Britain’s Auto Industry Foresees Doom Without EU Deal Before Hard Brexit
Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), Britain’s main industry group, claims automakers were becoming increasingly concerned with the nation’s departure...
View ArticleThree’s Company, Too? Canada Returning to NAFTA Dance As U.S. and Mexico...
Canada says it could rejoin the NAFTA discussion, just as the United States and Mexico approach an agreement on automobiles. The two nations engaged in bilateral negotiations a little less than a month...
View ArticleTrade War Watch: Turkey Readies 120 Percent Tariff On American Cars
In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Kurtz has an epiphany regarding himself, imperial conquest, and war as a whole, crying “The horror! The horror!” in his last moments of life. His experiences took...
View ArticleApparently, Everyone Negotiating NAFTA Is a Child
If you’re anything like this author, you’ve probably abandoned discussing the North American Free Trade Agreement in your personal life. That’s not because it stopped being important, but rather due to...
View ArticleNAFTA No More: U.S. Reaches Deal With Mexico, Puts Pressure on Canada [Updated]
President Donald Trump announced a trade “understanding” with Mexico on Monday — not to be confused with an official deal — that would lead to an overhaul of the North American Free Trade Agreement....
View ArticleNorth America Isn’t the Only Major Auto Market With Huge Headwinds
For the past two years, we’ve reported that the post-recession upswing in new car buying in North America seems to have plateaued. Environmental factors have led to Millennials buying fewer cars than...
View ArticleTrade War Watch: Ford Blames Trump for Sky-high Steel Prices
Ford Motor Co. is blaming Donald Trump’s commodity tariffs for elevating U.S. steel prices higher than any other market on the planet. Regardless of your opinion on the president’s policies (the...
View ArticleHow Do Automakers Plan to Cope With Their Upcoming Nightmare?
On Wednesday, we reported General Motors’ plan to buy out salaried employees as part of a long-term cost-cutting strategy, with further reductions in headcount looking likely. Despite its healthy...
View ArticleOctober 2018 U.S. Auto Sales: Last Month Brought More Treats than Tricks for...
More mainstream brands saw year-over-year rises in sales volume last month than those who endured a sojourn into the red. It will surprise exactly no one to learn those who did earn sales growth...
View ArticleTrade War Watch: Were the Auto Tariffs Ever Supposed to Be More Than a Threat?
The U.S. Commerce Department has submitted draft recommendations to the White House on its investigation into whether it’s prudent to impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on imported automobiles and...
View ArticleEurope Will Punch Back Against Any U.S. Car Tariff: EU Trade Commissioner
It’s been a trade-heavy week. Earlier, the White House decided to postpone any major tariff decisions following a discussion with the Commerce Department over a draft report on the impact of auto...
View ArticleTrade War Watch: Congress Tries a New Tactic to Block Auto Tariffs
With the United States’ government shutdown now over, lawmakers have an opportunity to work together as promised. Interestingly, one of the first pieces of bipartisan legislation to emerge after the...
View ArticleSubaru’s Sales Success Comes With a Big Side of Trouble
Subaru’s sales in the United States effectively tripled in the past decade, making it the most important market for the brand by a wide margin. However, the automaker has had to expend quite a bit of...
View ArticleTrump to EU: Expect Auto Tariffs Without Trade Deal
Earlier this week, the European Union warned that if the United States imposes any new tariffs on European-built vehicles, it can expect similar levies on American products. However, armed with the...
View ArticleToyota’s Trying to Remain Non-threatening in the U.S.
While the Trump administration is carefully considering whether or not imported vehicles qualify as a threat to national security, and prepares for trade negotiations with Japan, Toyota is being very...
View ArticleHow Seriously Should We Take Trump’s Mexican Auto Tariff Threat?
On Thursday, President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on cars entering the United States from Mexico if the nation doesn’t assist Washington in dealing with the migrant situation at its...
View ArticleChina Fines Ford Over Supposed Antitrust Violations, Assembles List of...
