Europe

Former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler was given a suspended sentence of one year and nine months for fraud by negligence in the 2015 Volkswagen Group diesel scandal, becoming the first former VW Group board member to receive such a sentence. Stadler was fined 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million), which will go to the state treasury

China sold more cars abroad than any other nation in the first quarter in part because of a sales jump to customers in Russia. The Asian country exported 1.07 million vehicles in the three months through March, overtaking long-time leader Japan, consultancy AlixPartners said Monday.  China delivered 112,000 vehicles to Russia — roughly the same

LONDON — Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are joining Otro Capital and RedBird Capital Partners in an investor group taking a 24 percent equity stake in Alpine Racing, Renault Group’s Formula One team, Renault said in a statement. The 200-million-euro ($218.10 million) deal values British-based Alpine Racing at around $900 million following the

MUNICH — German supplier Allgaier, whose customers include Porsche, has filed for insolvency, a court said on Wednesday, a year after being sold to a Chinese investor. The Goeppingen district court said it had appointed Pluta law firm’s Fritz Zanker as provisional insolvency administrator. Allgaier, which has about 1,700 employees, supplies major automakers with sheet

Volkswagen Group is trying to build up a leading battery maker to supply its ever-expanding fleet of electric vehicles — a feat so challenging it’s leading to sleepless nights at the automaker. The cell plants VW is setting up in Germany, Spain and Canada will underpin its shift away from the combustion engine. The automaker

Former Volvo Cars Chief Technology Officer Henrik Green has joined Swedish autonomous truck startup Einride. Green will be general manager of autonomous technologies at the company, which last year received regulatory approval to operate its self-driving truck in the U.S. Einride in 2019 became the first company in the world to deploy an autonomous, electric

Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume has promised to revive the fortunes of Audi after admitting the brand’s lineup was “lagging the competition,” particularly when it came to electric vehicles. As part of a shakeup at the Audi Group, which also includes the Bentley, Lamborghini and Ducati marques, the brands have been reclassified as “progressive” in

LONDON — The MG Cyberster all-electric sports car will lead new model launches at the performance-themed Goodwood Festival of Speed in July. MG’s Chinese parent company, SAIC, is giving the roadster its global physical debut at Goodwood to honor MG’s British roots. The Cyberster was revealed at the Shanghai auto show in April but only

Automotive News Europe honors the winners of the 2023 Rising Stars awards. We will showcase a winner each day through July 11. The Rising Star for Engineering is Fiona Coulter, who is Toyota Europe’s head of vehicle performance engineering 1. For her full profile click here. The 2023 Rising Stars winners were honored in Paris

SEOUL – Renault’s South Korean unit plans to add infrastructure at its plant in the southeastern city of Busan to build electric vehicles, the city’s government said. The automaker aims to produce 200,000 EVs a year at its Busan facilities, a statement issued by the city cited Renault Group Executive Vice President Guido Haak as

European new-car registrations increased 18 percent in May, as demand for electric cars outpaced the broader market. Registrations in the EU, EFTA and U.K. markets were 1.12 million vehicles compared with 948,815 in the same month last year, according to data from industry association ACEA. The increase was the 10th consecutive month of rises. Sales

Volkswagen Group is giving its brands including Audi and Skoda more independence on cost savings and efficiencies to make the automaker more nimble in the electric-vehicle shift and improve returns. The group has set “performance programs” for each brand, allocating them capital and setting a specific return on sales target, but delegating responsibility to the

Global Auto Holdings plans to buy British car dealership chain Lookers for about 465 million pounds ($595 million) in cash. Lookers is Europe’s fifth-largest auto retail group, according to Automotive News Europe’s Guide to Europe’s Biggest Dealers. Global Auto Holdings values Lookers at 120 pence per share, a premium of 35 percent to the stock’s

TOKYO — Suzuki has reached an agreement with Japanese aircraft maker SkyDrive to make “flying cars.” The companies will use a Suzuki Group factory in central Japan to make electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and aim to begin production by around spring next year, SkyDrive said in a statement. SkyDrive will establish a

Automotive News Europe honors the winners of the 2023 Rising Stars awards. We will showcase a winner each day through July 11. The Rising Star for Sustainability is Jean-Philippe Bahuaud, who is Valeo’s Chief technology officer and senior vice president strategy, marketing, innovation, public affairs and sustainability. For his full profile click here. The 2023

