Europe

BERLIN — Volkswagen Group and BMW are among automakers scrambling to find alternative sources of vital parts made in Ukraine from as far afield as China and Mexico, as Russia’s invasion halts assembly lines and breaks complex supply chains. The hunt for new supplies is the latest challenge for an auto industry already reeling from

Denso, a top Toyota supplier, was targeted by a ransomeware attack last week, the partsmaker said. The Japanese supplier said it had detected unauthorized access using ransomware at Denso Automotive Deutschland GmbH, a group company that handles sales and engineering in Germany, on Thursday local time. Denso “promptly responded,” spokeswoman Izumi Saito said on Sunday.

BERLIN — Volkswagen Group’s chief procurement officer, Murat Aksel, is focusing on the formation of closer partnerships and deeper cooperation with suppliers. Aksel wants to involve them in new projects at an early stage as he tries to reduce material costs by 7 percent by the end of this year. Aksel, who was appointed to

Renault has kept long-standing ties with Russia intact despite the war in Ukraine because it’s worried about the high cost of pulling out from a venture with a local partner, according to people familiar with situation. The French manufacturer wants to avoid the nationalization of its majority-owned automaker, AvtoVAZ, which plays a key role in

FRANKFURT — Volkswagen Group doubled its operating profit in 2021 but warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its impact on supply chains could hit business this year in unforeseen ways. Operating profit last year doubled to 19.3 billion euros ($21.1 billion) despite lower deliveries, VW said in a statement on Friday. Global vehicle sales

Mercedes-Benz has about 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) of assets in Russia that could be at risk if Moscow decides to expropriate the property of foreign companies that leave the country over its invasion of Ukraine. The automaker said in its annual report on Friday that the prospect of expropriation presented a risk to the

Volvo Cars has begun the search for a new head of global commercial operations to replace Lex Kerssemakers, who will leave the post later this year. Kerssemakers, who has been with Volvo for 38 years, including 16 as a member of its executive management team, said it was time for him “to shift focus” in

AvtoVAZ will partially resume operations at its Togliatti and Izhevsk plants from March 16 despite a persistent shortage of components, Russia’s biggest automaker said. AvtoVAZ says it has taken the decision because it wants to protect the incomes of its staff in Russia. The automaker, which is controlled by Renault, stopped its Togliatti and Izhevsk

BERLIN — Continental reported a profit for 2021 after two years of losses and forecast higher sales this year while warning about the potential impact of the Ukraine crisis. The supplier said it could face “lasting consequences” to supply chains, production and demand from what it described as instability in Eastern Europe, after Russia invaded

BERLIN — Volkswagen is betting that a modern take on its iconic Microbus will boost its aim to pass Tesla as the world’s top electric-car maker The brand on Wednesday unveiled the ID Buzz, a battery-electric minivan with retro styling elements that recall the Microbus of the 1960s. The ID Buzz passenger van and the

BERLIN — BMW will gradually resume production at its Munich and Dingolfing plants in Germany next week, a company spokesperson said. The automaker suspended production earlier this week due to supply chain issues caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Production of the Mini at BMW’s plant in Oxford, England, would remain suspended for two weeks,

Volkswagen will finally take its psychedelic camouflage wrap off the production version of the ID Buzz on Wednesday, March 9, giving eager consumers their first undisguised look at the retro-styled electric van. VW offered several reviewers a chance to briefly drive prototypes of the short-wheelbase, two-row versions in Europe last month. That vehicle, which seats

MUNICH — Volkswagen has brought forward a production stop by one week at its home factory in Wolfsburg in Germany, as rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz also halt output due to a shortage of parts produced in Ukraine. VW is pausing production at the Wolfsburg plant on Monday for at least two weeks, a company spokesman

The vehicles and auto parts endangered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine may seem thousands of miles away from being a real problem. But the war could bring new worries to an issue that’s already bedeviling automakers: the global microchip shortage. Ukraine is the source for 70 percent of the world’s output of neon. Neon

BERLIN — Tesla has received a conditional license to begin production at its electric vehicle factory and adjacent battery plant in Gruenheide, Germany, ending months of delay for the landmark site that was initially supposed to open last summer. The factory is set to produce over 500,000 battery-electric vehicles a year, while the battery plant

