AD #3563 - NEV Sales Slip in China; Lucid Burns Through Half Its Cash; 1st Fisker Returned to the Factory

This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to the enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. General Motors just snagged the former vice president of engineering from Apple's Cloud

Services. Mike Abbott will report directly to GM CEO and Chairman Mary Barra.

He's going to lead a new organization at GM that will combine all of its software activities for vehicles and digital services, and for both retail and commercial customers.

GM recently said it would not offer Apple CarPlay or Android Auto and its evs and would develop its own system instead, and getting a guy from Apple adds more credibility to its effort. Lucid Motors reported its first quarter earnings,

and the numbers show that the EV startup is still struggling with production. It

only delivered fourteen hundred and six cars, which brought in one hundred and forty nine million dollars in revenue. That's up one hundred and fifty nine percent from

a year ago, but it posted a net loss of seven hundred and seventy nine million dollars, which was eight hundred and fifty eight percent worse. Lucid

also burned through nearly half of its cash and says it only has enough to last about a year. It plans to deliver ten thousand cars this year,

which would generate about a billion dollars in revenue, but its expenses in the first quarter alone were nine hundred and twenty one million dollars, so it's on track to lose between two and three billion dollars this year. Even so,

many analysts believe that the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which has already invested a billion and a half dollars in Lucid, will step in to make sure that the startup has enough money to keep going. And uh oh, here's something

that we didn't expect to see. Sales of new energy vehicles in China fell

three point six percent here to March and lost a percentage point of market share, while IC sales were up slightly. It does look like the Chinese car

market is struggling to gain traction after several years of severe COVID lockdowns. Analysts

believe that part of the problem is that Chinese consumers believe that they should wait to buy a new car because prices will come down. Tesla started slashing prices

in January, and several other Chinese car companies followed suit. But the China

Passenger Car Association says Tesla's recent price increases were meant to be a signal to customers that they better not wait. Chinese car brands are just getting going in

Europe, but other carmakers are starting to get worried about them. The CEO

of Pougeot, Linda Jackson, said Chinese made evs pose the biggest threat to Europe's automakers because they're good vehicles that our price can competitively and a new study from German Ottawa Ensure Alliance says that Chinese built evs could cost European automakers seven point seven billion dollars a year in lost profits by twenty thirty. The report

says policymakers need to boost tariffs on imported Chinese evs. Carlos Tavrez, the

CEO of Stellanti, says the EU only charges a ten percent import tariff, while China has a fifteen to twenty five percent tariff on European imports. Mitsubishi

used to sell over a million vehicles a year worldwide, but last year that dropped to only eight hundred and thirty four thousand vehicles. Its sales in Europe

were almost chopped in half and China they were down forty one percent, and they dropped fifteen percent in North America. And though it's operating profit nearly doubled

to one point four billion dollars in the first quarter of the year, Mitsubishi expects its net profits to fall forty one percent for the full year. We

want to know what drives your testing. Ota Connected Car Diagnostics, remote Testing,

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Systems driven by your data. A war over midsize pickup trucks is about to

kick off. Toyota is going to reveal the all new Tacoma on May nineteenth.

We've even shown off a few of the teasers when we reported about the first ever hybrid powertrain for the truck. But what looks mostly like a fan

forum called Tacoma fog dot com is showing off this image of what it claims is the new version of the pickup truck. It says it used links from

the Toyota website for previous images of the Tacoma and change the parts that indicated model and model year, and that that's how it got the picture. If

it is the new Tacoma. It should come as little surprised that it bears

a lot of resemblance to its big brother, the Tundra. In a response

to Automotive News, all Toyota would say is that it quote looks forward to the official reveal on May nineteenth. Now, Toyota is probably not happy about

the leak, but it did get a leg up on Ford. The New

Tacoma leak today and tomorrow Ford officially unveils the all new Ranger. It used

the Raptor version of the midsize pickup as the highlight in this teaser video, but like the Tacoma, the new Rangers should be available with a hybrid powertrain as well. Automakers are banking on subscription services to be a big revenue stream,

but a study from Cox Automotive found that consumers don't know much about them and they don't like them. Only twenty one percent of respondents were familiar with

the services. Nearly sixty percent said they would be too expensive, and seventy

percent said they would shop for another brand of Certain features were only available through subscription, and there's concern over data security and privacy, but some shoppers like the idea of trying out a new technology without having to fully pay for it and the five features. Buyers are willing to pay a monthly fee for our

remote start, vehicle locator, heated seats, dash cams and a digital key, and Tesla, Jeep, Dodge and Ford buyers were more likely to say that they're willing to pay for subscription services. Nicola and Iveco had a joint

venture to make electric and hydrogen powered heavy trucks, but now Iveco is buying out Nicola's shares. It's paying thirty five million dollars and will give back twenty

million shares to Nicola. Iveco, which is based in Italy, will now

focus on the year A Pan market, while Nicola will focus on North America.

But the two companies aren't completely severing ties. Iveco will retain five million

shares of Nicola and will continue to share and develop technology, and i Veco will continue to supply parts to Nicola. The Inflation Reduction Act or IRA isn't

just bringing new EV investment to the US. It also provides generous tax credits

for hydrogen projects and next Era Energy, which has the highest market cap of any power company in the US says it could invest more than twenty billion dollars in green hydrogen production. While demand for hydrogen fuel is low now, next

Era believes new laws and an increase push to reduce emissions will drive growth in the market. Last week, Fisker delivered the first Ocean Suv to a customer

in Denmark, but Bloomberg reports that the car already had to be returned to the factory because software issues made it inoperable. Sources say the software bugs could

take months to fully iron out, and earlier today, Fisker cut its production forecast for the year by as much as ten thousand units. It now expects

to make between thirty two thousand and thirty six thousand Ocean SUVs. The delays

have something to do with integrating the software, so it's sending out vehicles with more basic software that limits functions. But it looks like that's not even working

itself, and that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for

making Autoline a part of your day. Autoline Daily is brought to you by

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