News

Prime Subaru of Manchester, N.H., has filed a protest with the state’s Motor Vehicle Industry Board over Subaru of New England’s refusal to approve Group 1 Automotive Inc. as buyer of the dealership — the last remaining store in the Prime Automotive Group portfolio. The protest, dated Dec. 10, seeks a hearing and cites violations

Remarketing industry veteran Tom Caruso died Monday at 62 after a battle with cancer. He began his career in 1980 as fleet manager of Concord Auto Auction, becoming general manager in 1984. He was key in winning numerous local and national accounts, which led to its acquisition by ADESA in 1992. Caruso later became executive

General Motors and Waymo are the latest companies to cancel CES plans over COVID-19-related concerns. GM CEO Mary Barra had been scheduled to give a keynote speech at the annual conference on Jan. 5, during which the company would have shown its electric Silverado pickup for the first time. Barra will still make the speech

Shunji Tanaka, a key designer of the iconic Mazda Miata, has died. He was 75. Tanaka led the exterior and interior design of the Mazda MX-5 Miata, a lightweight Japanese roadster inspired by postwar-era British sports cars. The car went on sale in the U.S. in May 1989 with a starting price of $13,800 and

Three groups and a former dealership general manager bought dealerships in four December transactions that span from Alaska to Florida. Two transactions involved a group on Automotive News’ top 150 dealership groups list. Here’s a look at the transactions involving domestic- and import-brand stores. Swickard Auto Group on Dec. 15 acquired two General Motors dealerships

Electric carmaker Tesla Inc. will stop allowing video games to be played on its infotainment systems while its cars are moving, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday. The safety agency on Wednesday opened a formal investigation into 580,000 Tesla vehicles sold since 2017 over the automaker’s decision to allow games to be played

Two groups on Automotive News‘ top 150 dealership groups list bought stores this month to grow in Kentucky and Colorado, respectively. Here’s a look at the deals involving domestic and luxury brands. Jeff Wyler Automotive Family Inc. on Monday acquired its second Mercedes-Benz store when it bought Mercedes-Benz of Louisville from Peterson Automotive Collection, owned

Vehicle auction and remarketing company XLerate Group said Wednesday it has signed an agreement to acquire America’s Auto Auction, another major auction company. Once combined, Carmel, Ind.-based XLerate and Dallas-based America’s Auto Auction will have 39 auction sites spread across 19 states. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. Financial

WASHINGTON — U.S auto safety regulators said Wednesday they have opened a formal safety investigation into 580,000 Tesla Inc. vehicles sold since 2017 over the automaker’s decision to allow games to be played on the front center touchscreen. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said its preliminary evaluation covers various 2017-2022 model year Tesla Model

An Ohio BMW dealership has agreed to pay $390,000 in damages and back pay and beef up anti-discrimination practices to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC alleged that Davis Automotive Group’s BMW Cleveland location had fired two employees because of their age. BMW Cleveland also allegedly retracted an

WASHINGTON — The EPA is finalizing new vehicle emissions requirements through 2026 that reverse former President Donald Trump’s rollback of car pollution cuts and will speed a U.S. shift to more electric vehicles. “We are setting robust and rigorous standards that will aggressively reduce the pollution that is harming people and our planet – and

Florida is threatening to suspend Carvana’s dealer license over issues related to title transfers on vehicles it sold. A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles told Automotive News that Carvana has until Jan. 31 to submit title applications for all vehicles sold in 2021 before Dec. 1. If it does

The chaos of changing market trends, new technologies, inventory crises and plain old heated competition had at least one positive outcome this year: It sparked new ideas. Manufacturers, retailers, suppliers, vendors and engineers brought some clever solutions to the marketplace in 2021. Across the auto industry, businesses found better ways to win customers, produce parts

DETROIT — Cruise LLC CEO Dan Ammann had a slate of meetings on Dec. 16 when he got an early afternoon call from General Motors CEO Mary Barra. She told Ammann he was being dismissed from the robotaxi startup that GM controls through a majority stake, people familiar with the events told Bloomberg. What seemed

Open Road Capital, just more than a year after making its first auto dealership investments with Bain Capital Credit as a funding partner, has grown its store platform through three new partnerships. Open Road, an auto-retail investment company which in September 2020 bought a majority stake in four Mississippi dealerships with Bain Capital Credit funding,

