Toyota is recalling more than 1 million of its hybrid vehicles. A potential risk of fire from possible wearing away of wire harnesses connected to the cars’ power units has led the Japanese auto major to recall its Prius, Prius plug-in hybrid and C-HR SUV models.Recalled cars were produced between June 2015 and May 2018. Japan accounts for more than 50% of the vehicles recalled, while the U.S. has under 200,000 of them, and the remaining are in Europe and other markets. This follows Toyota’s  recall of  more than 1.7 million vehicles in 2016 over parking brakes and airbags issues.

Mercedes-Benz is set to launch battery-powered vehicles. The Daimler AG-owned brand will start production of the Mercedes EQC car in the first half of 2019 and it will be the first in its EQ electric line. Daimler AG’s Chief Executive Officer Dieter Zetsche said Tuesday that the company had planned to invest 10 billion euros ($12 billion) in developing electric vehicles, but the spending has exceeded that amount. Daimler plans to deliver 10 fully electric cars by 2022.Mercedes will spend 1 billion euros on battery production for eight facilities globally. Mercedes’ foray into the electric vehicle market potentially pitches it against Tesla, along with luxury carmakers Porsche, Audi and Jaguar that are also venturing into the space.  

Ford Motor Co. is dropping plans to import a new model from a China plant, as U.S.-China trade wars intensify. Earlier, Ford was planning to ship the Focus Active from China.Kumar Galhotra, Ford’s president of North America, has indicated that it would be too costly and hence sub-optimal for the business to bring the Ford Active model into the U.S. amidst the hike in tariffs.  

A study reveals that Ferrari has been the most profitable brand among car makers for the first six months of the year.According to the study, conducted by Duisburg (Germany) economics professor Ferdinand Dudenhoffer , Ferrari generated an operating profit of €69,000, or approximately $80,000, per every brand new car sold. Other luxury brands, Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover and Porsche raked in €800 ($927) per car and €17,000 ($19,715) per vehicle sold respectively in operating profits. Those experiencing losses include Bentley with €17,000 ($19,715) loss with each new car sold, and Tesla which loses about €11,000 ($12,757) with each new car sold.

Aston Martin wants to get listed on the London Stock Exchange. The 105-year old British luxury carmaker made the announcement on Wednesday.It might initially float a minimum of 25% of the company. In 2017, Aston Martin made £876 million ($1.1 billion) in revenues, which is a nearly 50% surge over the previous year.

In an announcement on Monday, Toyota unveiled its plans to invest $500 million in ride-sharing app company Uber to expand into the self-driving vehicle market. Uber is planning to integrate autonomous technology into Toyota Sienna minivans and start testing them out by 2021.During the International Consumer Electronics Show in January, the two companies had announced e-Palette, an autonomous vehicle project intended to serve various purposes including pizza delivery and ridesharing. We have seen similar partnerships made by Waymo (Alphabet’s self-driving technology subsidiary) with Chrysler and Jaguar Land Rover.  

Elon Musk does a 180-degree turn – by abandoning plans of taking Tesla private. Earlier this month, Musk’s tweet indicating that he had “secured funding” for taking Tesla private was apparently met with speculation and confusion among several people over the plan’s potential and/or impact on the company’s future.Musk is now focused on improving Model 3’s production and profitability, as mentioned in his post.  

Tesla, Inc.'s stock took a nose-dive on Friday, following Elon Musk’s ‘tearful’ interview to the New York Times. On August 7, Musk tweeted about “secured funding” at $420 for taking Tesla private.  Musk seemed emotional during the interview and said that this was the “the most difficult and painful year" of his career. Tesla’s stock plunged -9% on Friday  

It looks like Saudi Arabia’ sovereign wealth fund might have had a role behind Elon Musk’s decision to take Tesla private. In a blog on Monday, Musk wrote that Saudi Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund’s managing director nudged Musk about why Tesla was not yet private in a July 31 meeting.Not too long after the July 31 meeting, Musk tweeted on August 7  about wanting to go private with Tesla and confirming that he had “funding secured” at $420 per share. Musk also confirmed that the Saudi Arabia fund has invested in almost 5% stake in Tesla.

Is Tesla soon going to be a private company?Tuesday’s tweet from Elon Musk reads, “funding secured” at $420 per share. In his letter posted on Tesla’s blog, Musk said that he wants to turn Tesla into a private company because he is concerned that its stock price swings and short-selling on the market are potentially hammering the company’s prospects and could be hurting its employees who are shareholders. He wants to maintain his stake – 20% - in the company, while also encouraging existing shareholders to stay invested even if the company goes private.  

