Fiat Chrysler sales numbers questioned, SEC and DOJ investigating

By Bruce Brown Published July 19, 2016

It’s not a happy day when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wants to talk with you about numbers. Nor is it likely to be much fun when the Department of Justice calls you in either. Unfortunately for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, both federal agencies are investigating vehicle sales numbers, according to Reuters.

The probes stemmed originally from lawsuits filed by two Chicago-area dealerships. The lawsuits accused FCA higher-ups of trying to influence dealers to inflate sales reports. The dealerships, both part of the Ed Napleton Automotive Group, said competing dealers were offered tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses if they would file bogus reports of sales. FCA’s response at the time was that its financial reports were based on vehicles built and shipped, and that therefore the dealers claims were baseless.

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Reuters reported that the federal probe could look into how car manufacturers reward dealers for hitting sales targets. The dealers who filed the lawsuits said factory-to-dealer payments were based on specific model sales, as well as reaching overall sales levels. The concern by the feds and the reason for the dealers’ complaints are that within this system the dealers allege FCA offered bonuses based on fudged figures.

Typically, car manufacturers release sales reports monthly, according to Reuters, and use that information — based on sales to individuals, rental fleets, and used by dealerships as loaners — to calculate bonuses and dealer profits per vehicle. The more cars a dealer moves, the more profit the dealer can make on each.

Maserati in dealers New York, New Jersey, and California have jointly filed a suit against FCA’s Maserati North America Inc. that is similar to the Illinois suit.

According to a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles statement cited by Reuters, the SEC and DOJ are looking into how the company reports sales, not shipments.

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Contributing Editor

Bruce Brown Contributing Editor As a Contributing Editor to the Auto teams at Digital Trends and TheManual.com, Bruce…

Cars

Audi halts vehicle deliveries to the U.S. as it mulls impact of tariffs

2021 Audi Q5

If you’d been thinking of buying an Audi, now might be the time. The German brand, owned by the Volkswagen Group, has announced it would halt shipments to the U.S. in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all imported vehicles.
Audi is currently holding cars that arrived after the tariffs took effect, on April 3, in U.S. ports. But it still has around 37,000 vehicles in its U.S. inventory, which should be able to meet demand for about two months, according to Reuters.
Automakers on average hold enough cars to meet U.S. demand for about three months, according to Cox Automotive.
Audi should be particularly affected by the tariffs: The Q5, its best-selling model in the U.S., is produced in Mexico, while other models, such as the A3, A4, and A6 are produced in Germany.
Holding shipments is obviously a temporary measure to buy time for Audi and parent company Volkswagen. If tariffs stay in place, vehicle prices would likely have to go up accordingly, unless some production is shifted to the U.S. Volkswagen already has a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is planning a new plant in South Carolina. That latter plant, however, isn’t expected to be operational until 2027 and is currently dedicated to building electric vehicles for VW’s Scout Motors brand.
Other global automakers have also taken drastic measures in response to Trump’s tariffs. Jaguar Land Rover on April 5 said it is pausing shipments of its its UK-made cars to the United States this month. The British sports-luxury vehicle maker noted that the U.S. market accounts for nearly a quarter of its global sales, led by the likes of Range Rover Sports, Defenders, and Jaguar F-PACE.
And on April 3, Nissan, the biggest Japanese vehicle exporter to the United States, announced it will stop taking new U.S. orders for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs, the QX50 and QX55.

Cars

Waymo faces questions about its use of onboard cameras for AI training, ads targeting

Two people exit a Waymo taxi.

In an iconic scene from the 2002 sci-fi film Minority Report, on-the-run Agent John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, struggles to walk through a mall as he’s targeted by a multitude of personalized ads from the likes of Lexus, Guinness and American Express, everytime hidden detectors identify his eyes.
It was clearly meant as a warning about a not-so-desirable dystopian future.
Yet, 23 years later that future is at least partlially here in the online world and threatens to spread to other areas of daily life which are increasingly ‘connected’, such as the inside of cars. And the new testing grounds, according to online security researcher Jane Manchun Wong, might very well be automated-driving vehicles, such as Waymo’s robotaxis.
On X, Wong unveiled an unreleased version of Waymo’s privacy policy that suggests the California-based company is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including interior cameras, to train generative AI models and to offer targetted ads.
“Waymo may share data to improve and analyze its functionality and to tailor products, services, ads, and offers to your interests,” the Waymo’s unreleased privacy statement reads. “You can opt out of sharing your information with third parties, unless it’s necessary to the functioning of the service.”
Asked for comments about the unreleased app update, Waymo told The Verge that it contained “placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose”.
Waymo’s AI-models “are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads,” spokesperson Julia Ilina said.
Waymo’s robotaxis, which are operating on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, do contain onboard cameras that monitor riders. But Ilina says these are mainly used to train AI models for safety, finding lost items, check that in-car rules are followed, and to improve the service.
The new feature is still under development and offers riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection, Ilina says.
But as we all get used to ads targeting based on everything that’s somehow connected to the web, it seems a once-distant vision of the future may be just around the corner.

Cars

Waymo’s driverless cars are about to begin an overseas adventure

Waymo Jaguar I-Pace

Waymo’s autonomous cars are about to appear on streets outside of the U.S. for the first time.

The company on Wednesday announced on social media that its autonomous cars will be driving onto the streets of Tokyo, Japan, “soon,” with some reports suggesting the rollout will begin as early as next week.