Swedish carmaker Volvo, which is owned by China's Geely, is cutting several hundred jobs, Swedish radio reported on Friday citing sources.The carmaker, whose number of employees has more than doubled over the past decade to about 43,000, confirmed it was reviewing staff and other costs to ensure its business had the "right skills".
Under pressure from President Donald Trump, General Motors Co said on Wednesday it was in talks to sell an idled northeast Ohio plant to a cash-strapped electric truck-building company. The No. 1 U.S. automaker also said it would invest $700 million in three other plants in Ohio - a state important to Trump's re-election chances in 2020 - and maintain some operations at a Canadian factory that had been slated to close by year end. The decisions came after GM faced months of criticism over its plan announced in November to close five North American plants and cut 15,000 jobs. GM's decision to close the small-car assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, had become fodder for Trump and several Democratic presidential candidates.
Volkswagen is pushing its joint venture partners including SK Innovation (SKI) to build electric car battery plants which have at least one Gigawatt manufacturing capacity, Chief Executive Herbert Diess told Reuters. "Anything below that amount would make little sense," Diess said on the sidelines of the Shanghai Auto Show on Sunday. Volkswagen will buy 50 billion euros ($56.57 billion) worth of battery cells for electric cars and has identified South Korea's SKI, LG Chem and Samsung SDI as strategic battery cell suppliers as well as China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL).
maker Tesla Inc hundreds of millions of euros so that the vehicles of Tesla are counted in its fleet to avoid fines for violating new European Union emission rules, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The step will let the Italian carmaker offset carbon dioxide emissions from its cars against Tesla's, by bringing down its average figure to a permissible level, the Financial Times said.
Daimler on Thursday said it will develop its next generation of Smart electric vehicles in China through a joint venture with rival Geely, deepening an alliance between the two carmakers.
Volkswagen on Wednesday said it has teamed up with Amazon Web Services to link up and integrate the data from 122 VW Group plants, machines and systems, as a way to improve its production systems and processes.
China customs lifts suspension on Tesla Model 3 imports: sources By Yilei Sun and Brenda GohBEIJING (Reuters) - China's customs authority has lifted their suspension on imports of Tesla's Model 3 after the U.S. The electric car maker made the necessary rectifications, two sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
Abu Dhabi's Tawazun holding will take a 36-percent stake in Russian car maker Aurus, investing 110 million euros ($124 million) in the company within three years, Russia's industry ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Ousted Nissan Motor Co Chairman Carlos Ghosn has offered to wear an electronic ankle tag and hire guards to monitor him in an unusual bid to secure his release on bail after two months of detention in Japan for alleged financial crimes. Ghosn is also willing to remain in Tokyo, where he has leased an apartment, and post stock he owns in Nissan as collateral, his spokeswoman said. A new bail hearing is set for Monday after an earlier request was denied due partly to concerns the French executive was a flight risk.
Hurt by high fuel prices, Vinod Gore, a farmer in Gove village in Maharashtra, ditched his petrol scooter for an electric model, underlining how two-wheelers are driving the country's goal of electrification of its vehicles. Gore's electric scooter, built by Indian start-up Okinawa, runs for about 100-120 km (60-75 miles) on a single charge which costs the sugarcane farmer less than 10 percent of the 150 rupees ($2.15) he would otherwise have spent on fuel for the same distance. "I bought it to save money," said Gore, who paid 75,000 rupees ($1,077) for the scooter and expects to recover the cost in two to three years in terms of savings on petrol and maintenance.
Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) is considering recalling more Volkswagen cars due to its emissions, scandal, the Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday. The KBA has opened an investigation into whether a software update for 1.2-litre engine cars, including the popular Polo, enabled them to cheat emissions tests, the newspaper said, without naming its sources.
JLR, based in central England, will cut some 4,500 out of 42,500 jobs, targeting managerial roles rather than production-line workers as it battles to return to profitability.
Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co will unveil a deeper alliance next week that goes beyond cooperating in commercial vehicles in a move meant to save the automakers billions of dollars as they develop new technologies, two people familiar with the plan said on Wednesday. The Volkswagen Ford Alliance has been exploring closer cooperation as trade frictions force carmakers to rethink where they build vehicles for Europe, the United States and China, and as software companies prepare to launch their own self-driving cars.
Chinese-funded electric vehicle manufacturer Byton is seeking to raise at least $500 million to finance growth, valuing the nearly three-year-old company at more than $4 billion, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The latest round of fundraising comes as China's government promotes new energy vehicles (NEVs), a category comprising battery-powered and plug-in battery-petrol hybrid cars, to help reduce air pollution and support high technology development. Byton is keen to primarily attract foreign investors in its latest fundraising and the proceeds will be mainly used to finance the mass production of its first premium electric SUV vehicle - Byton M-Byte and research and development, one of the sources said on condition of anonymity as discussions are still private.
Toyota Motor Corp's (7203.T) automated safety technology "Guardian" will be available "in the 2020s," Gill Pratt, chief executive officer of the Toyota Research Institute, said on Monday in Las Vegas. The model is more limited than Toyota's full self-driving system, which it labels its "Chauffeur" technology, but "the car if it needed to could drive itself," Pratt told reporters after a news conference at the annual CES global technology conference.
Mercedes-Benz's is not aiming to be the first manufacturer to develop a self-driving car but it wants to be among the first two players able to scale up the technology, Mercedes-Benz executive Christoph Schroeder told German paper Welt am Sonntag. Carmakers and tech companies like Uber Google, General Motors, Volkswagenare vying to roll out robotaxi services for paying customers as a way to enter the ride-hailing business.
China will take action against highly-polluting diesel trucks by imposing tougher fuel and engine standards, raising rail freight volumes and strengthening its monitoring capabilities, new guidelines published by the environment ministry said. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment said in a policy document on Friday it would aim to -significantly increase- the number of diesel trucks capable of meeting emission standards by 2020, targeting a compliance rate of at least 90 percent by next year.
Sweden's Volvo is setting aside 7 billion Swedish crowns ($778 million) to cover costs related to its admission in October that its truck and bus engines could be exceeding limits for nitrogen oxide emissions. The company, which makes trucks, construction equipment and buses, said on Thursday the estimated costs were based on factors including vehicle testing and statistical analysis, and were made in dialogue with relevant authorities.
Shell China, a unit of Royal Dutch Shell, said on Monday that its Zhejiang-based subsidiary Shell (Zhejiang) Petroleum Trading Ltd Co has received a license to trade refined oil products in China. The license will allow Shell to trade oil products in the wholesale market, according to a press release from Shell China, expanding its business beyond serving consumers at petrol stations.
Erik Prince, who founded the private security company Blackwater, is launching a fund to invest in metals used in electric vehicle batteries, he told the Financial Times. The fund aims to raise up to $500 million and will invest in deposits of metals such as cobalt, copper and lithium, largely in Africa and Asia, he told the newspaper.
