Automotive industry

Renault executive Nicolas Maure, who heads Romanian carmaker Dacia, will take over as CEO of struggling Russian automobile giant Avtovaz next month, the owners said in a statement March 15.     

(Update: 13:26) According to Newspaper ‘Bild’, the explsoion is not connected to terrorism, but most probably to organised crime. ‘Τagesspiegel’ newsapaper reports that according to eyewitnesses the dead person is the car driver, who died while trying to free himself from the flaming vehicle.

Volkswagen's straight-talking U.S. chief Michael Horn has quit the automaker as it struggles with the fallout of a massive pollution cheating scandal, a decision that caught the industry by surprise.

Russia's biggest carmaker Avtovaz, majority owned by Renault-Nissan, said on March 7 its chief executive Bo Andersson is to step down.

Hit hard by Russia's economic crisis, the company, which makes Lada cars, has been battling with bankruptcy fears since last month reporting a tripling of net losses for 2015.

Volkswagen AG's current chairman and chief executive were alerted by the carmaker's former CEO to the use of illicit emissions-control software in the United States two weeks before the carmaker disclosed the scale of its manipulations, Bild am Sonntag reported, without citing the source of the information. 

U.S. authorities have asked the German carmaker Volkswagen to produce electric vehicles in the United States as a way of making up for its rigging of emission tests, the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported. 

Russia's largest passenger car manufacturer, Avtovaz, announced a transition to a four-day work week for a period of six months, the company was quoted as saying on Feb. 15 by TASS News Agency. 

Avtovaz possibly switching to a four-day work week was first reported after a meeting of the manufacturer's board of directors on Nov. 30, 2015. 

Renault said on Feb. 12 net profit for 2015 was up nearly 50 percent to 2.96 billion euros ($3.3 billion) despite a hit from its Russian subsidiary which Renault said it may recapitalise and take over to save it from collapse.

Toyota Motor Corp will begin production of a new hybrid engine model based on the C-HR concept in Turkey by year-end with an investment of more than 350 million euros ($396 million), Toyota's chief executive of Europe, Johan van Zyl, said on Feb. 11, as reported by Reuters. 

General Motors Co rode sales of SUVs and pickup trucks in North America to a record profit in 2015, and reaffirmed its forecast to do better this year despite signs that vehicle sales are hitting a peak.

GM, the biggest U.S. automaker and No. 3 globally by sales, earned $2.8 billion in the fourth quarter before interest, taxes and one-time items, or $1.39 per share, excluding items.