BERLIN — Volkswagen Group has chosen its headquarters, the central German city of Wolfsburg, as the location for its new factory to buld the Trinity electric flagship sedan for the VW brand. Construction is set to begin in spring 2023, VW said on Friday. VW said it was investing about 2 billion euros ($2.18 billion)

Wiring supplier Leoni has set up a task force to deal with the disruption of cable deliveries caused by the Ukraine crisis. Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have been forced to drastically reduce production in Germany after supplies of wiring harnesses from Leoni’s two factories in Ukraine dried up. Wire harnesses bundle up to

Russian self-driving tech company Yandex has placed its operations in the U.S. on hold. The company said Friday it has paused testing of its robotaxi fleet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is no longer making restaurant deliveries with its six-wheeled sidewalk Rover bots on college campuses across the country. “Our AV test fleet in Ann

BERLIN — A dearth of supply from the Ukraine of wire harnesses, a key component for vehicle manufacturing, will lead to production cuts at Volkswagen Group’s Audi division. Production of A4 and A5 models at Audi’s home plant in Ingolstadt, Germany, will be suspended from March 7-11. In Neckarsulm, production of A6 and A7 models

Volkswagen Group has joined the exodus of companies from Russia, suspending exports to and local production in the country in response to its invasion of Ukraine. The move affects VW’s two factories in Russia that produce Volkswagen brand and Skoda models, the maker of Porsche, Lamborghini and Bentley cars, popular with Russia’s elite, said Thursday.

Automakers including Volkswagen, BMW and Porsche are struggling to obtain crucial wire harnesses as suppliers in western Ukraine have been shuttered by the Russian invasion of the country, forcing production stops at car factories in Germany. Production of the part, needed for organizing miles of vehicle cables, has affected suppliers including Leoni, Fujijura and Nexans.

BERLIN — Porsche will halt production at its factory in Leipzig, Germany, due to supply-chain problems stemming from the conflict in Ukraine. The factory was forced to suspend production from Wednesday afternoon until the end of next week, a Porsche spokesman said in an emailed statement to Automotive News Europe. Porsche builds the Macan and

FRANKFURT — BMW said it had halted the export of cars to Russia and would stop production in the country. “Due to the current geopolitical situation, we are discontinuing our local production in Russia and export to the Russian market,” BMW said in a statement on Tuesday. The automaker also said it expected output in

LONDON — Britain’s business minister welcomed a decision by Jaguar Land Rover to pause the delivery of vehicles into the Russian market. “There is now a rapidly growing number of companies and governments joining the whole international community in isolating Russia, both diplomatically and financially,” Kwasi Kwarteng said on Twitter on Tuesday. Sales of Jaguar

BERLIN — The environmental ministry in the German state of Brandenburg is in the final phase of the approval process for Tesla‘s planned factory, a spokesperson said on Monday. Tesla is awaiting approval for a licence to begin production at its EV factory and adjacent battery plant in Gruenheide, outside of Berlin. Numerous public consultations

More than a week after a ship packed with luxury cars caught fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a salvage team managed to board the vessel on Friday and started to tow it to a safe location off the Portuguese Azores archipelago. In a statement, ship manager Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd (MOL) said

Volvo Cars unveiled an ambitious product road map at its annual dealer meeting on Wednesday as the Swedish automaker accelerates toward an all-electric future. At the conference in Miami, attended by about 800 Volvo retailers from across the Americas, company executives laid out plans to introduce seven new and redesigned electrified models over the next

PARIS — Stellantis will have to find ways to offset the additional costs of building electric vehicles, CEO Carlos Tavares said, describing it as “the gorilla in the room” that could weigh on profits for at least the next five years. “We can expect electrification to represent an additional total production cost of around 40

With the Tonale, Alfa Romeo’s first new model since it launched the Stelvio midsize SUV in 2016, the Stellantis subsidiary is joining the compact SUV segment for the first time. In Europe alone, this segment accounts for 2.5 to 3 million sales a year, Alfa CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato said, which is why he believes a

Volkswagen Group says the many of the 4,000 cars from its multiple brands aboard the Felicity Ace are a total loss because of a fire on board that forced the crew to abandon the container ship in the Atlantic Ocean last week. “We fear that the fire on the ship has damaged a large number