and customers about the fuel efficiency of more than 100,000 diesel vehicles sold in the U.S. by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Sergio Pasini, 43, of Ferrera, Italy, and Gianluca Sabbioni, 55, of Sala Bolognese, Italy —

MUNICH — BMW will build a prototype of a solid-state battery car before 2025, joining an accelerating race for a technology that promises to boost the power and range of electric vehicles. The automaker said its researchers are working “intensively” on solid state batteries, calling cell storage the central plank of its electric vehicle shift.

Audi will sell the A6 e-tron full-electric car alongside the standard A6 internal combustion engine models when it goes on sale in early 2023. The Volkswagen Group premium brand previewed the A6 e-tron with the A6 e-tron concept at the Shanghai auto show on Monday. The concept has a 100 kilowatt-hour battery that when applied

Volkswagen brand is targeting family buyers in China with the ID6, its biggest battery-powered model to date. The three-row, seven-seat crossover is tailored specifically to the needs and wishes of Chinese customers “in terms of space, functionality, design and, in particular, user experience,” VW said in a statement on Saturday ahead of the model’s public

TOKYO — Nissan will furlough about 800 workers at its Sunderland plant in England, as output slows there because of a semiconductor shortage, the Nikkei newspaper reported. The workers, who represent about a tenth of the workforce at the facility, will be asked to stay away until the chip shortage eases and production can increase,

The Mercedes-Benz EQS full-electric sedan is so packed with technology that much of the automaker’s 70-page press release on the car is devoted to explaining it. But there is one feature that the EQS surprisingly doesn’t have: A rear-view camera system that replaces traditional mirrors. To solve the problem of blind spots – made worse

Electric-vehicle maker Polestar has raised $550 million from a group of Asian financial investors to accelerate its product development and sales as the Volvo Cars subsidiary prepares to expand its lineup beyond its first two models. The private placement of newly issued shares marks the first time the 3-year-old brand has gotten the backing of

MADRID — Renault has started negotiations with unions to extend the partial idling of three of its four factories in Spain until the end of September as a preemptive measure in case a global semiconductor shortage lingers. Automakers around the world have been impacted by the shortage of chips used in engine management and driver-assistance

DETROIT — Volvo Cars will use a new generation of high-powered chips from Nvidia to enable more autonomous driving functions in future vehicles, starting next year. Volvo is among a crowd of new and established automakers putting digital processing power ahead of horsepower as they try to catch up with Tesla. Tesla has taken the

South Korean battery makers LG Energy Solution and SK Innovation said on Sunday they have agreed to settle a trade secrets dispute over electric vehicle battery technologies, avoiding a potential setback for U.S. EV ambitions. The last-minute settlement ends a bitter U.S. trade dispute, sparing President Joe Biden from choosing between undermining intellectual property rights

Volvo Cars has promoted its head of Europe, Bjorn Annwall, to chief financial officer. Annwall, 45, who joined the automaker’s executive management team in 2015, will succeed Carla De Geyseleer effective April 19. De Geyseleer, who has served as CFO since 2019, will step down for personal reasons, the automaker said. Annwall has been Volvo’s

MADRID — The Spanish government approved a plan to spend up to 800 million euros ($950 million) until 2023 to encourage electric car sales. Private buyers would be entitled to subsidies of up to 7,000 euros per car, while authorities in small towns and companies buying fleets to use as taxis could get more. Buyers

Panasonic is betting that close to a century of experience making car batteries has prepared it to manufacture a difficult-to-produce next-generation battery championed by Tesla as the key to unlocking cheaper and more ubiquitous electric vehicles. Tesla CEO Elon Musk first unveiled the 4680 battery at Tesla’s Battery Day in September as a “massive breakthrough”

German new-car sales increased 36 percent in March compared with the same month in 2020. Registrations totaled 292,349, according to data released on Tuesday the KBA motor vehicle authority. The sales result was inflated because dealerships were closed in March 2020 during the country’s first lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus. “In reality,

BERLIN — Germany’s auto industry picked up speed in March, a survey published by the Ifo economic institute showed on Tuesday, although automotive executives also become less optimistic about the outlook for the coming months. The survey’s indicator for the current business situation rose to 7.9 points in March from minus 0.4 in February, as