Top News:
- Japan Earthquakes Rattle Toyota’s Supply Chain – WSJ: The vulnerabilities of the tight supply chain at Toyota Motor Corp. … Shares in Japanese auto makers fell on Monday, including Toyota, which dropped…
- Japan’s quakes will rattle economic output – CBS News: “That kind of lesson has been learned,” said Nissan Motor (NSANY) spokesman Dion Corbett. “We now have maps that show where exactly the…
- Unusual quake cluster worries Japan – Nikkei:
- Rising Lithium Prices Threaten to Short-Circuit EV Market – Detroit Bureau: The plunging price of petroleum isn’t the only thing threatening to derail demand for battery-based vehicles, rising lithium prices could endanger battery production.
- SUVs gaining market share in Europe – Just-auto: Analysis by JATO of new car sales figures for the five largest national markets in Europe – Germany, UK, Italy, France and Spain – shows that Q1 sales totalled 2.89m units, some 8% ahead of last year. JATO said that strong sales of SUVs continued, with SUVs seeing sales growth of 22% during March, and an overall 25% increase in Q1 of 2016.
- Renault aims to double Morocco suppliers by 2023 – Just-auto: Renault says it is looking to increase its local supplier content in Morocco from its current 40% to 65% by 2023 as well as add up to a further 30 new…
- Toyota, Sony Operations Hit by Japan Earthquakes – Fortune: Toyota shares fell 5% after an analyst said its operating profit this quarter might fall by $280 million. The company was halting production at plants…
- Renault’s Ghosn cedes Avtovaz chairmanship to Rostec exec – Reuters: Ghosn has served as chairman since 2013, when Renault and Nissan moved to take joint control. (Reporting by Laurence Frost and Gilles Guillaume…
- Mahindra to launch electric-only UK line-up – Autocar: Mahindra’s Formula E racer will help its road car tech
- Seat launches digital museum to showcase its heritage – Autocar: Youth-orientated Volkswagen Group subsidiary celebrates its heritage, but for now there’s no retro halo model on the way
- Volkswagen CV global Q1 2016 sales up 4.3% – Just-auto: In the first three months of 2016, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles delivered 113,100 vehicles to customers worldwide, a year on year growth of 4.3%…
- Marchionne’s Merger Fixation – Bloomberg: Unlike GM or VW or Toyota, FCA lacks the financial resources to invest sufficiently in technologies like autonomous driving, electric vehicles or…
- Ford Mustang EcoBoost sales to catch up with V8 – Autocar: Ford expects the 2.3-litre EcoBoost version of its new Mustang to account for half of sales by the time the model reaches the end of its production life,…
- Japan quake forces Toyota to suspend production – Detroitnews: Toyota Motor Corp., the most heavily affected of the big car makers, has … Toyota’s Japan output will drop by 50,000 vehicles in April, or about 7…
- Is Sir Peter Blake’s Bentley Continental GT your favourite art car? – Autocar: British pop artist applies multi-coloured paint job to V8 S Convertible; it joins a long list of art cars
- Pirelli warn they could leave F1 if no test deal – Reuters: Pirelli won a tender for the 2017-19 contract in October but that has yet to be signed off with the International Automobile Federation (FIA) due to the…
- AvtoVAZ outlines expected board changes – Just-auto: Renault-Nissan and Rostec State Corporation say they expect to appoint Serguey Skvortsov as AvtoVAZ chairman, with Denis Le Vot elected as vice chairman following the Russian automaker’s annual shareholder meeting on 23 June in Togliatti.
- GM, Ford shares could surge at least 25%: Barron’s – CNBC: Shares of General Motors and Ford Motor could rise at least 25 percent in the next year, with U.S. auto sales likely to come in stronger than many…
- Harman develops blind spot detection system – Just-auto: Harman has developed a new safety system to help eliminate blind spots, which it says kill or injure 15,000 pedestrians a year in the US.