Europe

Automotive News Europe honors the winners of the 2021 Rising Stars awards. Through Oct. 11, the 25 winners will be featured. The Rising Star for Digital is Diana Banozic, who is vice president product creation and industrial digital at Volvo Cars. For her full profile click here. The 2021 Rising Stars winners were honored on

Automotive News Europe honors the winners of the 2021 Rising Stars awards. Through Oct. 11, the 25 winners will be featured. The Rising Star for Design is Julie Schwieder, who is assistant chief color designer at Toyota Europe. For her full profile click here. The 2021 Rising Stars winners were honored on Sept. 6. To

Automotive News Europe honors the winners of the 2021 Rising Stars awards. Through Oct. 11, the 25 winners will be featured. The Rising Star for Customer Relationship Management is Stefanie Paetow, who is head of CRM at Audi. For her full profile click here. The 2021 Rising Stars winners were honored on Sept. 6. To

MUNICH — Hyundai is considering whether to expand its full-electric Ioniq sub-brand to smaller cars based on the E-GMP platform, including a successor to the Kona small SUV, the brand’s marketing chief said. “It would make sense to extend all the benefits associated with the E-GMP platform to smaller vehicles,” Thomas Schemera, global head of marketing

MUNICH – Renault’s Mobilize mobility services unit will roll out production versions of its purpose-built vehicles in 2022, starting with the Limo, a Chinese-built midsize electric sedan for ride-hailing and taxi companies. The Limo had its public debut this week at the Munich motor show, where it was displayed alongside prototype versions of the Hippo,

BEIJING — China’s market regulator has fined three auto chip sales companies for driving up prices, in a move to help auto production in the world’s biggest vehicle market. The State Administration for Market Regulations said on its website that it fined three local companies a total of 2.5 million yuan ($388,300). The companies are

MILAN — The U.S.-Chinese startup Silk-FAW showed its S9 plug-in hybrid hypercar concept at the 2021 Milan Design Week. The automaker will start production of the vehicle at the beginning of 2023 in a new plant near to the Italian city of Reggio Emilia. Construction work is expected to begin by the end of the

MUNICH — Semiconductor supplier Qualcomm is open to working with foundries in Europe if incentive programs to boost automotive chip production on the continent attract the right partners, CEO Cristiano Amon said. Foundries in Europe are now geared towards mass production of semiconductors, Amon told Reuters at the IAA Munich auto show, but there is

MUNICH — Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess is optimistic that there are sufficient funds, internal or external, to pull off its ambitious plan to build six large battery factories across Europe with partners by the end of the decade. “The required capital is available in the market. Northvolt has shown this,” Diess said on the

The executives chosen as 2021 Automotive News Europe Eurostars set themselves apart by exceeding expectations in a very challenging year. Frank Klein, president of Magna Steyr, is this year’s Eurostar winner for Supplier Division Head. For his full profile please click here. Automotive News Europe and Capgemini Invent will honor a new winner each weekday

MUNICH — Mercedes’ AMG performance arm expects its first full-electric car to win new fans for the subbrand with its quick acceleration and nimble handling. The subbrand unveiled the AMG EQS 53 4MATIC+ on Sunday, ahead of its public outing at the Munich auto show this week. Further all-electric AMG models will follow in the

Italy is in talks with the European Union on ways to shield supercar makers, including Ferrari and Lamborghini, from the planned phase-out of combustion engine vehicles by 2035. While the Italian government fully backs Europe’s commitment to cut emissions by phasing out the most-polluting engines, “in the gigantic cars market there is a niche, and

WASHINGTON — U.S. auto safety regulators are investigating a July 26 fatal crash in New York involving a Tesla that may have been using an advanced driver assistance system. In July, several media outlets reported that a 52-year-old man fixing a flat tire on the Long Island Expressway in New York was killed when he

HANGZHOU, China — “Do you know how big Volvo is?” asked Don Leclair, finance chief at Ford Motor. It was 2008, and Leclair was responding to an offer from a little-known Chinese businessman to purchase the Swedish carmaker, which Ford owned. The businessman, Li Shufu, had a company with less than half Volvo’s sales and

Volkswagen Group’s new EV family is being heralded by the UrbanRebel concept from the Cupra performance brand. The concept hints at an entry-level full-electric crossover that Cupra will launch in 2025. The car is a key strategic project for Cupra and the VW Group, Cupra CEO Wayne Griffiths said in a statement on Wednesday. “Our

