Europe

LONDON — Rolls-Royce will launch its first full-electric car in 2023 on its way to shifting to selling only battery-powered cars after 2030. The ultraluxury brand’s first EV will be the Spectre coupe, the BMW-owned company said in a statement on Wednesday. The two-door car will be built on the same aluminum architecture that currently

Jaguar Land Rover has settled patent fights it lodged against Volkswagen Group and its brands over a feature used in luxury SUVs that simplifies off-road driving for affluent but inexperienced drivers. The agreements resolve litigation in Germany and the U.S., but other terms of the deals weren’t disclosed in filings with courts in New Jersey,

PARIS — Nissan is launching the Townstar, a small van based on the Kangoo from alliance partner Renault, as part of a rebranding of its light-commercial vehicle offerings.  The Townstar will be available with either a gasoline or full-electric drivetrain, but there will be no option for diesel, which has dominated the commercial van market

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co., in what it says is the largest single manufacturing investment in its 118-year history, on Monday said it would spend US$7 billion and create nearly 11,000 jobs to build electric vehicles and batteries in Tennessee and Kentucky. The investment, meant to vault Ford among the leaders in EV output, will

BERLIN — German automakers face possibly months of uncertainty before they know the direction the country’s new government will take on the auto industry. Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) defeated Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in an extremely tight German general election on Sunday. The result will likely result in months of negotiations

LONDON — Ford is close to choosing one of its two transmission plants in Europe to produce electric drivetrains, sources close to the automaker say. The two plants in contention are Ford’s two former joint venture facilities with Getrag, now fully Ford owned. One is in Halewood, England and the other is in Cologne, Germany.

PARIS — Automotive Cells Company (ACC), the joint battery venture between Stellantis and TotalEnergies, just got a giant boost with the news that Mercedes-Benz will become a full partner. Although ACC will not produce its first batteries before the end of 2023, Mercedes parent company Daimler’s involvement makes it a major and credible player in

BMW plans to build all its future cars on a single, electric-focused platform. The automaker showed its ideas for sustainable, premium transportation with its iVision Circular concept car. Development chief, Frank Weber, talked about these topics and more during a roundtable at the IAA Munich auto show that included Automotive News Europe Associate Publisher and

FRANKFURT — The planned opening of Tesla’s first gigafactory in Europe later this year will force local industry to step up its game, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess said. Diess’ comments, made on Twitter, come as Tesla continues work on its plant in Gruenheide, near Berlin, as it awaits final building approval for the 5.8

TURIN — Tesla CEO Elon Musk said there is an end in sight for the global chip shortage that has pummelled the car industry this year thanks to new semiconductor plants that are planned or under construction. Asked how long he thought the global chip shortage would affect vehicle production, Musk said: “short term I

Carlos Ghosn wants to correct the record in his own memoir being re-released this week: He is no longer a Nissan shareholder and is eager to exit Renault. The executive-turned-international fugitive has grown even more pessimistic about the automakers’ prospects in the 11 months since his book was first published in French. In a chapter

German flying taxi startup Volocopter will sell 150 electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to its joint venture with a unit of Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group. Volocopter, which counts Daimler, BlackRock and Intel Capital as some of its investors, said it expects the partnership to bring the air taxis to China within

BRUSSELS — Software used by Volkswagen Group to alter pollutant emissions based on the outside temperature and altitude is illegal and cannot be justified by its role in protecting the engine, an adviser to the EU’s top court said. The finding, if confirmed by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), would be

TURIN — Stellantis Chairman John Elkann said an investment in a historical production plant in Italy showed manufacturing in the country remained key to the automaker. Elkann made the comments in response to criticism that Turin, the home of Fiat, was losing its importance after the merger between Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group that created

LONDON — Former McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh is returning to Formula One in October in a new senior management role with Silverstone-based Aston Martin. The team, owned by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, said in a statement on Tuesday that Whitmarsh had been appointed Group CEO of a newly created Aston Martin Performance Technologies, which

General Motors President Mark Reuss said on Tuesday the global supply of semiconductor chips will begin to stabilize but at lower levels than the auto industry wants as it tries to rebuild vehicle inventories. “We’re going to see a stablization to some extent before we see getting the volume we really need,” Reuss said at

