On the outskirts of Chongqing, western China’s largest city, sits a huge symbol of the country’s glut of car factories. It’s a complex of gray buildings, nearly a square mile in size. The thousands of employees who used to work there have moved on. Its crimson loading docks are closed. The facility, a former assembly […]
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Tesla is expected to report on Tuesday that it made less money in the first three months of the year because of its tepid car sales, reinforcing concern among investors that the company led by Elon Musk is losing ground in the market for electric vehicles. A slump in earnings was seen as inevitable after […]
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Automakers have been selling data about the driving behavior of millions of people to the insurance industry. In the case of General Motors, affected drivers weren’t informed, and the tracking led insurance companies to charge some of them more for premiums. I’m the reporter who broke the story. I recently discovered that I’m among the […]
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General Motors on Tuesday reported a big jump in profits for the first three months of the year, based on the strength of its gasoline vehicle business, and raised its outlook for the rest of the year. The company saw slow growth in electric vehicles, but robust sales of internal combustion vehicles, especially pickup trucks, […]
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By voting to join the United Automobile Workers, Volkswagen workers in Tennessee have given the union something it has never had: a factory-wide foothold at a major foreign automaker in the South. The result, in an election that ended on Friday, will enable the union to bargain for better wages and benefits. Now the question […]
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In a landmark victory for organized labor, workers at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee have voted overwhelmingly to join the United Automobile Workers union, becoming the first nonunion auto plant in a Southern state to do so. The company said in a statement late Friday that the union had won 2,628 votes, with 985 opposed, […]
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China’s car shipments to foreign markets have quintupled in the past four years. Its solar panels dominate global markets. Even exports in labor-intensive industries like furniture making, which China was once expected to lose to lower-wage countries, are surging. American and European leaders have become increasingly vocal that a flood of Chinese exports is swamping […]
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Last year, the United Auto Workers announced an ambitious plan to organize workers and unionize foreign-owned auto plants in the South. “One of our biggest goals coming out of this historic contract victory is to organize like we’ve never organized before,” Shawn Fain, the president of the U.A.W., said after winning significant wage and benefit […]
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After hearing complaints about streets filled with cars with expired temporary license tags, the mayor of St. Charles, Mo., invited his constituents to send in photos of bad plates. He received more than 4,100 in a year — from a city of about 71,000 people. A Washington, D.C., Council member wants to make it easier […]
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New John Deere tractors made their way last week through the sprawling port of Brunswick, Ga., their distinctive green paint glinting in the sunshine. Stevedores drove the tractors up a ramp into the belly of the Leo Spirit, a ship that would take them to Asia. As orderly as everything looked, the tractor convoy was […]
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Last fall the United Automobile Workers union won big pay increases from the Detroit automakers, and the impact rippled quickly through the nonunion auto plants scattered across the South. Afterward, Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Nissan, Hyundai and Tesla raised wages for their own hourly workers in the United States, none of whom are unionized. On production […]
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Tesla is in a bad spot. The world’s largest electric carmaker on Monday told employees it would lay off more than 10 percent of its work force, and two senior executives said they were leaving. Earlier this month Tesla announced a stunning drop in sales, delivering 387,000 cars worldwide in the first quarter, down 8.5 […]
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When Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, took office in 2021, he pledged that his government would shift his country’s relationship with China away from one of economic dependence. Three years later, talk of scaling back reliance on China has been replaced with calls for equal access to China’s market for foreign firms. That strategy puts the […]
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As sales of Teslas drop and demand for electric vehicles cools — even as more models enter the market — an increasing number of automakers are competing for a slice of a shrinking pie. Nearly 269,000 electric vehicles were sold in the United States in the first three months of this year, according to Kelley […]
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Tesla plans to lay off more than 10 percent of its work force in an effort to cut costs, Elon Musk, the automaker’s chief executive, told employees on Monday. The job cuts, amounting to about 14,000 people, come as the company faces increasing competition and declining sales. “As we prepare the company for the next […]
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Endorsing an antisemitic post on X. Withholding Starlink satellite internet service from Ukraine to prevent a drone attack on Russian forces. Reposting conspiracy theorists who claim that the Biden administration’s immigration policies are part of a plot to increase the number of people who vote Democrat. Elon Musk’s behavior and public statements have clearly offended […]
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Subaru broadcast its green bona fides in other ways, most of them extraneous to its actual products. Between “shows,” the automaker ran ads about its various charitable initiatives. “As forest fires keep raging, the need for replanting keeps growing,” read one clip about Subaru’s contributions to the National Forest Foundation, set against the backdrop of […]
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Zwickau, a city in Germany’s east, may not be as famous as Detroit, but its economy has revolved around internal combustion engines since August Horch established Audi here at the beginning of the 20th century. So when Volkswagen announced in 2018 that it would convert its Zwickau factory, the largest private employer in the area, […]
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Tesla on Monday settled a lawsuit that blamed the automaker’s driver-assistance software for the death of a California man in 2018, averting a trial that would have focused attention on the company’s technology several months before it plans to unveil a self-driving taxi. The trial stemming from the death of Wei Lun Huang, an Apple […]
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We’re at an inflection point in electric-car optimism. Over the past few years, as electric vehicle sales increased substantially and car companies announced an onslaught of new battery-powered models, it seemed that electric cars were a near-term inevitability. But for all the heady promise, E.V. enthusiasm seems to be cooling. Ford recently announced that it’s […]
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Ford Motor on Thursday delayed the production of at least two new electric cars and said it would pivot to making more hybrids. Its decision was the latest sign that large automakers have been forced to rethink their strategy for electric vehicles because sales for those models are slowing. The shift by Ford and other […]
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NASA will be renting some cool wheels to drive around the moon. Space agency officials announced on Wednesday that they have hired three companies to come up with preliminary designs for vehicles to take NASA astronauts around the lunar south polar region in the coming years. After the astronauts return to Earth, these vehicles would […]
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Tesla, which has been accustomed to brisk growth, reported a drop in car sales during the first three months of the year as models from other automakers appeared to gain ground. The company led by Elon Musk said it delivered 387,000 cars worldwide in the first quarter, down 8.5 percent from 423,000 vehicles in the […]
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Here’s where the new rules come in. Perhaps most importantly, standards for larger cars were weakened from those in the initial proposal released last spring. The initial rule outlined that the medium-duty fleet would be subject to emissions targets of 438 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, or g/mi, for model year 2027 and 275 g/mi in […]
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American autos aren’t bigger because consumers have suddenly embraced off-roading, the construction trades, or home improvement projects. They’re bigger because automakers want to escape regulations. Each manufacturer is required to comply with boutique greenhouse gas emissions standards, which are calculated based on the size and capabilities of the cars in their fleets. Smaller cars are […]
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