VW is considering expanding its Chattanooga plant to produce the ID Buzz microbus and an electric pickup truck. The company is reportedly planning a second US plant to increase vehicle production by 600k vehicles a year.

Toyoda Gosei will expand its Seto plant in Japan, adding new equipment and capacity.

Ford is eliminating 580 engineering positions as part of its reorganization into EV and ICE divisions.

GM is asking its global suppliers to sign a new pledge to achieve specific climate action and human rights goals over the next decade and beyond. Over 50% of the automakers’ suppliers have already signed.

Honda says it will be capable of selling 800k EVs in North America per year by 2030. The automaker added that it will start bringing new EVs to market by the second half of 2025 and that EVs should make up 40-50% of their North American output by 2030.

SINTTIA, Mexico’s new independent labor union, is seeking a 19.2% wage increase at GM’s Silao facility. The union says the automaker countered with 3.5%. Talks began in March, and a May 31 deadline for workers to strike is approaching.

Renault is considering selling part of its 43% stake in Nissan. The move could raise funding for Renault’s EV shift.

DENSO and United Semiconductor Japan Co (USJC) are collaborating on a new insulated gate bipolar transistor line in USJC’s wafer fab in Japan.

Stellantis inked a deal with Serbia to produce EVs at its Kragujevac plant.

Frances’ Novares Group opened its new Santa Ana Plant in Mexico, which produces EV cooling system parts. The 82k sq ft facility transfers operations from Richmond, Wisconsin, and the existing Santa Ana facility.

Automakers removed an additional 87k vehicles from production schedules. 2022’s total is now up to 1.5M vehicles cut from projections. Chinese semiconductor Q12022 production dropped 4.2% due to COVID-19 lockdowns in Shanghai.

Toyota’s global production was up 2.8% in March. However, domestic production dropped 16%, likely impacted by a supplier cyberattack and earthquake.

Buried in Tesla’s Q12022 report was the revelation that half of its Q1 vehicles produced had lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. LFP batteries are less expensive, without the supply issues that more common nickel and cobalt cells have.

Skoda has resumed production of EVs at its plant in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic. The plant shut down when the Russian invasion disrupted the supply of wiring harnesses from Ukraine.

Industry experts warn lithium supplies will not keep up with demand. New mining projects take at least ten years to come online. After years of declines in battery costs, analysts point to price increases in 2022.

Ferrari recalled thousands of cars due to a faulty brake fluid reservoir cap that could create a vacuum inside the brake fluid reservoir. While the automaker did not release exact numbers, over 2k of the vehicles were sold in China.

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Production halted at GM’s Bowling Green, Kentucky, plant, making the Chevy Corvette. GM cited a non-semiconductor supplier parts shortage and expected to resume the week of May 2.

BMW and Audi have suspended train shipment of vehicles from Germany to China due to the war in Ukraine. The automaker added that The automaker had temporarily switched the shipments to alternative routes or transportation modes.