Volkswagen's hiring of the longtime luxury executive as its new North American COO is part of a reorganization on the continent and part of an ongoing effort to rebuild its image.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/de-nysschen-helping-vw-regroup-us-market http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Dread over the prospect that EVs -- which have fewer parts and require less labor to build -- will doom jobs helped spark the first UAW strike against GM in over a decade. It's also likely to be a point of contention in talks with Ford and FCA.
https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/auto-workers-fear-evs-will-be-job-killers
U.S. new light-vehicle sales will take a hit in September because lucrative Labor Day weekend volume fell in August, with double-digit declines projected by some analysts for Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co. , FCA US and Nissan Motor.
https://www.autonews.com/sales/flat-q3-projected-us-sales-despite-big-sept-drop
Ford Motor Co., Honda Motor Co., BMW Group and Volkswagen Group, all of which reached a compromise agreement with California over vehicle emissions, are scheduled to meet next week with the Justice Department, Bloomberg reported.
https://www.autonews.com/regulation-safety/automakers-facing-antitrust-probe-meet-doj-report-says
Carole Ghosn said her husband is being treated differently over financial irregularities than former Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/ghosns-wife-says-he-may-not-get-fair-trial-japan http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
The automaker said its heavy-duty pickup will also boast best-in-class towing and horsepower figures for a diesel engine.
https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/fords-2020-super-duty-diesel-tops-rams-torque
Johan de Nysschen, 59, who was ousted as head of Cadillac in April 2018 after a tumultuous four-year stint and who previously served as head of the Infiniti brand and Audi of America, will assume the new role with the Volkswagen brand on Oct. 1.
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BMW said it is freshening its top management with younger talent with the appointments of Milan Nedeljkovic as production chief and Ilka Horstmeier as head of human resources.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/bmw-names-new-production-chief-human-resources-head http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Some automated-vehicle developers are synonymous with their test-bed cities. Cruise Automation conducts almost all its testing within the confines of San Francisco. Waymo has pinned its early focus on the Phoenix market.
Ford Motor Co., on the other hand, has gone in the opposite direction. When the company launches a commercial business centered on autonomous driving sometime in 2021, it intends to start in multiple markets.
One of those will be Austin, Texas.
On Wednesday morning, Ford revealed that the Lone Star State's capital will be one of the three cities it intends to do business in once operations commence. Argo.ai, the company building Ford's self-driving technology, will start mapping Austin's roads sometime this November. Austin joins Washington, D.C., and Miami as Ford's planned business locations.
Sherif Marakby, chief executive officer of Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC, the subsidiary set up to handle Ford's fledgling AV business, emphasized Wednesday that the company's pending arrival in Austin provides needed time to refine both technology and business blueprints.
Working on the latter now will help scale the business once the technology is ready, and that's one reason Ford is spreading resources across three major markets.
"We're doing it the hard way," Marakby said. "It's hard to do it that way, but we understand what it takes, because we've been doing it for a few years, planning depots, staff and technology development. One of the big pros of this approach is the ability to scale fast. If we have to launch in three cities in a variety of environments and campuses and things like that, we can scale fast. … And we think scale is key."
Perhaps more than any competitors, Ford has spent substantial efforts developing and vetting the business side of its self-driving operations. In Miami and Washington, Ford has worked with local businesses such as florists and dry cleaners to determine how its AVs might best suit their delivery needs. Already, the company has adjusted its plan and cast aside some initial preconceptions of how delivery services might work.
Ford did not say how many of its Fusion hybrid test vehicles it will immediately deploy to the Austin area to begin mapping and learning the habits of Austin drivers and other road users. Once it launches, the company will eschew the Fusions for a dedicated, purpose-built autonomous vehicle that has not yet been unveiled but is widely expected to be a hybrid that draws from learnings on the commercial side of the company's business and be sturdy enough to last for "hundreds of thousands of miles," according to Marakby.
He said Wednesday it's too early to say exactly what percentage of initial business will be targeted toward delivery services vs. ride-hailing operations. Both are in the company's initial plans.
Broadly, Ford's steady rollout of test and prospective commercial markets comes at a time when others in the industry are recalibrating their autonomous-vehicle plans and time frames. Notably, Cruise Automation, GM's self-driving unit, delayed plans to launch a commercial business in 2019, with no amended timeline yet announced. Marakby touted the consistency of Ford's long-planned 2021 timeline when speaking to reporters earlier this week.
"We've never announced super-aggressive dates like 2018 or 2019," he said. "We've always seen that as too unrealistic. We've stuck with 2021 for initial commercialization of the service. …. We know the safe integration of the technology will take a few more years, and we're all in to drive the integration and the technology, and in parallel, work on the business. Technology for the sake of technology won't really result in a profitable business or work for the city. So we're sticking with our plan."
In Austin, Ford may find challenges on both the technology and business side of the operations that it hasn't encountered in Miami and D.C. Although those cities contain colleges, the size of the University of Texas campus and its proximity to downtown Austin offers the company a potential base of ride-hailing customers.
On the technology side, scooters might provide a newfound challenge for Argo's self-driving system. Austin has attracted scooters by the thousands. This year, city records show, companies deployed 10,000 scooters that resulted in more than 434,000 rides during the city's 10-day SXSW festival. While Argo has encountered scooters elsewhere, it hasn't seen them at the saturation level found in Austin, something bound to be valuable in training its self-driving system.
Ford has a history of working with Austin, a finalist for the U.S. Department of Transportation's Smart City Challenge, on innovation. In 2016, Ford Motor Credit Co. ran a short-lived shared-leasing pilot project in the city that gave customers the opportunity to share a lease and schedule time in the vehicle.
