Kia America has named former American Honda VP Steven Center as its new COO and executive VP.

Volkswagen of America has named former VW UK director Andrew Savvas as its new Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. Savvas replaces Duncan Mova Sagi, who left the automaker.

Local Motors is shutting down operations today. The company initially made waves by 3D printing vehicles and crowd-sourcing the design of its Rally Fighter. In recent years, it focused on autonomous shuttles but suffered a lack of funding.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. will spend up to $44B this year to expand its production capacity.

PPG is expanding its Weingarten, Germany automotive OEM coatings facility, adding 10k sq ft to the existing site.

LMC: Are China’s OEMs ready for the smart-car revolution?

At CES in Vegas last week, BMW debuted a new concept car that can change color with the touch of a button. The feature relies on e-Ink technology similar to what is used by Kindle e-readers.

UK company Retrac Composites claims that it has developed a new compression molding technique to make carbon fiber cheaper and take less time and energy to produce.

Aptiv is spending $4.3B to buy Wind River, a software development firm. The acquisition will speed new products at a time when automakers are moving software development in-house.

LG and Honda are reportedly planning a 40GWh battery JV in the US.

This week, BorgWarner announced the sale of its Water Valley, Mississippi facility and associated business to Atar Capital. The facility produces solenoids, transmission control modules, and stop/start accumulator systems.

Posco International will invest $43.6M into a new plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, to build EV motor cores. Construction of the plant will start in June, with production potentially starting in 2023.

Lucid Motors announced plans this week to build a new EV plant near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, by 2025 or 2026.

Vietnamese automaker, VinFast, is planning to build an assembly plant in Germany and a battery factory in the US.

After a months-long semiconductor shortage, Opel restarted production at its Eisenach, Germany plant. This plant is one that VinFast (above) is rumored to be interested in buying.

Canada has joined Mexico in filing an official complaint requesting a dispute settlement panel regarding the US view of a critical provision of the USMCA trade deal. Canada says that the Biden administration’s view of the rules is “inconsistent” with the agreement signed in 2019.

A teenage security researcher found a vulnerability in Tesla’s EV software that he claims allowed him to hack into 25 cars across the globe. The flaw allegedly allowed him to unlock doors and windows, start cars without keys, and disable their security systems.

Toyota and VW have halted production at their plants in Tianjian, China, due to mandatory COVID testing of all city residents.

In Shanghai and Shenzen, China, Omicron outbreaks have led to understaffed ports due to lockdowns. Government testing mandates are being carried out at a massive scale to enforce a “zero case policy.” Experts believe this wave of worker shortages will lead to some of the worst supply chain backlogs we have seen.

Following a nearly two-year border shutdown, Canadian auto suppliers are looking to rebuild ties with their partners south of the border.