AD #3566 - Car Dealers Losing Market Share To EV Startups; Linamar To Open Gigacasting Factory; Baojun Yep Gets Cool Accessories

This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

Car dealers in California lost out on nearly seven hundred thousand dollars in gross profits last year thanks to EV makers like Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian who sell direct to consumers. That's according to a study conducted by Automotive News.

California has about thirteen hundred dealers and collectively they missed out on nine hundred million dollars in gross profits. That's prompting some dealers to invest more in their stores

to sell more evs, but others believe it's unrealistic to think that dealers selling traditional brands will win over Tesla or Tesla like buyers. And there's now thirty

five states that allow at least some kind of direct to consumer sales model, and Automotive News reports that dealers in Colorado and Washington are already losing market share as well. Tesla investors are rejoicing. Elon must tweet it out that he's

stepping down as CEO of Twitter in six weeks. The Wall Street Journal reports

that NBC Universals had of advertising Linda Jaccarino was in talks to be the new CEO. Must said he will transition to become executive chairman and chief technology officer.

Tesla investors welcomed that news. They had worried that Twitter was diverting Elon's

attention away from the automaker, and yesterday Tesla stock jumped two point one percent when the news broke and was up another two point four percent this morning in pre market trading. Europe and Germany just scored a major victory was Swedish battery

maker Northfolk announcing it will build a new battery plant in Germany. It will

invest several billion euros to open the plant, which will produce enough sells a year to our a million evs. Construction could start later this year and Northfold

is aiming to begin cell production in twenty twenty six. The German government and

the state government where the plant will be located. We're able to lure Norfold

with subsidies that were developed by the European Commission to compete with the US's Inflation Reduction Act. The subsidies still need approval from the EU Commission, but if

it does approve them, it will be the first incentive granted under the new framework. We thought that specs had kind of lost their luster. Eve startups

have watched their market caps melt away over the last year. But vin Fast,

the vietnamesee car company, is going to use a special purpose acquisition company called black Spade to get listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Vin Fast

says that will give it a market cap of twenty three billion dollars, But now the question is can then Fast hold that market cap. When Rivian went

public through a spack, it's market cap hit one hundred billion, Lucid hit eighty nine billion, but now both are worth about thirteen billion. Hyundai and

Kia are about to get sued by insurance companies, and that's because they decided not to equip Pass models with engine immobilizers, which makes them easy to steal.

It could cost the automakers millions of dollars. A wave of car thefts

broke out after social media videos showed how the vehicles could easily be started without a key, and Automotive News reports that a group of US insurance companies filed a lawsuit against the automakers and are seeking reimbursement for money that they paid out to owners who have had their vehicles stolen. The suit claims it can cost

more than three thousand dollars per vehicle to repair cars that have been broken into.

It can cost another ten grand to fix any property damage caused by thieves taking joy rides, and if the vehicle isn't recovered, they say the loss can be as much as twenty grand. All told, the theft could cost

insurance companies as much as six hundred million dollars. Hyundai claims the lawsuit is

unnecessary and that it followed federal anti theft requirements. The automaker did introduce a

software fix, but earlier this week, the AP reported that the rollout has been slow and thefts continue to rise. We want to know what drives you're

testing. Ota Connected Car Diagnostics, Remote Testing. Intrepid Control Systems is here

to help you work from anywhere. Intrepid Control Systems driven by your data.

One of the prettier cars on the market is getting the AX. Mercedes is

going to stop making the cls in August after being in production for nineteen years.

The current generation has smooth lines and good proportions, which seems to resonate with a lot of people, but Mercedes has too many cars in its lineup, and it's getting rid of the cls to make room for the all new E class at its plant in Germany, and the new E class will be on sale before the end of the year. It looks like Honda is going

to start shipping Chinese made evs to Europe. It revealed that its second all

electric model for the European market will be the E N Y one, which it calls a B segment SUV, but it's identical to the E N S one that Honda builds and cells in China with its joint venture partner Dong Fung.

It rides on Honda's Ean architecture f It features a nearly seventy kilowatt hour battery pack and an integrated drive unit with up to one hundred and fifty kilowatts or two hundred and one horsepower on the WLTP cycle. The NY one is

capable of four hundred and twelve kilometers or two hundred and fifty six miles of range. The N S one is already on sale in China, but no

word on one the N Y one might launch in Europe. More gigacasting capacity

is on the way, and this time in Canada. The supplier, Linimar,

is building a new plant that will have three sixty one hundred ton high pressure casting machines. For reference, testless casting machines are eight thousand tons.

Linimar's plant will get built on a brownfield site and well in Ontario, not far from Niagara Falls, and it will start production in early twenty twenty five.

What we want to find out is who Linimar will make parts four, GM, Ford and Stilantis all have assembly plants within about an hour of where Linimar's giga casting facility will go. Toyota has two plants and Honda has one.

Linimar will not say who its customer is, but that it is getting a lot of interest from automakers. China is on an export binge for cars

and that's causing a shortage of cargo ships. Mazda is running into problems finding

ships to export. It's all new CX ninety from Japan to the United States,

and China is expected to export four million vehicles this year, up from three million last year. And keep in mind that pre COVID Germany made four

point seven million vehicles, so that's almost the equivalent of China exporting the entire German auto industry. Every year. When your profit is only twenty two dollars

on every vehicle that you sell, you've got to come up with other ways to bring in money. That's the amount we calculate ruling earns for every Mini

EV. But if you're a regular viewer of the show, you know we

hardly ever show the Plane Jay Mini EV. It's almost always some wild looking

one with bright colors, and I especially like to use this one with big unicorn like wings. These models, like the game Boy Edition, bring in

more money, sometimes thousands more. And now it's doing the same with the

Boojung YEP, which, like the Mini EV, comes from under the GM seic Wouling Umbrella. One version with a two tone paint job, a roof

rack, whitewall tires and chrome hubcaps reminds us of a retro beach buggy.

Sales are said to kick off in May, and with affordable starting prices about forty seven hundred dollars for the Mini EV and fourteen th five hundred dollars for the YEP, buyers are more willing to spend extra to personalize the car, and that brings us to the end of this week. Thanks for making autoline

a part of your day, and I hope you have a great weekend.

Autoline Daily is brought to you by Bridgetone Solutions for your journey, Intrepid Control Systems over the Year, Engineering boost your game, and by Scheffler We Pioneer Motion. At Schiffler We pioneer Emotion, electrifying mobility, manufacturing smarta, reducing

COO to emissions, making energy production clean. Scheffler Pioneer's Motion to advance how

the world moves. Wards is the industry leader for news data and analysis.

That's why companies across the globe subscribe to our premium service. Maybe even your

own log in for subscriber access. Now check your company's Internet for details and

rely Onwards auto dot com to keep you informed.

AD #3566 - Car Dealers Losing Market Share To EV Startups; Linamar To Open Gigacasting Factory; Baojun Yep Gets Cool Accessories

Mercedes-Benz CLS

About this episode

Original notes