Richard Truett
Richard Truett covers the auto industry through the lens of engineering and technology, focusing on how innovations, suppliers and product strategies shape the vehicles automakers bring to market. He is an engineering and technology reporter at Automotive News, where he covers technology, engineering and Jaguar Land Rover for an industry readership. His beat centres on the technical underpinnings of new products and the systems that enable automakers to execute long-range plans.
Technology and engineering across automakers
Truett’s core remit is automotive technology and engineering, a focus he has held at Automotive News for many years. He has covered engineering for the masthead since 2001, returned in 2013 after a period working inside the industry, and continues to report on engineering and technology today. His coverage includes major product investment programmes, such as Hyundai’s plan to enter new segments with a $26 billion product push, where he tracks how spending, platforms and timelines translate into market moves.
He contributes to reporting that maps “what’s new, refreshed, coming and going for the next five years”, including coverage that begins with General Motors and its brands. In this work he helps catalogue forthcoming models and changes over multi-year horizons, tying product planning back to engineering capacity and technology choices. His beat description emphasises automotive technology across engineering, manufacturing and electrification, and he presents these topics in direct, explanatory prose for industry professionals.
Supplier innovations and manufacturing
A distinguishing thread in Truett’s work is attention to supplier-developed technology and its role in modern vehicles. In a feature on “10 supplier-created innovations that helped build today’s auto industry”, he highlights technologies originating at suppliers and their impact on the way vehicles are designed and perform. That kind of coverage shows him tracking components and systems back to the companies that created them, rather than treating them as anonymous parts of an automaker’s brand story.
Across his archive he returns to the theme of how manufacturing and supplier innovation enable automaker strategies. His focus on engineering detail and supply-side technology makes his reporting useful for understanding the technical backbone behind new products, not just the marketing around them.
For communications teams on the supplier side, his beat offers a clear path for stories that are grounded in concrete innovations and their contribution to vehicle programmes.
Powertrain, electrification and Jaguar Land Rover
Powertrain and electrification coverage is informed by Truett’s experience working in global powertrain communications at a major automaker before returning to journalism.
That stint inside the industry gives him familiarity with engines, transmissions and electrified drivetrains, which feeds into his reporting on technology and engineering for Automotive News. His beat explicitly includes electrification and manufacturing, and he describes his job as recognising and prioritising new innovations and explaining them to readers.
Jaguar Land Rover is a specific focus within his remit, and he follows the brand’s engineering and technology decisions closely for the masthead. That can include vehicle programmes, platform choices and the technologies that distinguish the brand’s products, framed through their technical content rather than lifestyle positioning.
He also co-wrote “Drive”, a book published by the Smithsonian in 2018 that chronicles the history of driving, reflecting a long-standing interest in how automotive technology has evolved over time.
Taken together, Truett’s work stands out for its consistency in treating automotive stories as engineering stories first. His reporting blends long experience on the technology beat with direct access to supplier innovation, powertrain expertise and brand-specific engineering, making him a natural fit for stories that hinge on tangible advances rather than broad industry rhetoric.
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