A continuing dispute between Jeep parent company Stellantis and a parts supplier derailed production of the new Jeep Cherokee, according to a lawsuit filed in Michigan on Wednesday. Stellantis said in the lawsuit that a factory in Toluca, Mexico has been shut down since March 14 because of a payment dispute with the supplier, ZF Chassis Modules. The Mexican factory makes the Jeep Compass and Cherokee sport-utility vehicles.

Source: Wall Street Journal

About to cost automaker finance companies billions of dollars

A wave of leased electric vehicles is returning to market with a problem: They’re each worth thousands of dollars less than expected and could create industry losses in the billions. That’s prompted automaker finance arms to adapt their operations to limit losses before off-lease EV volumes peak in 2028 at nearly 800,000 vehicles. And they willeed dealers and wholesale auctions to resell the vehicles to help reduce the shortfalls. “It is a new frontier in this business as we start seeing them come off lease,” said John Thacker, president of Chase Auto’s private label captive finance. Source: Automotive News

Why are so many EVs coming off lease this year?

A flood of off-lease electric vehicles are headed for the used-vehicle market in 2026 after years of low monthly payments — made possible by federal EV tax credits — drove higher leasing rates. To understand how a leasing boom created the growing used-EV supply, experts look back at EV lease prices, how the tax credits incentivized leasing over purchasing in some situations and the affordability constraints in the new-vehicle market that shaped car buyers’ options.

Source: Automotive News

Hyundai Motor Co. plans to launch 36 “new or enhanced models” in the North America market between 2026 and 2030, CEO and president José Muñoz announced at the company’s annual general shareholder meeting in Korea, according to a press release. The new models will be a mix of ICE, hybrids, electric vehicles and extended range electric powertrains to meet what Hyundai said was “evolving customer demands across the region.”

Source: Wards Auto

Colorful cars may be making a comeback. Look at almost any parking lot, and you can see it. Nearly 80 percent of American new-car buyers currently choose a neutral "grayscale" hue—white, black, or silver/gray. But more daring colorways are emerging. "Trend data clearly shows the palette evolving rather than stagnating," says Gloria Jover, automotive expert for the New Jersey-based Pantone Color Institute. Notably, the market share of colored car paints has increased by almost two percentage points in recent years. This is a significant reversal of 21st-century trends, an era in which the automotive palette has become half as colorful as it was just two decades ago.

Source: Car and Driver

Spoiled plutocrats had been parking on the sidewalks and shrugging off the fines.

Mayfair is an affluent, prestigious district in London's affluent, prestigious West End, known for its elegance, luxury shopping (Bond Street, Savile Row), fancy restaurants, art galleries, exclusive clubs, historic architecture, and proximity to Hyde Park, making it a hub of sophistication, culture, and wealth in the center of town. But to those who can afford to live there, or to stay in the five-star Chancery Rosewood Hotel in Grosvenor Square, parking is difficult. Despite the hotel’s valet parking, many have opted to just abandon their Rolls-Royces, Lamborghinis, and Gelandewagons on the sidewalk.

These poor parkers have been insulated by wealth for generations, and to them a £160 parking ticket is chump change. And if their car’s registered in a foreign state, as many are in Mayfair, they can ignore with impunity. So the Westminster City Council decided to start plucking the poorly parked supercars off the street with a crane—one of those hoists on the back of a flatbed that yanks the mega-bucks mobiles off the pavement and places them gently on the back of the truck, to be re-parked blocks away. Max Sullivan, cabinet member for streets at the council, told the Daily Mail, “Those on foot shouldn’t have to run a gauntlet of illegally and selfishly parked supercars when trying to walk around Westminster “We will not tolerate dangerous pavement parking, whether it’s a Lime bike or a Lamborghini.”

The local town council said it had been “inundated” with reports of the “selfishly parked” supercars clogging up the pavement, according to the The Sun newspaper in London. Parking tickets had made no dent in the behavior, the authority said. The standard penalty charge notices for bad parking costs between £110 and £160 in Westminster, or $150 to $215. Not much when you consider that the entry level for a Rolls-Royce is around $350,000.

Source: Autoweek

 General Motors has temporarily laid off 1,300 workers at its Factory ZERO EV plant, underscoring continued softness in demand for battery-powered vehicles, the company said Monday. The layoffs took effect on March 16 at the Detroit-Hamtramck facility, with employees expected to return on April 13. The move follows GM’s October announcement that it would lay off 3,400 workers at EV and battery plants as it works to align production and reduce losses tied to electric vehicles.

Source: CBT News

Mercedes-Benz plans to pump $4 billion into its Alabama factory through 2030, with the bulk of the spending dedicated to localizing production of its top-selling U.S. nameplate, the GLC crossover. The German luxury maker revealed the investment March 31, a year after it began paying President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Mercedes previously confirmed that it will build the compact GLC at its sprawling assembly plant near Tuscaloosa starting in late 2027. GLC output at the plant primarily will be for the North American market. AutoForecast Solutions projects that Mercedes will launch GLC production in November 2027 and assemble about 50,000 in the first 12 months.

Source: Automotive News

Ford Motor Co. is working to keep its most popular and highly-profitable F-Series pickup populating dealership lots by hiring hundreds of new workers at one plant and speeding up the assembly line, adding a shift at another plant and declaring that four plants, including Dearborn Truck Plant, will run through summer — that means skipping the annual one-week of downtime often taken in June or July. The F-Series pickups have been in short supply this year, despite the automaker saying in December it will add a third shift at its Dearborn Truck Plant.

Source: Detroit Free Press

Hyundai will build body-on-frame trucks in the U.S., expanding the Korean brand’s lineup into previously unexplored segments. The brand unveiled its body-on-frame vision with the Boulder concept, an off-road-capable SUV in the realm of the Ford Bronco, April 1 at the New York International Auto Show. “We are dreaming bigger than ever,” Hyundai Executive Vice President SangYup Lee said. “We will continue to develop and build desirable products in the U.S., for the U.S. This is only the beginning.” Hyundai said the body-on-frame architecture will support a midsize pickup arriving in 2029. It will be one of 36 new Hyundai vehicles for North America by 2030, CEO Jose Muñoz said.

Source: Automotive News

Because Global Demand, Regulations Leave ‘No Choice,’ U.S. CEO Says

While other automakers cancel some electric vehicles, Mercedes-Benz is plowing forward with its bet on battery technology. The German luxury brand plans to deliver multiple EVs in the U.S. in the next three years, including a trio of AMG performance models and zero-emission variants of its volume GLC crossover and E-Class sedan. Mercedes-Benz USA CEO Adam Chamberlain said bailing on EVs is not an option given the stringent government mandates the automaker has to comply with overseas.

Source: Automotive News