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Major Alexa deal will bring Amazon services into more cars

Amazon and its personal assistance service Alexa are partnering with HERE Technologies to create a new connected mobility service powerhouse. Alexa will integrate with HERE's navigation and location services to offer what the two companies are calling a "true voice-first-navigation experience." Alexa will come pre-integrated with HERE navigation on-demand, which the automakers can then enable, which should help cut down on development time. One of the biggest features from this partnership is how directions could be offered and delivered using HERE's Open Location Platform (OLP). Currently, the OLP uses data from several car manufacturers to provide insights into real-time location and traffic. But on Alexa, this could be used to provide directional context. For example, Alexa could say, "Turn right after [such-and-such a building]" rather than just, "Turn right." Amazon has been testing the automotive waters throughout the past decade. Its home-based Alexa-enabled devices are already offered with connections to several manufacturers. To various degrees of integration, it can already pair with Ford, Genesis, Toyota, Lexus, Hyundai and BMW vehicles. At the end of 2018, Amazon took things a step further when it introduced the Echo Auto, a Bluetooth-connected Alexa assistant device that can be physically kept in a car. Currently only available by invitation (its production and distribution have been delayed), the $25 device is essentially a voice service that works together with smartphones and connects to a car's speakers. Users can command it to do a variety of things, including playing music, setting navigation, opening the garage door, finding local stores, making calls, setting reminders, and thousands of other "skills." According to The Verge, nearly 1 million people have already ordered the device. Some (well, probably few) may know HERE Technologies from its maps on Windows Phones. We all know how that turned out, though. Today, HERE has expanded into a multi-function suite that is available in multiple mediums, including many automotive applications. HERE Automotive's connected vehicle services include real-time traffic, parking, weather, fuel prices, hazard warnings, traffic sign integration, and even EV charging stations. These all incorporate and extend the use of HERE's location and tracking programming. HERE is already partnered with BMW, Audi, Daimler, Intel, Mobileye, NVIDIA, and has investments from Bosch, Continental and Pioneer.

GM takes 2020 full-size pickup sales crown

It's no secret that 2020 was an unconventional year for auto sales. Extenuating circumstances or not, it was a year of upheaval even for ever-resilient (and ever-profitable) pickups, with General Motors taking the crown from Ford in the full-size segment.  The Ford F-Series still outsold every other full-size pickup nameplate in the country by a significant margin. It's only when you combine GM's Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra variants that you get a number that exceeds Ford's. This isn't really a new phenomenon, either. In fact, it was only somewhat recently that Ford took the overall full-size crown away from GM, and not only did Ford widen the gap in recent years, but Ram has once again become a legitimate challenger, even managing to outsell the Silverado by a healthy margin in 2019, but never coming close to the F-Series in terms of total volume.  But, 2020 being 2020, things got weird yet again. Ram remains relevant, of course, but Ford got caught with its pants down thanks to the one-two punch of COVID and the generational changeover of the core F-150 model, which resulted in a production interruption as the company's assembly facilities transitioned from building the old 2020 model to the new-for-2021. This perfect storm, as it turns out, was sufficient for GM to walk away with the full-size crown. See for yourself: Full-size 2020 pickup sales: GM total: 847,110 F-Series: 787,422 Silverado: 594,094 Ram: 563,676 Sierra: 253,016 Tundra: 109,203 Titan: 26,439 As you can see, Ram slipped back behind Silverado, slotting comfortably into third place. The Silverado 1500 had a flat year, but the heavy- and medium-duty variants bucked the trend and contributed to a slight uptick in sales for the nameplate, while F-Series tumbled more than 12% (nearly 110,000 units), opening the door for GM to steam ahead.  There were similarly significant shakeups in the midsize truck segment. First, 2020 was the first full year of retail sales for the Gladiator pickup, which surged to fourth place behind the stalwart Tacoma, Ranger and Colorado. GM's combined sales of the Colorado and Canyon are good enough for second place by manufacturer, but nowhere close to what it would take to dethrone Toyota.

It's Official: Ford Names Mark Fields Its Next CEO

Alan Mulally, the man who transformed Ford Motor Co. from a dysfunctional money-loser to a thriving company, will retire July 1 and be replaced by Mark Fields, the current chief operating officer. During his eight-year tenure at Ford, Mulally gambled all of the company's assets on a credit line that kept Ford out of bankruptcy, then used a simple "One Ford" plan to change the company's culture. He was hired away from aircraft maker Boeing Co. in 2006 by Bill Ford, who at the time was running the company. Fields, 53, has been in charge of Ford's daily operations since December of 2012 and was widely expected to one day ascend to the top job. The change in leadership is taking place about six months ahead of schedule, but Ford said that was based on Mulally's recommendation that the new leaders were ready. "Alan and I feel strongly that Mark and the entire leadership team are absolutely ready to lead Ford forward, and now is the time to begin the transition," Bill Ford said in a statement Thursday morning. Bill Ford, the company's executive chairman, is the great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford. Mulally, 68, was trained as an aeronautical engineer. He spent 36 years at Boeing - and was president of the company's commercial airplane division - when Bill Ford lured him to the struggling automaker eight years ago. Mulally overcame skepticism about being an outsider in the insular ranks of Detroit car guys by quickly pinpointing the reasons why Ford was losing billions each year. Mulally put a stop to the infighting that had paralyzed the company and instituted weekly management meetings where executives faced new levels of accountability and were encouraged to work together to solve problems. It took two years for Mulally to turn the company around, but since 2009, Ford has posted pretax profits of $34.5 billion and its shares have more than doubled. Fields was one of the executives passed over when Mulally got the top job in 2006. When he was named COO in 2012, Bill Ford said Fields' decision to stay at Ford and learn from Mulally showed a lot of fortitude and has made Fields a better leader. "There was a lot of speculation about whether he was capable. To his great credit, he stuck to it, he learned from it and showed tremendous fortitude in grinding through an incredibly difficult process," Bill Ford said. This marks the second change in leadership at the top of one of the Detroit automakers this year.