Europe

LONDON — BMW has invested in Jetti Resources, which has technology to extract more copper from low-grade resources and produce metal with a low carbon footprint, the automaker said in a statement. BMW and other automakers are forging deals to ensure supply of copper and other critical raw materials that may see shortages in coming

TOKYO — Renault and Nissan are set to forgo a Wednesday announcement of a deal to restructure their automotive alliance as they struggle to bridge their differences, three people familiar with the matter said. In their discussions, Renault is looking to Nissan to invest in its electric vehicle business, while Nissan is seeking the sale

MUNICH — BMW Group has begun production of an early-stage hydrogen-powered crossover — a milestone in the automaker’s diversified powertrain strategy. A test fleet of BMW iX5 Hydrogen vehicles, based on the X5 crossover, will hit the road early next year as the automaker aims to commercialize the technology by decade’s end. BMW is one

Volkswagen will follow Tesla, BMW and other automakers in exporting electric vehicles from China to Europe, citing limited production capacity in its home market. VW’s sporty Spanish brand Cupra will produce its first full-electric SUV, the Tavascan, at one of its joint ventures’ factories in Anhui, Volkswagen said. Built on the same MEB platform as

Tesla handed over the first of its electric Semi trucks Thursday, a milestone for the automaker more than five years after it unveiled the vehicle. “If you want the most badass rig on the road, this is it,” CEO Elon Musk said at a low-key “delivery event” at Tesla’s battery factory in Sparks, Nevada. While

BERLIN — Volkswagen Group and its battery subsidiary PowerCo have begun searching for a site for the automaker’s first battery cell factory in North America, a company source told Reuters. The source said Canada was “a logical option” for the plant, which would be VW’s first gigafactory outside Europe. The move was described as an

Robert Bosch said four of its factories in China — three of which make components for vehicles — are operating under closed-loop conditions as the country adheres to its strategy of limiting virus transmission. Auto parts sites in Chongqing, Chengdu and Jinan, plus an industrial technologies plant in Beijing, have entered closed-loop systems, Bosch said,

Volkswagen Group’s Skoda brand will launch three new electric models by 2026, four years earlier than originally planned, its boss told Handelsblatt business daily. The Czech carmaker will spend the vast majority of its planned investment on these new models, Skoda CEO Klaus Zellmer added. This would bring the proportion of electric models in its

TURIN – Stellantis has revised the timeline of its switch to a so-called agency distribution model, a move that will give brands and dealers more time to adapt to the change.  The rollout of the agency model, in which the automaker rather than the dealer holds the inventory and sells directly to the customer, will

Renault and Nissan have readied plans to announce a potential deal on a restructured alliance as early as next month in London with the two automakers still negotiating terms, three people with knowledge of the talks told Reuters. Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard said on Tuesday he was “confident” the French automaker and Nissan would be

Investment in German and EU industrial projects such as battery-cell factories will be unfeasible if the region’s policy makers fail to control ballooning energy prices in the long-term, the head of Volkswagen Group’s namesake brand, Thomas Schäfer, said. “Unless we manage to reduce energy prices in Germany and Europe quickly and reliably, investments in energy-intensive

TURIN – Lancia’s first new model as part of Stellantis is still more than a year away, but the Italian brand has already designed three new cars that it hopes will seal its entry into the premium segment. Lancia has not shown any previews of those models, the first of which will appear in early

VinFast is shipping its first SUVs to the U.S., a milestone for parent Vingroup that set out five years ago to bring high-end manufacturing to the Southeast Asian country. Vehicles were loaded onto a red and white cargo ship emblazoned with VinFast in the northern port city of Haiphong. Nine hundred and ninety-nine EVs will

Tesla is making its controversial driver-assistance system available to customers previously deemed not safe enough behind the wheel to test it out. CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the system Tesla calls Full Self-Driving Beta is now available to anyone in North America who has bought the option and requests it from their car screen. Until

Jaguar Land Rover is reducing vehicle output in the UK through March, as the automaker prioritizes making higher-margin models because of semiconductor shortages, according to a person familiar with the matter. The money losing automaker, owned by India’s Tata Motors, will cut production of the Range Rover Velar and Jaguar F-Pace models that are made

