Europe

The cargo ship that caught fire in the Atlantic while transporting roughly 4,000 Volkswagen Group vehicles to the U.S. has sunk despite efforts to tow it to safety. The Felicity Ace sank 220 nautical miles off the coast of Portugal’s Azores Islands around 9 a.m. local time on Tuesday after being battered by waves and

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

Stellantis paid the estate of former Fiat Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne more last year than Carlos Tavares, the automaker’s current CEO. The Jeep, Ram and Peugeot maker paid Marchionne’s estate 26 million euros ($29.1 million), compared with the 19.2 million-euro compensation for Tavares, Stellantis said in its annual report. The sum set aside for the

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

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents a “substantial risk” to the recovery of global light-vehicle sales this year, auto industry consultants J.D. Power and LMC Automotive said in a joint forecast on Friday. The consultants cut their sale forecast by 400,000 to 85.8 million units, also due to rising oil and aluminum prices that could discourage

FRANKFURT/BERLIN — Volkswagen Group and its top shareholder Porsche Automobil Holding SE have entered a framework agreement for a possible stock market listing of iconic sports car brand Porsche, edging closer to what could become one of the world’s largest stock market debuts. “The automotive industry is changing fundamentally. Volkswagen is determined to play a

Mercedes-Benz hopes to introduce Level 3 autonomous driving in the U.S. this year, CEO Ola Kallenius said, after winning certification in Germany for the technology last year. “It’s our objective to roll out this technology this year,” Kallenius told reporters on Thursday during Mercedes’ 2021 results call. Mercedes has been conducting tests in the U.S.

BERLIN — Audi is recalling 100,000 cars due to a problem that may not have been properly repaired in an initial call back and could now potentially lead to alterations in the wheel alignment of the rear axle. Audi recalled some A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, Q5, Q7, Q8 and e-tron models built between 2019

TURIN — Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said the automaker was able to reduce its break-even point to less than 50 percent of its installed production capacity in the final months of last year. It did so to protect Stellantis from “chaos” created by the combination of the chip shortage, rising raw materials prices and geopolitical

Former Opel CEO Michael Lohscheller has been hired by Nikola as president and tasked with helping the U.S. electric truck maker ramp up production. Lohscheller joins Nikola after a short stint as CEO of VinFast Global, the automotive arm of Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup. Lohscheller arrived at VinFast in July 2021 but stepped down five months

PARIS — Any sanctions imposed on Russia for its actions in Ukraine by the U.S. and allies could affect Europe’s biggest automakers, including Renault Group, Volkswagen Group and Stellantis. All three have significant operations in Russia. Renault Group has the most exposure with its controlling stake in AvtoVAZ, maker of Lada, long the market leader

The cargo ship that caught fire last week carrying about 4,000 Volkswagen Group vehicles could cost the automaker at least $155 million, according to one consultant’s estimate. Of the roughly $438 million total value of goods aboard the Felicity Ace, which went up in flames off the coast of Portugal’s Azores Islands, Russell Group said

ZF Friedrichshafen is poised to overtake Continental as the supplier rivals navigate fierce headwinds to tackle the disruptive shift to electric and self-driving vehicles. ZF, which has customers including BMW and Porsche, met its profit-margin target last year amid a double-digit jump in revenue, even as the further fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and major

Ford Motor is looking at ways to separate its electric-vehicle operation from its century-old legacy business, hoping to earn the sort of investor respect enjoyed by Tesla and other electric-only brands. CEO Jim Farley wants to wall off Ford’s electric operations from its internal combustion engine business and has even considered spinning off one or