Intel will invest more than 30 billion euros ($33 billion) in Germany as part of its expansion push in Europe. The U.S. chip maker will receive 10 billion euros in German subsidies toward the project, a person familiar with the matter said. The deal in Germany is Intel’s third big investment in four days, following

Automotive News Europe honors the winners of the 2023 Rising Stars awards. We will showcase a winner each day through July 11. The Rising Star for Sustainability is Jean-Philippe Bahuaud, who is CEO of Renault subsidiary The Future Is Neutral. For his full profile click here. The 2023 Rising Stars winners were honored in Paris

VELIZY, France — New Citroen CEO Thierry Koskas has set a target of 1 million annual sales by 2025, with 700,000 of those in Europe, and a 5 percent market share in Europe. The Stellantis brand has lost market share and sales in recent years. Sales were down 16.4 percent in Europe (including the UK,

Volkswagen Group will face investors hungry for answers at its capital markets day next Wednesday on how it will achieve high cost-cutting targets and whether it will heed their calls for an independent audit of its co-owned Xinjiang plant in China. Pressure is high after a turbulent shareholder meeting in May where activists interrupted proceedings

PARIS — Ford‘s dealer network in Europe is still “oversized” and will have to shrink in coming years, a top company executive said. “Overall our dealer network is oversized, we have to restructure,” Martin Sander, head of Ford’s passengers cars business in Europe, told the Automotive News Europe Congress here on Wednesday. Ford is exiting

Automakers have been packing their cars with more and more technology, but it might be time to start cutting back on features that aren’t useful to buyers, says Ned Curic, chief technology officer at Stellantis. “There are now safer cars, more reliable cars, but at the same time we’ve overcomplicated so many things,” Curic said

PARIS — VinFast has had to do a lot more in-house and in its home market than it expected to keep pace with its ambitious timelines to launch the brand in Europe and the United States. The reason for this include the COVID-19 pandemic, the chip shortage and volatile prices for raw materials. Therefore, the

VELIZY, France — The next generation of Citroen’s best-selling C3 small hatchback will be a full-electric model built in Europe that will sell for less than 25,000 euros, said Thierry Koskas, the brand’s new CEO. The model, which will be called the e-C3, will have big shoes to fill, said Koskas, who replaced Vincent Cobee

PARIS — Hyundai Europe will not follow Tesla and cut the prices of its full-electric models to preserve residual values.   “You have to have a logic in your pricing,” Hyundai Europe CEO Michael Cole told the the Automotive News Europe Congress here on Wednesday. “Our logic takes into account competitiveness, sales targets and profitability

BERLIN — Volkswagen Group‘s namesake passenger car brand plans to increase earnings by around 10 billion euros ($10.82 billion) by 2026 by improving efficiency and lowering costs. The brand aims to more than double profitability to 6.5 percent as part of the program. VW brand’s returns in the first quarter weakened to 3 percent from

Russia’s top automaker AvtoVAZ has asked a regional prison service to help it plug a labor shortage with people sentenced to forced labor as it tries to meet increased production targets. Russia’s unemployment rate dropped to a record low 3.3 percent in April, highlighting the labor shortage that is stifling economic growth. A partial mobilization

Nineteen young and talented automotive executives on Tuesday received their Rising Star awards from Automotive News Europe at a gala awards dinner in Paris. Since the program was started in 2011, Automotive News Europe has awarded more than 230 Rising Stars. The 13th annual Rising Stars awards recognize fast-climbing auto leaders who are already taking

TOKYO – When Toyota convenes its annual shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday, the world’s biggest automaker will be bracing for rare investor backlash, with some pension groups even voting against the appointment of longtime leader Akio Toyoda as company chairman. The normally staid and tightly scripted event, traditionally held at Toyota’s global headquarters in Toyota City,

STOCKHOLM — Autoliv expects to meet or exceed its medium-term business growth target while reiterating all of its financial goals for this year, a week after announcing around 8,000 job cuts to save costs. The world’s largest maker of airbags and seatbelts said that due to price increases to offset high-cost inflation, its business expansion

WARSAW — Poland will appeal against European Union rules to end the sale of fossil fuel cars across the bloc from 2035 to the top EU court within days, the country’s climate minister Anna Moskwa said. A package of EU regulations approved earlier this year aims at launching a new carbon market to rein in