Buying and selling cars has drastically changed over the past decade. The worldwide pressure of going green has incentivized the auto industry to invest more heavily in electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing. With some manufacturers moving to all EV production, and some EV makers taking a new approach to selling their vehicles, traditional car dealerships are facing new challenges.
Which Manufacturers Are Going Green?A handful of vehicle manufacturers have made it a goal to change production to only Electric Vehicles within the next decade or two. General Motors is one of them. They plan to be all EV by the year 2035. Volvo also made the commitment to go fully green by 2030. Other companies, like Ford, do not expect to be rid of gas-powered vehicles in their lines until 2040. These industry changes don’t just affect vehicle manufacturers. Companies like FedEx and Uber are also having internal discussions about how quickly to adopt EV technology and
Tesla Motors Inc., the world’s best-performing automotive stock this year, will join the Nasdaq-100 Index next week, filling the spot vacated by Oracle Corp., which is moving to the New York Stock Exchange.
The electric-car maker will be added to the gauge, which tracks the biggest companies on the Nasdaq, before the start of trading on July 15, Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. said in a statement Monday. Oracle, which last month said it will join the NYSE, is the biggest company to jump between the competing exchanges.
Shares of Tesla, the carmaker headed by billionaire Elon Musk, have more than tripled this year as the popularity of its new Model S sedan helped the company turn its first quarterly profit. Gaining entry to benchmarks tracked by investors is attractive to public companies because it provides a guaranteed shareholder base.
“It’s a coming of age, recognition that a
The Toyota Camry and the Honda Civic, the top-selling mid-size and compact cars in the U.S., face risks of reduced production as inventories of the models rise, an RBC Capital Markets report said.
Toyota’s Camry exceeded its seasonal historical average inventory by more than 15 days supply in June and Honda carried about 25 days more Civics than usual, Joseph Spak, a New York-based analyst for RBC, said in today’s report. Camry and Civic were the only models identified as at risk for reduced output among 16 of the top-selling vehicles in the U.S. market. General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC all added U.S. market share in the first six months of 2013, the first time that all three gained first-half share in 20 years. Models such as GM’s Chevrolet Cruze compact and Ford’s Fusion mid-size sedan, leading Detroit’s most competitive set of
Fiat exercises option to buy additional 3.3% of Chrysler shares
Purchase brings closer a merger of the two automakers
Fiat today exercised an option to raise its stake in Chrysler by 3.3 percent.
The move is part of CEO Sergio Marchionne’s step-by-step purchases intended to lead to full control of Chrysler and the creation of a merged company that would be able to compete better with industry leaders Toyota, General Motors and Volkswagen.
Fiat has been exercising options since mid-2012 to buy holdings of about 3.3 percent from the VEBA, a medical-benefits trust for the U.S. carmaker’s retirees.
Including today’s purchase, Fiat has exercised three of its six-monthly options, increasing its stake to 68.49 percent.
Fiat has said it wants full control of Chrysler, which would give it access to some of Chrysler’s cash flow for investments in new models.
Chrysler has become Fiat’s most reliable profit generator as the Italian company struggles to end losses in Europe that totaled 704 million euros ($903 million) [...]