Mercedes-Benz has started offering its U.S. customers the chance to boost acceleration on some models with a $1,200 subscription called Acceleration Increase. The update, which will be launched soon, can cut 0 to 60 mph times by up to one second on EQE and EQS full-electric models. But European customers will not have access to

The UK is at risk of falling behind in the shift away from the combustion engine toward electric cars and could end up as a minor player in automaking. This week, mostly UK-based electric-van startup Arrival announced its CEO and president were stepping down. Last week, the CEO of Britain’s biggest automaker Jaguar Land Rover,

BMW is doubling its investment at its Hungarian factory to 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion), adding a high-voltage battery assembly facility that will create more than 500 jobs. Locating the battery assembly at the Debrecen plant will help BMW streamline logistics for production of its next generation electric cars that will use the “Neue Klasse”

Stellantis said it would reorganize its European dealers’ network in July next year, starting in Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. “The rest of Europe will progressively follow in the implementation of the new distribution scheme,” Stellantis said on Thursday. As part of its efforts to cut costs and support investment for electrification, Stellantis last

Polestar is determined to add production in Europe, but it’s going to be at least five years before that happens. “For us, what is important is to come to Europe at some point in time. And that could be around the time we start making the Polestar 7,” CEO Thomas Ingenlath told Automotive News Europe.

BERLIN — Volkswagen Group brands have halted all paid activities on Twitter until further notice, a spokesperson for the automaker said. Earlier this month, VW Group, which owns Audi together with the VW, Seat, Cupra, Lamborghini and Bentley brands, said it had recommended the brands pause paid advertising on Twitter until further notice following Elon

Continental has promoted Aruna Anand to CEO of the company’s automotive group sector in North America as it aims to adapt to a changing industry. Anand, 49, takes over for Robert Lee, who left the company in May to be president and chief strategy officer for battery maker LG Energy Solution North America. Effective Dec.

Stellantis has thousands of cars stuck at its Sochaux plant in eastern France as logistics problems that impacted the maker of Peugeot 3008 SUVs last quarter persist. “There are big problems to deliver new vehicles,” said Jerome Boussard, a CGT labor union representative at the factory. “We had about 4,000 of them stuck in our

Amazon.com. emerged as a potential savior for Argo AI, the now-defunct startup backed by two of the world’s biggest automakers, before the deal fell apart because of a sputtering economy, concerns about control and flagging faith in fully autonomous driving. The online retailer was prepared to invest several hundred million dollars into Argo last spring,

Just as “Black Panther” marketing reaches a crescendo, the brand hype has started for the year’s next mega-blockbuster, “Avatar.” Mercedes-Benz debuted a co-promotional campaign with the sci-fi sequel, called “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which hits theaters Dec. 16. The effort, created in partnership with Avatar’s movie studio 20th Century Studios, will run globally and

BERLIN — Germany’s foreign ministry plans to tighten the rules for companies including automakers that are deeply exposed to China, making them disclose more information and possibly conduct stress tests for geopolitical risks, a confidential draft document seen by Reuters said. The proposed measures are part of a new business strategy towards China being drawn

The German car industry’s bid to take the electric-vehicle crown from Tesla veered off course this week with stumbles for Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz. VW plans to delay its key Trinity flagship EV project by at least two years after software fumbles, according to a person familiar with the situation, calling into question its ambitious 52

Volkswagen has set up accounts on fast-growing Twitter alternative Mastodon amid questions over the future of the social network under Elon Musk. VW confirmed it created the handles @VWGroup and @Cariad_Tech on Mastodon for communications related to its group and software unit, respectively. “Mastodon is an attractive platform that we would like to try out,”

Jaguar Land Rover said it was looking to recruit workers who have been fired by technology companies such as Meta Platforms and Twitter to fill digital and engineering vacancies. The automaker wants to hire about 800 workers across the UK, U.S., Ireland, India, China and Hungary, JLR said in a statement on Friday. The jobs

LOS ANGELES — Fulfilling the decades-old desire of Volkswagen’s U.S. dealers to have a pickup to sell is now in the hands of a 53-year-old native Argentinian. After running the automaker’s North America operations for just over two months, he believes that desire is valid. But getting from “we want” to “we have” may prove