When the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, Riverside Dodge -Chrysler -Jeep-Ram in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, began offering unlimited sick days to its employees. The message to employees was simple: If you’re feeling sick, stay home. Don’t feel like you have to come into work because you’ll miss out on pay, and risk spreading COVID-19 in the

DeepRoute.ai — an autonomous technology startup based in China — is mapping out a strategy in the U.S. market centered on deploying self-driving medium-duty trucks to make commercial deliveries at night. The plan, explains founder and CEO Maxwell Zhou, seeks to address two primary issues in the commercial delivery sector: the logistical efficiency of deliveries

Lexus may be behind other luxury brands when it comes to getting full-electric vehicles into its U.S. showrooms, but when the first of at least four new EVs arrives late next year, the brand will rely heavily on its dealer network to catch up with — and perhaps overtake — its competitors. Lexus has been

Rivian Automotive Inc. said it expects to fall short of its annual production target as the EV maker gave investors the first look at its operations as a public company. The EV startup will be “a few hundred vehicles short” of its goal to produce 1,200 units by the end of the year, according to

Dan Ammann, CEO of Cruise, is leaving the autonomous vehicle developer, General Motors said in statement Thursday. The self-driving vehicle company majority-owned by GM will be run by Kyle Vogt, co-founder, president and chief technical officer, for now. GM did not say why Ammann, CEO of the San Francisco startup since 2019, was leaving or

EV startup Canoo Inc on Wednesday said it was accelerating its production plans in the U.S. and ending its deal for VDL Nedcar in the Netherlands to serve as its contract manufacturer in Europe. Canoo shares were up 3 percent in after hours trading. The Arkansas-based company said the shift from using VDL Nedcar overseas

DETROIT — General Motors plans an electric GMC Sierra Denali that will be introduced next year, GMC said Wednesday in a statement previewing the pickup’s grille and lighting sequence. The electric Sierra will only be available in the high-end Denali subbrand at launch. It will be powered by GM’s proprietary Ultium battery and built at

Growing Ed Morse Automotive Group, in two December acquisitions, has entered a new state and bolstered its presence in another. The Delray Beach, Fla., group on Dec. 6 bought Sellers-Sexton Ford-Lincoln-Mazda in Saint Robert, Mo., from Larry Sexton. He was represented by CliftonLarsonAllen in the transaction. Ed Morse Automotive CEO Teddy Morse told Automotive News

LANSING — Michigan lawmakers are planning to help the Detroit auto show get back in business after what could be a 44-month hiatus for the event. A $795 million spending bill headed to passage in the Legislature on Tuesday contained a $9 million one-time grant for Detroit’s auto show. The Detroit Auto Dealers Association canceled

TOKYO — Toyota said it would invest 4 trillion yen ($35 billion) to build a lineup of 30 battery electric vehicles by 2030 as the automaker looks to tap the growing market of zero emission vehicles. The investment will be part of an overall investment of 8 trillion yen in electrified vehicles, including hybrids and

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada has put forward “a number of solutions” for resolving its complaint over a proposed U.S. tax incentive on electric vehicles made only by unionized American workers. Canada has slammed the tax credit as a violation of the North American trade pact between the Canada, U.S. and Mexico, saying it

Kia America is celebrating the holidays early after beating its U.S. sales record well before New Year’s Day. And despite the pandemic and parts shortages, 2022 is looking bright as the automaker introduces a stylish electric crossover. It took Kia just 11 months this year to beat its full-year sales record from 2016, when it

TOKYO — Former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn, the onetime electric vehicle pioneer who dove into the technology with overly optimistic expectations a decade ago, says now is finally the time to go all-in on EVs, as he blasts his former company as vision-less in this new era. Ghosn said newcomers to the industry, including Tesla

State, county and municipal government fleets in Ohio, as well as private citizens who volunteer to participate, are expected to add hundreds more connected vehicles — specially equipped to test new advanced driver-assistance systems — along a 35-mile stretch of “smart” highway in central Ohio called the 33 Smart Mobility Corridor. Efforts are underway to

Join Automotive News at noon EST Wednesday, Dec. 15, for a live talk on the new, complex supply chain facing automakers as part of their electric vehicle ambitions. Tune in to our LinkedIn and Facebook pages to be part of the discussion with Executive Editor Jamie Butters and Staff Reporters Hannah Lutz, Pete Bigelow and