Austin is one of the markets in which Ford is running its "City:One Challenge," which delivers as much as $300,000 in grants to help city residents brings grassroots transportation ideas to city officials and implement pilot programs.
https://www.autonews.com/mobility-report/ford-adds-austin-its-av-plans
Executive Vice Chairman Chung Euisun, 48, who’s gradually been taking over from his 81-year-old chairman father, has been overseeing the transformation of the South Korean automotive giant to prepare the family business for the industry’s major technology disruptions.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/dont-chuck-your-drivers-license-just-yet-hyundai-chief-says http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Mahindra will own 51 percent of the new entity, Bloomberg reported. Ford will get equal voting rights and board representation, according to a source familiar with the plan.
https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/ford-put-struggling-india-business-jv-mahindra-report-says
U.S. regulators have uncovered the clearest picture yet of some of the alleged methods used to hide payments of more than $140 million to Carlos Ghosn that were not disclosed publicly.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/how-carlos-ghosn-allegedly-hid-140-million-compensation-nissan http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
The automaker is recalling Mondeo, S-Max and Galaxy models in Europe built between 2014 and 2019 because of a potential fire risk due to battery acid leakage.
https://www.autonews.com/regulation-safety/ford-recalls-322000-cars-europe-over-battery-fire-risk
The filing was part of a lawsuit by Tesla shareholders alleging the company’s board breached its duties to investors by approving the $2.6 billion acquisition of the struggling company, which was run by Musk's first cousins.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/teslas-musk-pushed-solarcity-deal-despite-major-cash-crunch-documents-show http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Nissan will pay $15 million, while Carlos Ghosn agreed to a $1 million civil penalty and a 10-year ban from serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded U.S. company, the SEC said. Ghosn was arrested in Japan and fired by Nissan last year. He is awaiting trial in Tokyo on financial misconduct charges that he denies.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/nissan-ghosn-fined-16-million-sec-failing-disclose-pay http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Nissan was fined $15 million, while former CEO Carlos Ghosn was hit with a $1 million penalty, the Securities and Exchange Commission said. The claims stem from a decision that allegedly gave Ghosn broad authority over pay decisions.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/nissan-and-ghosn-fined-16-million-sec-failing-disclose-pay http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Argo AI CEO Bryan Salesky clarifies the definition of self-driving car.
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Dennis Williams' California home was one of six locations around the U.S. raided Aug. 28 in connection with a widening corruption scandal.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/least-one-raid-surprise-guns-drawn http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
The Delaware Court of Chancery ruled against Tesla's request to dismiss a lawsuit by shareholder Richard Tornetta, who claims a 2018 compensation package unjustly enriches CEO Elon Musk, because of the way the board approved the payout.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/tesla-board-must-face-trial-over-musks-mega-pay-package-judge-rules http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
The already low-profile Gary Jones has been incognito since he was implicated — but not indicted — in a federal charging document this month that accompanied the arrest of UAW regional director Vance Pearson.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/uaw-president-lies-low http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Sir Michael Edwardes, the head of the British Leyland automaking group during its troubled last years, has died at age 88.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/former-british-leyland-chief-edwardes-dies-age-88 http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
UAW negotiators assigned to meet with Ford have settled more than half of all outstanding issues, a union vice president said. Talks between union and FCA bargainers are also ongoing.
https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/ford-fca-talks-uaw-continue
UAW negotiators assigned to meet with Ford have settled more than half of outstanding issues, a union vice president said Wednesday. The union's strike against General Motors has entered its third day.
https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/uaw-official-says-ford-talks-progressing
https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/uaw-official-says-ford-negotiations-progressing
The project modifies a 2016 master plan to account for the subsequent purchase and renovation of Michigan Central Station in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood for a mobility hub.
https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/ford-updates-plan-overhauling-hq-campus
https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/ford-plans-overhaul-dearborn-campus-2025
Ford of Europe President Stuart Rowley told the German newspaper Handelsblatt that a decision about whether to build a second model with VW could happen soon.
https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/ford-talks-vw-develop-second-ev-europe-paper-says
Paul Ingrassia, a longtime journalist for The Wall Street Journal and Reuters who won a 1993 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of a boardroom revolt at General Motors, has died after battling cancer. He was 69.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/paul-ingrassia-pulitzer-prize-winning-auto-journalist-dies http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Becca Polak announced her resignation as president of KAR Auction Services' TradeRev unit, which has weighed on the company's earnings, effective Oct. 8. TradeRev co-founder Mark Endras will take over the role.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/traderev-president-becca-polak-resigns http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Automotive News Europe's Eurostars dinner took place last week in Frankfurt.
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Nissan says it has winnowed the field of candidates for its next CEO from some 100 people in July to just 10 today. The task of picking a replacement for outgoing boss Hiroto Saikawa is complicated by the exodus of talent in the wake of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn's arrest last year.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/successor-plan-tougher-depleted-bench http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Hiroto Saikawa's brief tenure as Nissan's boss was marked by fitful policy shifts and unprecedented scandal. His successor has a daunting to-do list and a difficult choice in staying the course or trying to chart a new trajectory.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/help-wanted-inspiring-ceo http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Engine development expert Markus Duesmann is set to become Audi CEO after BMW dropped its opposition to his early departure, a German paper said.
https://www.autonews.com/executives/audi-get-former-bmw-exec-new-ceo-report-says http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris asked the Justice Department's inspector general to investigate the antitrust division's decision to probe Ford, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen.
https://www.autonews.com/regulation-safety/senator-takes-aim-trump-antitrust-probe-automakers-over-emissions
