Europe

BMW’s Vision Neue Klasse full-electric concept that will be unveiled next month will showcase a near production-ready car, CEO Oliver Zipse said. The production version will be on roads soon, Zipse added during an earnings call on Thursday. Zipse described the Neue Klasse battery-electric platform as a “megaproject” within BMW. “It is about nothing less

BMW reported significantly higher revenues for the first half at 74 billion euros ($80.87 billion), due in part to the integration of its Chinese joint venture BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA) as well as higher sales and pricing. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) came in at 9.7 billion euros, up 43 percent, but net profit

The Fremantle Highway, the car carrier ship that caught fire off the Dutch coast last week, could generate a cargo loss of more than $330 million, said Patrick Anderson, an economist with Anderson Economic Group. “It does appear after multiple days of fire that it is likely that all of the cars are a total

TOKYO – Electric-vehicle latecomer Subaru is dramatically stepping up the pace in the global electrification race, planning now to build EVs in the U.S. from around 2027 and sell some 400,000 battery-powered cars in the U.S. by 2028 – a volume amounting to nearly half its current U.S. sales. New CEO Atsushi Osaki, in announcing

Stellantis plans to start producing its first flex-hybrid vehicles powered by ethanol and electricity in Brazil by 2024, in an effort to come out ahead in the competition for the EV market in Latin America’s largest economy. Stellantis has three prototypes combining electric with ethanol engines and one purely electric, according to Antonio Filosa, the

MILAN — Maserati will never start or get involved in a price war with competitors, CEO Davide Grasso said. “We would be completely strategically off-balance if we did that,” Grasso told a press briefing on Friday. “Pricing is a very critical element in general, but particularly for a luxury brand. That’s why it’s important that

MILAN — Lamborghini could sell 10,000 cars this year for the first time, its CEO said, as the luxury sports carmaker reported a rise in profit and revenues for the first half. The Italian brand, a subsidiary of Germany’s Volkswagen Group, sold 5,341 cars between January and June, up 4.9 percent on the same period

Volkswagen and Xpeng’s jointly developed electric vehicles will use Xpeng’s G9 ‘Edward’ platform, in a boost for the Chinese startup that analysts said could lift its sales and profitability. Xpeng will also receive so-called technology service revenue from Volkswagen from next year onwards, overturning a four-decade-old model of foreign automakers charging their Chinese partners for

A cargo ship carrying almost 3,800 cars and construction vehicles is likely to continue burning for days, according to the Dutch coast guard, which is leading efforts to contain the blaze. BMW and Mercedes-Benz each have several hundred cars among the cargo aboard the Fremantle Highway, which caught fire off the coast of the Netherlands

LOS ANGELES — Electric vehicles are crisscrossing the globe to reach their eager buyers, but the battery technology involved in the zero-emission automobiles is exposing under-prepared maritime shippers to the risk of hard-to-control fires, industry, insurance and emergency response officials said. That risk has been put under the spotlight by the burning car carrier drifting

Aston Martin has appointed Geely CEO Daniel Li to its board. The Chinese automaker is its third largest shareholder. Geely in May made a 234-million-pound ($299.4 million) investment in the British automaker, giving it the right to one board seat. As part of the transaction, Geely acquired a 17 percent stake in Aston Martin, purchasing

LONDON — MG has admitted it will probably cost the company more to build cars in a planned European factory compared with China but says the benefits will outweigh the negatives. “I expect it to be more expensive to build local, but when you sell 200,000 cars per year, it’s time,” said William Wang, MG

TOKYO — Toyota sold 5 percent more vehicles in the first half compared with the same period a year earlier, helped by an easing of semiconductor supply constraints and stronger demand in Japan. The company sold about 4.9 million vehicles globally in the six months through June, including its luxury Lexus brand, compared with about

Mercedes-Benz  said it is confident that China is a growth market for luxury electric vehicles in the long-term despite its economic recovery not progressing as expected, and that it was sticking to its strategy of not engaging in the price war. “I don’t think we should buy market share in China with irrational actions on

European automakers are concerned about an “invasion” of cheap Chinese electric cars into the region, prompting Renault to say that it was aiming to slash production costs for its electric models by 40 percent. Renault CFO Thierry Pieton said Thursday that the best way to fend off price competition was for the automaker to cut its

A fire blazed on a ship off the Dutch coast with nearly 3,000 vehicles on board on Wednesday, killing one member of the crew and injuring several others. The fire began on Tuesday night on the Panama-registered Fremantle Highway, which was en route from Germany to Egypt, forcing several crew members to jump overboard. Dutch

Volkswagen Group plans to invest $700 million in Xpeng and jointly develop electric vehicles in China as the German automaker fights to halt a sales slide in its most important market. VW Group will eventually hold a 4.99 percent stake in the Chinese EV maker via a capital increase and is getting an observer board

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government plans to spend 20 billion euros ($22 billion) to bolster semiconductor manufacturing in Germany in a push to shore up the country’s tech sector and secure supplies of critical components amid growing geopolitical tension. The money is to be distributed to German and international companies by 2027 and will be drawn