U.S. President Donald Trump's administration will look very closely at the planned merger between Fiat Chrysler (FCAU.N) and Peugeot owner PSA, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Friday. The deal, announced on Thursday, would create the world's fourth-largest automaker. "We will obviously look at it very, very carefully," Kudlow said on Bloomberg. "The president has not commented on the deal ... We're not afraid of doing business with international companies, Lord knows."
Waymo Chief Executive John Krafcik said the self-driving vehicle company is now offering limited "rider-only" trips in Phoenix, Arizona, as it looks beyond the robo-taxis business to generate future revenue. Waymo, a unit of Alphabet Inc has begun offering fully automated rides, without attendants in the vehicle, to a few hundred early users of its robo-taxi service in Phoenix, Krafcik confirmed on Sunday at a dinner with journalists ahead of a conference in Detroit. He did not say when or how quickly Waymo would expand "rider-only" services. Riders signed up for the fully automated service have signed non-disclosure agreements, he said.
Makers of airless tyres such as Japan's Bridgestone Corp. hope driverless cars will herald a breakthrough for their niche technology, which is more than a decade old but underperforms standard tires in every way except resistance to puncture. Autonomous driving - and the eventual introduction of self-driving taxis - could mean greater demand for puncture-resistant tires as greater usage of vehicles exposes them to more flat tyres. "In the past, a car would be driven about 20% of the time and spend the other 80% in the garage," Atsushi Ueshima of Bridgestone said at the biennial Tokyo Motor Show on Thursday.
General Motors Co will gradually restart operations at several idled plants in Mexico beginning this weekend, after unionized workers for the U.S. automaker ratified a new labor contract, the company's Mexican unit said on Friday. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union announced earlier on Friday that its members had formally approved a new four-year labor contract with General Motors, ending a 40-day strike with the top American automaker. GM said that by the end of next week all of its Mexican operations should be operating normally with all employees back to work.
Nissan Motor Co's incoming chief executive Makoto Uchida told employees on Friday that his mission is to "restore business performance and regain trust in Nissan." "Nissan is on the right path for recovery ... although it might be a gradual process," Uchida, who is Nissan's China chief, said in a video message posted on an internal company website. Someone who saw the video made details of it available to Reuters. Uchida is expected to formally take up the CEO post by January 1, 2020.
Ford Motor Co said on Thursday it was teaming up with Volkswagen AG and Amazon.com to give its future electric car customers a range of charging options from highways to homes.The network of charging stations will be the largest in North America with 12,000 locations and more than 35,000 charge plugs, Ford said.
Vincent Cobee, a former Mitsubishi production chief, is set to become the new head at PSA's Citroen unit, German trade magazine Automobilwoche reported on Thursday, citing company sources. The report cited a PSA spokesman as saying that Cobee had already joined the brand's management team. Asked by Reuters, a PSA spokesman declined to comment.
Tesla Inc was added to a government list of approved automotive manufacturers, China's industry ministry said on Thursday, as it granted the electric-vehicle maker a certificate it needs to start production in the country. The list was published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. This means "the green light is fully given to Tesla for production in China," said Yale Zhang, head of the Shanghai-based consultancy Automotive Foresight. Tesla can start production any time, he said.
Tesla Inc will start installing its Powerwall home power storage batteries in Japan next spring, the U.S. electric car and battery maker said on Tuesday, marking the product's debut in Asia. The 13.5 kilowatt-hour (kWh) Powerwall can store power generated by solar panels and costs 990,000 yen ($9,135), including the Backup Gateway system which manages the grid connection, but excluding installation costs and retail tax. It will be sold directly online by Tesla or via certain third-party installers.
Volkswagen is looking at options for its luxury brand Lamborghini, including a sale or stock listing, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Chief Executive Herbert Diess in March said Volkswagen was reviewing its portfolio of brands, which also include Ducati and Bentley, and whether to divest some non-core businesses. Last month, Diess said the company was working to free up resources for the development and mass production of electric cars.
McLaren will be reunited with Mercedes engines from the 2021 season as the former champions go back to using the German manufacturer's power units in their bid to return to the top. The Woking-based team are currently supplied by Renault, having joined forces with the French company last year. They will see out that deal, which runs until the end of 2020, before making the switch back to Mercedes as part of a long-term agreement until at least 2024.
Toyota Motor Corp will raise its stake in Subaru Corp to 20 per cent from around 17 per cent, the two Japanese automakers said on Friday, as they leverage their scale to better compete in developing new vehicle technologies. The investment comes a month after Toyota and another smaller Japanese automaker, Suzuki Motor Corp, said they would take small equity stakes in each other. Such tie-ups highlight how automakers are scrambling to chase scale, manage costs and boost development required to develop self-driving cars, electric vehicles and new mobility services which are upending the global auto industry.
Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos on Thursday pledged to make the largest U.S. e-commerce company net carbon neutral by 2040 and to buy 100,000 electric delivery vans from a start-up, as employees and consumers around the world plan protests to address climate change. Cutting emissions is a challenging goal for Amazon, which delivers 10 billion items a year and has a massive transportation and data centre footprint. "We know we can do it and we know we have to do it," Bezos said.
Volkswagen has agreed to pay up to A$127 million ($87.3 million) to settle lawsuits brought on behalf of thousands of Australian customers caught up in its global diesel emissions cheating scandal.
Germany's motor vehicle authority (KBA) has told Volkswagen's premium brand Audi that it faces penalties for its failure to remove illegal software from diesel cars that can manipulate emissions levels, the Bild am Sonntag (BamS) newspaper reported. BamS added that the KBA had told Audi in three letters that it had until September 26 to remove the software from thousands of diesel vehicles with V6 and V8 TDI engines or else face a fine of 25,000 euro for each car still carrying an illegal device.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) said on Sunday that its roughly 48,000 hourly workers at General Motors Co facilities would go on strike as of midnight Sunday after U.S. labor contract talks reached an impasse, the first nationwide strike at GM in 12 years. "We do not take this lightly," Terry Dittes, the UAW vice president in charge of the union's relationship with GM, said at a press conference in downtown Detroit. "This is our last resort."
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened a preliminary investigation into 553,000 Nissan Rogue sport utility vehicles after reports of their automatic emergency braking systems engaging without warning or an obstruction
Toyota is using Panasonic's cylindrical batteries in its new Corolla and Levin plug-in hybrid sedans launched in China this year.
Inspired by new ultra-thin solar panels developed for satellites, a project led by Toyota Motor Corp is experimenting with a sun-powered Prius that it hopes will one day require no plugging in. In the Japanese government-funded demonstration project, Toyota engineers fitted solar panels designed by Sharp Corp to the hood, roof, rear window and spoiler to see how much juice the sun can generate. The electricity from the panels goes directly to the drive battery, so the Prius can charge while moving or when parked.
Volocopter, which says it is building the world's first manned, electric and vertical takeoff air taxis, said in a statement on Monday that the other investors in the new funding round include German luxury car maker Daimler, which it had previously raised money from.
