Fresh misconduct allegations brought by Tokyo prosecutors against ousted Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn center on the use of company funds to pay a Saudi businessman who is believed to have helped him out of financial difficulties, two company sources with knowledge of the matter said. Prosecutors arrested Ghosn for a third time on Friday, accusing him of aggravated breach of trust in transferring personal investment losses to the automaker.
South Korea-based carmaker Hyundai Motor Co. expects growth in the Russian auto market to slow sharply next year, the head of its Russian branch said on Monday. Automakers have warned that Russia's plan to raise the value-added tax in 2019 would hit car sales, which have only just started to recover from four years of stagnation. Hyundai forecasts car sales in Russia will grow 5-6 percent in 2019, after an expected increase of 12.8 percent this year, the company's Russian managing director Alexei Kalitsev told reporters.
Hyundai Motor Co plans to start producing electric vehicles (EVs) in Indonesia as part of an around $880 million auto investment in the country, Industry Deputy Minister Harjanto said on Thursday. The Korean company, which together with affiliate Kia Motors is the world's No.5 automaker, plans to build a factory in Indonesia with a capacity of around 250,000 units, including for electric cars, Harjanto told Reuters. Indonesia has ample reserves of nickel laterite ore, a vital ingredient for the lithium-ion batteries used to power EVs.
For Elon Musk's very difficult year, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Specifically, it's a 1.14-mile tunnel the inventor and beleaguered CEO of Tesla Motors says is a first step in solving "soul-destroying" urban traffic. In 2016, Musk - already busy running two high-profile companies - founded a firm called the Boring Company to tackle the problem by drilling underground. Some thought it was a joke. Two years of big promises and $40 million of Musk's own money later, his just-in-time innovation machine delivered a functioning test tunnel on Tuesday.
Dutch start-up Lithium Werks BV is considering Poland and other European countries for a storage battery plant alongside the 1.6 billion euro ($1.8 billion) one it plans to build in China, founder Kees Koolen told Reuters on Monday. Energy storage is becoming increasingly important as the use of intermittent renewable sources of power grows. Combining wind, solar and battery technology would bring down cost of renewable energy and help power grids balance supply and demand.
President Donald Trump on Thursday said General Motors Co's decision to shift much of its focus to electric vehicles will not succeed, and he asserted a new trade deal will make it harder for the company to move work to other countries.GM last year said it planned to launch 20 new electric vehicles by 2023 as it faces rising regulatory requirements for zero-emission vehicles in China and elsewhere. The largest U.S. automaker has come under enormous criticism in Washington after it announced on Nov. 26 plans to close four plants in the United States and cut up to 15,000 jobs in North America.
Maruti Suzuki India Limited will be increasing the prices of its models from January 2019. The reason is the increasing cost of commodities and high foreign exchange rates.
An electric car that could take on Silicon Valley's Tesla Incis part of the massive investment in electric vehicles that Europe's largest carmaker plans to make. Volkswagen announced earlier this month it would spend almost 44 billion euros ($50 billion) on developing electric cars, autonomous driving and new mobility services by 2023, while exploring areas of cooperation with U.S. automaker Ford Motor.
BMW is considering a second U.S. manufacturing plant that could produce engines and transmissions, Chief Executive Harald Krueger said on Tuesday, shortly after a report that U.S. President Donald Trump would impose tariffs on imported cars from next week. Krueger in an interview at the Los Angeles Auto Show also said he backed British Prime Minister Theresa May's current Brexit plan to divorce the United Kingdom from the European Union.
The company is looking to manufacture 14,000 cars by 2025 with the size of the company growing four-fold from what it was in 2014
Nissan's board ousted Chairman Carlos Ghosn on Thursday after the shock arrest of the industry heavyweight, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported without citing sources, ushering in a period of uncertainty for its 19-year alliance with Renault. A Nissan Motor Co spokesman declined to comment. The Franco-Japanese alliance, enlarged in 2016 to include Japan's Mitsubishi Motors, has been rattled to its core by Ghosn's arrest in Japan on Monday, with the 64-year-old group chairman accused of financial misconduct. Ghosn had shaped the alliance and was pushing for a deeper tie-up, including potentially a full Renault-Nissan merger at the French government's urging, despite strong reservations at the Japanese firm.
If criminal charges are filed, it could lead to hefty fines for Hyundai and Kia. The DoJ is coordinating with the U.S. transport regulator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), on the investigation, the person said, asking not to be identified as the matter is confidential. Nicole Navas Oxman, a DoJ spokeswoman, declined to comment. "The Justice Department generally does not confirm, deny or otherwise comment on the existence or non-existence of an investigation," she said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
Carlos Ghosn is no longer fit to lead Renault following his arrest in Japan, said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Tuesday. "Carlos Ghosn is no longer in a position capable of leading Renault," Le Maire told France Info radio.
VW is open to licensing its MEB electric car platform to third party manufacturers, he reiterated, explaining that was a way to ramp up economies of scale.
Hyundai Cradle, Hyundai Motor Co's corporate venture business, said on Monday it invested in allegro.ai, an Israeli company specializing in deep learning-based computer vision. Financial details were not disclosed. Hyundai said the partnership with allegro.ai will allow it to speed up deployment of artificial intelligence technology in many business areas and will improve the quality of Hyundai's products.
Ford Motor Co made a profit in India for the first time in a decade in the last fiscal year, signalling that a strategy conceived two years ago by the U.S. car manufacturer for one of the world's most competitive car markets is starting to show some success.
A source close to the joint venture said that the plan envisages Japan's Honda producing GAC's Trumpchi GS4, a battery powered compact SUV, to sell through Honda outlets operated with GAC.
India's Tata Motors Ltd on Wednesday announced a turnaround plan for its luxury car unit Jaguar Land Rover which has been hit hard by trade tensions between China and the US, low demand for diesel cars in Europe and worries over Brexit. Under "Project Charge" Tata Motors said it plans to cut costs and improve cash flows at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) by 2.5 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) over 18 months. JLR also plans to launch several new vehicles including the Jaguar I-Pace and the new Range Rover Defender over the next few years and will offer a hybrid or electric version of all its models by 2020.
The Mercedes driver, who equalled the five titles of late 1950s Argentine great Juan Manuel Fangio with only seven times champion Michael Schumacher above them, finished fourth while Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel was second.
Fast charging is a crucial factor in luring customers to electric cars, reflected in moves across the sector. BMW, Daimler, Ford and Volkswagen for instance have jointly pledged to open 400 ultra-fast charging stations in Europe by 2020, aiming to close the gap with Tesla.