MADRID — Renault will extend partial stoppages at its three assembly plants in Spain to the end of the year because of the global shortage of microchips. The company plans to halt production at its plant in Palencia, where it builds the Kadjar SUV and Megane compact car, for as many as 61 days and

PARIS — Stellantis is extending production halts at plants in Europe due to a shortage of microchips. Output will stay halted this week at PSA’s Rennes plant in France and Fiat’s SevelSud light commercial van plant in Italy, a Stellantis spokesperson said on Monday. The Rennes factory, which builds Peugeot and Citroen midsize cars, suffered

Japan’s Rohm says that vital semiconductors for automobiles and industrial machinery will likely remain in short supply at least throughout next year, adding to ominous warnings about further fallout from the global chip crisis. The Kyoto-based chipmaker, whose customers include Toyota, Ford and Honda, has been hampered by a severe shortage of key materials as

The Dacia Sandero small hatchback was Europe’s top-selling car in July as overall registrations in the region fell 24 percent, ending four months of growth. New-car sales fell to 967,830 last month from 1.27 million in July 2020, according to data from 26 European markets collected by JATO Dynamics. The Sandero had the No. 1

MILAN — Production at Stellantis’s Sevel plant in Italy, which makes light commercial vehicles for Fiat, Peugeot and Citroen, will be halted due to a shortage of chips. With a daily production of about 1,200 vans, the factory is the largest van assembly facility in Europe. The plant employs about 6,500 people and produces the

Gerd Klauss, a former executive with Mercedes-Benz who went on to head Audi of America and later Volkswagen Group of America, died Aug. 7 at his home in Southport, Connecticut. He was 76. A native of Germany, Klauss studied economics at universities in Freiberg and Bonn and at Harvard University in the U.S. He began

The organizers of the Geneva auto show and representatives from Qatar Tourism announced plans to host a Middle East version of the event in Doha, Qatar’s capital, in autumn 2023. The Qatar show will be held at the at Doha Exhibition and Convention Center and will take place every two years, while the Geneva show

Longtime global auto executive Bo Andersson, who once led General Motors’ massive global purchasing operations, has been appointed CEO of UzAuto Motors and UzAuto Motors Powertrain. Those two entities are the biggest manufacturing subsidiaries of UzAvtoSanoat, an auto company owned by Uzbekistan’s government that produces Chevrolet vehicles under a technical license agreement with GM. Andersson’s

STOCKHOLM — Volvo Cars will halt production at its Swedish plant in Torslanda, on the outskirts of Gothenburg, during next week due to the shortage of semiconductor chips, the automaker said. A global chip shortage over the past year has caused a major delay in manufacturing activity and forced several automakers to cut down on

First created to usher in a fully autonomous era of driving, lidar technology is now a cornerstone of the emerging driver-assist market. And lidar companies are drawing the attention of customers — and perhaps equally importantly, investors — as they race to make their systems better and less expensive. Old stalwarts and newcomers to the

Mate Rimac is used to being the underdog. At the Geneva auto show in 2009, the then-21-year-old Croat walked to the Koenigsegg booth looking for his idol, Christian Koenigsegg. In those pre-YouTube-saturation years, Rimac did not know what the namesake of his favorite car brand looked like. And no one knew him. So he approached

Volkswagen Group plants are set for a bumpy restart after the traditional summer break as the car industry remains in the grip of a chip shortage that most recently engulfed Toyota. The group’s Wolfsburg plant that builds the VW brand, is the world’s biggest employing about 60,000 people and will restart with only one shift

PARIS — Stellantis said it will halt production at its plant in Rennes, western France, next week due to a global chip shortage. The automaker, formed in January from the merger of PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, also said it will partially stop output at its plant in Sochaux in eastern France.

Formula E champions Mercedes will withdraw from the all-electric series in 2022 to concentrate on Formula One. The company said it will end its involvement as a team entrant and manufacturer at the end of Season 8, in August 2022. “Moving forward, the company will concentrate its works motorsport activities on Formula 1, reinforcing the

Mining giant Glencore acquired a stake in Britishvolt, allowing the UK battery maker to secure long-term supplies of key material cobalt. Britishvolt is building the UK’s first giant battery factory in northern England. It will produce batteries for electric vehicles, with demand set to grow as the UK bans sales of new gasoline- and diesel-powered