Nearly a half year after the unexpected resignation of Carlos Tavares, the founding chief executive of Stellantis, the Euro-American automaker has yet to name a replacement. But the search may be coming to an end, according to a new report which says Antonio Filosa, currently the head of Americas operations for Stellantis, has become the leading candidate.
Negotiators for the U.S. and UK reached what the two sides hailed as a “historic” trade deal Thursday, leading Pres. Donald Trump to slash tariffs on British steel, autos and auto parts. Final details still have to be worked out, according to several reports, but the deal puts a 100,000-vehicle cap on British auto exports to the U.S. which falls below the numbers reported in 2024 by the UK’s largest brands, Jaguar, Land Rover and Mini. The deal does not appear to meet a key Trump goal of shifting foreign manufacturing to the U.S. More from Headlight.News.
Waymo and Toyota are teaming up. The Japanese giant will help develop a new autonomous vehicle platform for the Google spin-off which has become the U.S. leader in driverless ride-sharing technology. The announcement comes days after VW and Uber revealed their own autonomous alliance. More from Headlight.News.
Volkswagen is teaming up with Uber to field what eventually could be thousands of fully driverless ID.Buzz microbuses. The first should show up on Los Angeles streets next year. Headlight.News has more.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is getting ready to punch his way into the auto industry, with what several sources tell Headlight.News will be a new all-electric pickup set to start as low as $25,000. Expected to be called Slate Auto, the start-up will use Amazon’s online power to market the new vehicle. More from Headlight.News.
Tesla sales for the first quarter of 2025 fell to their lowest level in three years, even as overall EV command continued to rise worldwide. The plunge reflected a growing backlash against Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s political shift to the far right and his role as head of the Trump administration’s controversial Department of Government Efficiency. Headlight.News has this breaking story.
In an unexpected move, Jim Rowan is stepping down at CEO of Swedish-based, Chinese-automaker Volvo Cars. He will be replaced by Hakan Samuelsson, who previous served in that role from 2012 to 2022. The move comes at a time when Volvo is aggressively moving to EVs but also faces a variety of tariff issues in the U.S. and Europe. More from Headlight.News.
Hyundai Motor Group plans to invest $21 billion for a variety of U.S.-based projects, including steel production and the expansion of its U.S. automotive production to 1.2 million vehicles annually. That more than doubles what the South Korean has invested since entering the U.S. market in 1986. More from Headlight.News.
The accounting of Tesla’s capital spending and assets, particularly what appears to be a missing $1.4 billion, are prompting new questions about spending by the company and its uber-wealthy CEO Elon Musk.
General Motors and Hyundai are said to be in talks that would lead to significant product sharing in the pickup and commercial EV van segments, according to a new report. Such a move would expand on the alliance the two automakers recently announced focusing on hydrogen fuel-cell technology. More from Headlight.News.
Best known as the manufacturer of Apple’s iPhone, Foxconn is reportedly locking down a deal to produce battery-electric vehicles with two Japanese automakers. Details have yet to be revealed but Mitsubishi appears to be one of the new partners and there is speculation Foxconn may be working out arrangements with either Nissan or Honda, those two Japanese automakers having failed to secure their own merger deal. More from Headlight.News.
Nissan has again shaken up its top management team, this time appointing Ivan Espinosa as its new CEO. He replaces Makoto Uchida who, critics said, failed to reverse the ongoing decline of Japan’s second-largest automaker. The automaker’s chairman warned the new chief executive will face a “challenging start” during a Tokyo news conference that also revealed a number of other senior management changes.