China has fined Ford Motor Company’s main joint venture in the country, Changan Ford Automobile Co., over antitrust violations. However, the more likely scenario is that the People’s Republic is trying...
View ArticleJapan Eyeballs Minor Trade Deal With U.S. Slated for September
The United States and Japan are working on a trade deal revolving around agriculture and automobiles. As much as you’re probably dying to hear about the farming aspects, we’re going to focus a bit more...
View ArticleNo New Auto Tariffs For Japan, Probably
The United States and Japan have signed a limited trade deal that’s been simmering for some months now. President Donald Trump has been eager to secure a place where American farmers can send their...
View ArticleSenate Considers $454 Billion Swap to Nationwide Electrification
On Thursday, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) proposed a $454 billion plan aimed at converting the United States from a gasoline-powered nation to one driven primarily by electricity. Under the 10-year...
View ArticleBattle Lines Are Being Drawn in America’s Gas War
Ford Motor Co, Honda Motor Co, BMW Group and Volkswagen AG announced a voluntary deal with California in July — drawing a line in the sand for who they’ll be supporting in the fueling fracas taking...
View ArticleTrade War Watch: Report Claims White House Wants to Dictate Where Cars Are...
The Trump administration has reportedly expressed an interest in deciding where and how automotive manufacturers do their business if they want to secure duty-free deals under the United...
View ArticleFiat Chrysler and PSA Confirm Merger Deal
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Groupe PSA both confirmed their intention to merge on Thursday, verifying reports that the pair were in the final stages of approving the deal. The arrangement will be a...
View ArticleReport: Trump Administration Seeks to Soften Fuel Economy Rollback
One of the issues underpinning the gas war has been an inability for either side to compromise. Initially, it was the current administration complaining about California wanting special treatment. But...
View ArticleDisrupting the Industry: Korean Battery Suppliers at Each Other’s Throats
While the automotive industry continues cleaning itself up via electrification and moral corporate messaging, most aspects of doing business have remained decently dirty. For all this striving for a...
View ArticleSurvey: EV Interest Varies Wildly Between Nations, Ditto for Shared Ownership
If you follow the automotive industry at all, you’re undoubtedly aware that the United States is a region that hasn’t quite embraced automotive electrification on the same level as the rest of the...
View ArticleBack to Normal: U.S. Auto Tariff Threats Return for EU
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump threatened to impose fresh tariffs on European automotive imports if the region can’t work out a trade deal with the United States. The good news is that the U.S....
View ArticleReport: U.S. Dealerships Shrinking in Number, Throughput Down for 2019
The annual Automotive Franchise Activity Report asserts that the number of new-car dealerships in the United States has shrunk for the first time since 2013. The difference is marginal when viewed from...
View ArticleStart Me Up: As Industry Slides Into Gear, U.S. Requests Industrial...
Mexico is considering reopening factories after May 18th, now that automakers and the U.S. government have requested it resume production at plants serving the American market. With supply chains...
View ArticleMexico to the Rescue As Suppliers Resume Operations
Mexico is attempting to accelerate parts production to ensure North American automakers have enough components on hand to stay operational. The response to the pandemic saw manufacturing stalled...
View ArticleDon’t Bet on Seeing Chinese Brands in the U.S. Anytime Soon
Over the past decade, regular reports that Chinese automakers were readying a major push into the North American market became commonplace. We started seeing them move out of trade show basements to...
View ArticleSeeing Red: U.S. Auto Sales, Q2 2020
In what might be the most blindingly obvious statement ever to be made in this august publication, the second quarter of 2020 was an absolute disaster for vehicle sales. Under the withering gaze of a...
View ArticleVolkswagen’s Dieselgate Concludes in the U.S.
Volkswagen Group appears to have completed the terms laid out by the U.S. Department of Justice after it decided the automaker required some oversight in the wake of the 2015 emissions fiasco...