Just a day after China indicated that it is ready to retaliate if needed, the nation pulls up a list of $60 billion worth of U.S. imports that it plans to slap levies on should the U.S. go ahead with a tariff hike on Chinese imports. The list, released by China’s Ministry of Finance on Friday, includes 5,207 kinds of American imports on which tariff rates in the range of 5% to 25% would be applied - if U.S.President Donald Trump actually implements his proposed 25% tariff (versus the initial 10% rate) on $200 billion of Chinese goods. The U.S. proposed moving up the tariff rate apparently in hopes of getting more favorable trade terms for itself with China.

Two topics of conversations (both starting with the letter “T”) lead to broken families, lost friends or clients: President Trump and Tesla.We will not be commenting on the first topic but would like to add two cents to the second. Here are the main arguments why we believe in Tesla survivability: Tesla Model 3 is a beautiful great car; Elon Musk told us yesterday that Model 3 had (or soon would) be profitable; Mr.

By 2023, Volkswagen AG wants to start trial production of solid-state batteries, hoping to make electric cars economical. Partnering with QuantumScape Corp., the German automaker aims to produce solid electrolyte batteries – an alternative to liquid ones - to help cars store more energy and give more power to electric vehicles.The two firms' partnership might begin mass production of the batteries by 2024 or 2025. Battery cells at present are largely sourced from Asian manufacturers, but Volkswagen’s CEO Herbert Diess has indicated that the company is seeking to broaden its battery-producing scope and/or sourcing options for the long-term. Last year, Volkswagen expressed plans to invest more than 34 billion euros ($40 billion) over the subsequent five years to develop technology for next generation electric robo-taxis.

Tesla Inc. is reportedly thinking of investing $5 billion to set up a factory in China. According to a Bloomberg report, a person familiar with the matter (but unwilling to be identified as the plan is still private) said that the U.S. electric carmaker wants to raise some of the investment funds in China for building its factory near Shanghai.Production of Tesla’s Model 3 is expected to begin by 2020 in the China plant, according to the same person. With China being the largest market for electric cars, it looks like Tesla does not want to lose its sales to China’s tariffs on U.S.-made cars – something that might be attracting the U.S. carmaker towards Chinese soil for production.

The German auto behemoth exported around 81,000 cars from its South Carolina manufacturing unit to China last year, which contributed around $2.4 billion revenues for the company. BMW is one of the major players to have been hit by the U.S.-China ‘trade war’ in recent times.Following U.S. levies on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports, China retaliated by taxing an equal amount of American goods imported into its nation.  

He became famous predicting financial crisis of 2008 and was prominently featured in “The Big Short” movie. Now, he is shorting automaker Tesla as he admitted during his recent interview on CNBC.Here what he said about Elon Musk and his company: “He’s nowhere in autonomous driving, as far as I can tell, and big competition is coming in his space next year.” In addition, he also admitted that he is shorting an internet real estate platform, Zillow.

European car exporters can heave a sigh of relief - at least for now - as U.S.-EU trade talks result in U.S. President Donald Trump's deciding not to raise tariffs on car imports from the EU. Trump relaxes his tone on tariffs as he and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker promise each other to hold off levies as they both intend to work towards a “zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods," as mentioned by Trump.The talks included plans of expanding the American export market in the EU for goods such as U.S. liquefied natural gas and soybeans. Earlier this year, Trump had threatened to increase tariff rate on European cars to 25% - from 2.5% - in order to protect America’s national security.

Tariffs on imported metals force General Motors to go slow on its profit projections. The U.S. automaker has scaled back its forecast of this year’s earnings to about $6 a share, from a previous projection of  $6.50. The company's stellar earnings potential for 2018 (on the back of its solid equity earnings from its China business and record pretax profit from GM Financial) is apparently getting muted by U.S. tariffs slapped in June on steel and aluminum imports.The company faces $1 billion in raw material costs – almost twice its previous expectation.

In his latest tweet, U.S. President Donald Trump hopes that both the U.S. and EU  drop all tariffs, barriers and subsidies, ahead of his scheduled meet with EU trade chiefs. Last month, Donald Trump threatened to raise tariffs to 20% from 2.5% on cars imported from the EU into the U.S.Apparently aiming to temper trade tensions, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom will meet Trump on Wednesday to propose  a lowering of levies on automobiles and auto-parts among  all major car exporters (akin to a plurilateral agreement). On Tuesday night, Trump’s post on Twitter about the meeting reads, “I have an idea for them.

Harley-Davidson Inc. pared back its 2018 profit margin forecast. In a statement released Tuesday, the Milwaukee-based iconic motorcycle maker said that it has revised down its expectations for operating margin this year to 9-10% - compared to its previous forecast of 9.5-10.5%.The firm indicated the potential role of tariffs in raising costs and therefore eating away at profits as a reason behind the downward revision in margin projection. Last month, Harley had expressed its willingness to shift some its production overseas in order to avoid the European Union’s tariffs on American goods.