Sonari Glinton
Sonari Glinton is a NPR Business Desk Correspondent based at our NPR West bureau. He covers the auto industry, consumer goods, and consumer behavior, as well as marketing and advertising for NPR and Planet Money.
In this position, which he has held since late 2010, Glinton has tackled big stories including GM's road back to profitability and Toyota's continuing struggles. In addition, Glinton covered the 2012 presidential race, the Winter Olympics in Sochi, as well as the U.S. Senate and House for NPR.
Glinton came to NPR in August 2007 and worked as a producer for All Things Considered. Over the years Glinton has produced dozen of segments about the great American Song Book and pop culture for NPR's signature programs most notably the 50 Great Voices piece on Nat King Cole feature he produced for Robert Siegel.
Glinton began his public radio career as an intern at Member station WBEZ in Chicago. He worked his way through his public radio internships working for Chicago Jazz impresario Joe Segal, waiting tables and meeting legends such as Ray Brown, Oscar Brown Jr., Marian MacPartland, Ed Thigpen, Ernestine Andersen, and Betty Carter.
Glinton attended Boston University. A Sinatra fan since his mid-teens, Glinton's first forays into journalism were album revues and a college jazz show at Boston University's WTBU. In his spare time Glinton indulges his passions for baking, vinyl albums, and the evolution of the Billboard charts.
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NewsTesla's first Model 3 comes off the assembly line Friday, a pivotal moment for the company. It's Tesla's mass-market electric car — with a $35,000 price. But it faces challenges ramping up production. -
With a pledge to move on from the internal combustion engine, Volvo announced Wednesday that it's going all electric. The company says all the vehicles it makes will be electric or hybrid starting in 2019. The development comes as Tesla prepares to sell its first mass market electric car later this month.
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Diesel vehicles have caused more than their fair share of drama in the last few years. They have cost Volkswagen billions in fines and judgments. Chrysler is defending itself against allegations of cheating on emissions, and several other companies are still under investigation. But diesel manages to hang on.
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Hackett's job description: Prepare Ford for a future of self-driving cars and keep things profitable by selling trucks. While Hackett has a unique set of skills, that's still an extremely tall order. -
Ford has just come off two straight years of record earnings. Its F-150 trucks are the best selling vehicles in America. But none of this was enough to save CEO Mark Fields' job. The career Ford executive has been replaced by a relative newcomer, Jim Hackett. One reason for the move: Ford's stock price tumbled nearly 40 percent in the three years Fields was at the helm.
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Ford Motor Company is expected to announce its CEO Mark Fields is leaving, to be replaced by Jim Hackett, who runs the company's work on autonomous vehicles.
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After two record sales years, investors are worrying about the health of the auto industry, especially as automakers are looking toward the future. -
Most consumers test drive only one vehicle before they buy. But with so much new technology and features in today's cars and trucks, a thorough test drive is more important than ever. -
The destruction from the 1992 Los Angeles riots resulted in more than $1 billion in damaged property and city leaders began to rebuild as the city was still in flames. But the project to fix the city, Rebuild LA, ultimately failed to do just that — rebuild.
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A car design school confronts the challenge of getting people to overcome their misgivings about driverless cars. Many Americans are not comfortable with self-driving cars, despite the fact that the industry is spending billions on the new technology.
