Automobile

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG plans to widen cost-saving efforts and standardise key technologies as the German manufacturer seeks to rival Tesla Inc. on electric cars and keep traditional rivals at bay. VW targets 1 million electric-vehicle sales this year and aims to become the global EV market leader by 2025 at the latest, the company said. By 2030, the share of …

Bloomberg BMW AG’s Mini brand will go all-electric from 2030 as the automaker intensifies its transition to battery-powered vehicles, according to people familiar with the matter. The iconic British brand will roll out its last combustion-engine variant in 2025, and around half of all Mini sales should be electric by 2027, one of the people said, declining to be named …

Bloomberg The autonomous-car artificial intelligence (AI) from Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo avoided or mitigated crashes in most of a set of virtually recreated fatal accidents, according to a white paper the company. The simulations were based on 72 fatal crashes that occurred between 2008 and 2017 in Chandler, Arizona, where Waymo currently operates a small-scale autonomous ride-hail service based on its …

Bloomberg China’s electric-car makers are paying top-dollar rents to open showrooms in luxury malls, as they seek to gain an edge in the hyper-competitive market. More than half the malls in Shanghai have at least one electric-vehicle showroom and more are planned, according to real-estate service provider Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. They are now part of the “standard configuration” of …

Bloomberg Bhavish Aggarwal surveys the empty 500-acre expanse encircled by neon-painted homes, tiny shrines and mango groves. The high-profile Ola founder hopes to erect the world’s largest electric scooter plant on this vacant plot on Bangalore’s outskirts within the next 12 weeks, cranking out about 2 million a year — a landmark for one of India’s largest startups. A two-and-a-half …

Bloomberg Volvo Cars set an ambitious goal to only sell battery cars by 2030, accelerating its plans after sales of electric vehicles surged. The Chinese-owned Swedish brand is rolling out a new lineup of electric cars and will unveil its second battery-only model later. Going one step further than recent rivals’ decisions on EVs, Volvo’s electric vehicles will be available …

Bloomberg Huawei Technologies Co. is planning to manufacture electric cars under its own brand, Reuters reported, as it shifts away from a consumer electronics business battered by US sanctions. The Chinese tech giant could roll out some models this year, Reuters said. Huawei is in talks with Chongqing Changan Automobile Co. and other carmakers to use their plants to manufacture …

Bloomberg Bentley isn’t the first brand that springs to mind when it comes to green driving. Tesla and Toyota have cornered that share of the market for now, flaunting electric-powered cars affordable for wide swaths of people who can overlook the appliance-like designs of the electric Model S and the Prius hybrid in favour of their fuel-efficient promise. But credit …

Bloomberg Hyundai Motor Co. will recall about 82,000 electric cars globally and take an almost $900 million hit after South Korean government found defects in some of vehicles’ battery cells. The recall will be for EV models of the Kona, as well as the Ioniq and the company’s Elec City buses, that were manufactured between November 2017 and March 2020, …

Bloomberg The global semiconductor shortage will slash earnings at General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. by about one-third this year as supply constraints hamper production and profits, Moody’s Investor Service estimates. The chip shortage will materially erode margins and could lower expected earnings before interest and taxes by as much as $2 billion for GM and $2.5 billion for …