Addison Lee, London’s largest taxi firm, will invest 160 million pounds ($219 million) to fully electrify its fleet by 2023. To accelerate its transition, the company is partnering with Volkswagen and rolling out ID4 electric SUVs. Starting in November, the firm will add 200 fully electric vehicles a month to its fleet. Addison Lee already

WASHINGTON — U.S. auto safety investigators have opened a new probe into 30 million vehicles built by nearly two dozen automakers with potentially defective Takata airbag inflators, a government document seen by Reuters on Sunday showed. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday opened an engineering analysis into an estimated 30 million U.S. vehicles

It was just 10 years ago when the Chrysler brand starred in one of the most memorable ads in automotive history. Rapper Eminem touted the 200 sedan amid an inspirational narrative celebrating Detroit’s resilience during a time of economic turmoil. It was a story of resurgence. Today, Chrysler could use some of the hopeful energy

TOKYO – Hyundai Motor Group, which is prioritizing robotics as part of its future growth drive, just built a better guard dog, courtesy of its acquisition of U.S. robotics firm Boston Dynamics. The South Korean automaker on Friday unveiled the new four-legged, walk-about robot rover, called the Factory Safety Service Robot, saying it would conduct

SHANGHAI — Tesla will work with global regulators to ensure data security, CEO Elon Musk told an industry event in China on Friday. Tesla, which builds vehicles for the Chinese market in Shanghai, has been under scrutiny in China this year over its storage and handling of customer data. Cars are being fitted with an

Valeo has given the clearest indication yet it intends to buy out partner Siemens from their electric-car components venture to counter a declining combustion-engine business. Siemens “entered this joint venture with the plan to eventually sell and we to buy,” Christophe Perillat, Valeo’s incoming CEO, told Bloomberg News on the sidelines of a Munich auto

IHS Markit, whose production projections are cited by automakers, suppliers and research analysts the world over just took its biggest chop yet to estimates that have been falling all year due to the global chip shortage. IHS Markit slashed its production forecast for this year by 6.2 percent — or 5.02 million vehicles — and

German automotive lobby groups oppose proposed new regulations that would make it harder for plug-in hybrids sold in the country to qualify for government subsidies. The minimum full-electric range for plug-in hybrids to receive incentives would rise to 60 km (37 miles) from 40 km starting in October 2022 and to 80 km on Jan.

PARIS — Renault will cut up to 2,000 engineering and support jobs in France as it transitions to electric cars and hires in different positions. The money-losing automaker, which has already announced about 4,600 job cuts in the country as part of a broad restructuring, said in a statement it was opening talks with unions

UK-based Stellantis brand Vauxhall has appointed former Renault UK executive Adam Wood to lead marketing. Wood, 37, started in late August and reports to Vauxhall Managing Director Paul Willcox, the brand said in a statement. Wood joined Renault UK as part of its graduate management program in 2007 and rose to the position of marketing

BERLIN — Shares in German auto parts manufacturer Vitesco Technologies rose 12 percent in their market debut on Thursday, which marked the company’s long-awaited spinoff from former parent Continental. Vitesco shares started trading at 59.80 euros per share and rose to as much as at 66.88 euros, giving the group a market valuation of 2.68

STOCKHOLM — A Swedish court on Wednesday sentenced a 47-year-old man to three years in prison for spying for Russia by selling secret information from truckmaker Scania. The court said it had found the man guilty of acquiring and selling the secret information from the truckmaker to a Russian embassy official. The court acquitted the

Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz division expects sales to stabilize in the fourth quarter and still aims to generate double-digit returns this year despite disruptions from the global semiconductor shortage. While chip supply bottlenecks have been exacerbated by recent factory shutdowns in Malaysia, underlying demand for Mercedes luxury cars remains very strong in China, Europe and North America,

Laurens van den Acker took over as head of Renault Group design in 2009 and presided over a successful revamping of the Renault brand’s lineup. Now, under new CEO Luca de Meo, he is stepping into a less hands-on role at the automaker as executive vice president, group design. Van den Acker spoke with Automotive