View ArticleCalifornia Wins the Gas War, Fickle Automotive Coalition Realigns Position
The Coalition for Sustainable Automotive Regulation (CSAR) is officially withdrawing from a lawsuit between California and federal authorities over the coastal state’s ability to establish its own...
View ArticleTesla CEO Accused of Kowtowing to China: A Tale of Two Musks?
Tesla CEO Elon Musk came under fire this week after Bloomberg wrote a piece accusing him of playing nice with totalitarian China following years of showing totalitarian California a complete lack of...
View ArticleWhat Happened To the Chinese Automakers Wanting a Piece of the U.S. Market?
American automakers can usually count on selling just below 3 million vehicle sales in China every year. While that figure includes the caveat that the Chinese Communist Party requires foreign...
View ArticleA Dozen More States Virtue Signaling Over Vehicle Bans
Having noticed that Washington got a bit of publicity for vowing to ban all vehicles reliant on internal combustion after 2030, a dozen other American states decided it would be a good idea to reaffirm...
View ArticleUAW Annoyed With GM’s Mexican EVs
General Motors has decided its fifth electric vehicle facility should be in Mexico and has set aside $1 billion for its complex in Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila, Mexico. While a portion of the funds will go...
View ArticleSenate Approves Bill Injecting Cash Into Semiconductor Industry
Apologies for all the semiconductor news. But it’s the topic of the day, with the United States Senate recently approving $52 billion in emergency spending to help bolster domestic chip production and...
View ArticleU.S. and Mexico Can’t Come Together On Light Vehicle Rules
When the United States abandoned the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to embrace the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), it did so under the premise of crafting a better trade...
View ArticleOpinion: Governors Begging Congress for Semiconductor Cash Won’t Fix Anything
There’s an initiative to convince Congress to pass legislation that would pour billions of dollars onto chip manufacturers at play that’s being led by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. A letter,...
View ArticleCanada Joins Mexico in Trade Dispute Against United States
Mexican and Canadian officials have been dropping hints that they’re not all that enthusiastic about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) since before Enrique Peña Nieto, Donald Trump, and...
View ArticleNissan Recalling 793,000 Rogue SUVs Over Fire Risk
While alchemy has famously spent the better part of recorded history trying to transmute lead into gold, the automotive industry has repeatedly managed to achieve the lesser-known act of sorcery where...
View ArticleCanadian Trucker Protests Continue, Aussies Launch ‘Convoy to Canberra’
With supply lines being of particular importance these days, truckers are leveraging their role to encourage government to see things their way. Canada’s Freedom Convoy reached Ottawa on Friday to...
View ArticleFreedom Convoy Update: Truckers Are Winning
The Freedom Convoy that originated in Canada last month has gained an incredible amount of momentum, garnering loads of support from citizens around the world. Sympathetic protests seem to be erupting...
View ArticleIndustry Begins Blaming the Bridge, Truckers in Ottawa
With the Ambassador Bridge having been cleared by police over the weekend, those protesting government mandates have literally been relegated to the sidelines. Canadian officers from a variety of...
View ArticlePeople’s Convoy Rolls On Washington, Freedom Convoy Regrouping
On Wednesday, American truckers commenced a cross-country drive from California to Washington, D.C., to petition governments (local, state, and especially federal) to end all COVID-19 mandates. Known...
View ArticleVolkswagen Shifting Production Out of Europe, Into U.S. and China
Volkswagen Group will be moving some of its European production out of the continent and into facilities located in China and the United States, citing the war in Ukraine as the largest contributing...
View ArticleWhat Ever Happened to the U.S. People’s Convoy?
It’s been a while since we’ve covered the trucking protests and you might be wondering what happened with the U.S. People’s Convoy that emerged from the still-smoldering ashes of the Canadian Freedom...
View ArticleVW Plans Mass Culling of Combustion Cars, Loftier Margins
Practically every automaker on the planet has begun signaling a desire to change with the times by collectively revising their business strategies. The new hotness involves lower volumes, higher...
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