Nissan Posts Record Annual Loss Due to Pandemic, Chip Shortage
Nissan Motor Cop. reported a record annual loss on Tuesday as the coronavirus pandemic hit vehicle sales and a global shortage of semiconductors forced the automaker to cut production, reports Automotive News. Nissan said in a statement that its annual operating loss grew in the year ended March 31 to 150.65 billion yen ($1.38 billion) from a 40 billion yen shortfall in the previous year. The automaker has not made a profit since the year ended March 2019. However, it beat its February forecast of a 205 billion yen loss because of a sales recovery in China and cost cutting. The global auto industry has been grappling with a chip shortage since the end of last year, exacerbated in recent months by a fire at a chip plant in Japan and blackouts in Texas, where a number of chipmakers have factories. Read more here (Source: Automotive News).
Subaru's Fiscal-Year Profit Plunges by Half
Subaru’s fiscal-year operating profit plunged by more than half as the Japanese automaker battled the pandemic, microchip shortages, foreign exchange losses, and rising costs, reports Automotive News. Subaru Corp.’s operating profit fell to 102.5 billion yen ($930.2 million) in the fiscal year ended March 31, from 210.3 billion yen ($1.91 billion) the previous year, the company said on Tuesday. The all-wheel-drive niche player also said net income tumbled by about half to 76.5 million ($694.3 million) in fiscal year. Revenue declined 15 percent to 2.830 trillion yen ($25.68 billion) in the 12-month period. Worldwide sales, which cover wholesale volume overseas, retreated 17 percent to 860,200 vehicles, while U.S. sales fell 13 percent to 611,600 units in the fiscal year. The U.S. is by far Subaru's largest market and generated 71 percent of its unit sales in the fiscal year. The global microchip shortage exacerbated the financial hit. The company said the supply crisis forced it to cancel some 61,000 units of output in the just-ended fiscal year. Read more here (Source: Automotive News).
U.S. Opens Safety Probe Into 1.1M Honda Accord Vehicles
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Monday it was opening a formal safety probe into more than 1.1 million Honda Motor Co Ltd Accord vehicles over sudden loss of steering control reports. According to Reuters, the agency said the engineering analysis covers 2013 through 2015 models and said "under normal driving conditions, with no warning or input from the driver, the vehicle may veer or jerk out of its intended path of travel." Honda said it was aware of the investigation and "takes all safety-related concerns seriously and will continue to cooperate with the NHTSA through the investigation process, as we also continue our own internal review of the available information." NHTSA said it has 107 complaints and two injury incidents related to the issue. Read more here (Source: Reuters).
NTSB Releases Preliminary Report on Fatal Tesla Crash in Spring, Texas
The National Transportation Safety Board has released records from a preliminary probe of a fatal Tesla crash that took place in Spring, Texas, in April. However, reports CNBC, it has not yet reached a conclusion about what caused the crash or whether the driver misused advanced driver-assistance features on the car. The vehicle veered off a road, hit a tree, and caught fire, killing both occupants. In a preliminary report published Monday, the NTSB wrote that home surveillance video shows the driver and his friend getting into the driver’s seat and front passenger’s seat of the 2019 Model S sedan and then heading down the road. The Tesla was equipped with Autopilot, the feds wrote in their preliminary report. However, in test drives that the NTSB conducted using 2019 Model S Tesla vehicles on the same road where the crash occurred, the agency could not engage one feature of the Autopilot system known as “Autosteer,” which helps a car stay centered within a lane. Read more here (Source: CNBC).
The Lithium Gold Rush: Inside the Race to Power Electric Vehicles
Atop a long-dormant volcano in northern Nevada, workers are preparing to start blasting and digging out a giant pit that will serve as the first new large-scale lithium mine in the United States in more than a decade — a new domestic supply of an essential ingredient in electric car batteries and renewable energy. According to The New York Times, the fight over the Nevada mine is emblematic of a fundamental tension surfacing around the world: Electric cars and renewable energy may not be as green as they appear. Production of raw materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel that are essential to these technologies are often ruinous to land, water, wildlife, and people. That environmental toll has often been overlooked in part because there is a race underway among the United States, China, Europe, and other major powers. Echoing past contests and wars over gold and oil, governments are fighting for supremacy over minerals that could help countries achieve economic and technological dominance for decades to come. Read more here (Source: The New York Times).
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