AD #3584 - GM Won't Invest in New EV Plants; Lucid Expanding Into China; U.S. Dealers Worried Sales Will Slow

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

General Motors isn't going to invest in new EV plants. The company's head

of manufacturing told Automotive News that it will convert its existing ice plants to build evs while keeping some that will make both types, and he says he doesn't expect the company to close any of its current facilities. GM has already converted

a couple of its ice plants in the US to produce evs. Meanwhile,

Ford is spending five point six billion dollars to open a new site in Tennessee to build evs. More auto job cuts are coming to Europe. Ford and

Volvo have already announced cuts in the region, and now airbag and seatbelt supplier auto Leave said that it's cutting around eight thousand jobs, mostly in the EU.

That's about eleven percent of its total workforce. It plans on closing several

of its sites in Europe and will implement all of the cuts by twenty twenty five. Auto Leaf says it's slashing jobs in order to cut costs. Lucid,

like every producer of electric vehicles, has struggled to ramp up production, and it's also burning through cash. But last week it got a major lifeline

in the form of a three billion dollar investment, which mostly came from the Saudi PIF, Lucid's largest shareholder. It will use that money to start churning

out more air sedans, and once it does, it will expand into new markets. Lucid announced it's preparing to enter the Chinese market and has nabbed a

Chinese auto industry veteran to help with the transition. Juxiang will lead Lucid's China

efforts. He's worked at BMW, LEXUS, Ford, Neo, and most

recently the joint venture between Jeelie and Baidu. No word on the exact launch

for Lucid yet, but CEO Peoter Rawlinson previously said it would be this year, and then it plans to build a factory in China around twenty twenty five.

Speaking of expanding into new markets, Too Simple, a US company that makes self driving tech for heavy duty trucks, announced it's going to Japan.

It recently started Testson expressways in three major metropolitan areas with safety riders on board.

Almost half of Japan's transportation workforce is over the age of fifty, and the government is looking to offset the looming shortage of drivers would dedicated autonomous driving lanes. It also makes sense that Too Simple would want to expand into new

markets. Last month, it received a delisting notice from the us NASDEC Stock

Exchange for meeting its requirements at Scheffler we Pioneer Motion Electrifying mobility, manufacturing smarter, reducing CO two emissions, making energy production clean Scheffler Pioneer's Motion to advance how the World moves. Despite all this talk of automakers bringing EV development in

house, suppliers continue to get significant contracts for EV systems. For Via,

Hella developed a BMS or battery management system that is currently used by two automakers, Though it did not identify them by name, it's as one is a premium German carmaker, which suggests it's probably Mercedes, BMW or Audi. The

other customer is a transport manufacturer in the US, which suggests it's a truck maker. For Via, Hella is working with AMP, the electrical connectors supplier.

They'll start manufacturing the BMS in Mexico in the first half of twenty twenty five. The battery management system can be quite sophisticated, so it's a bit

of a coup for a supplier to land that kind of contract. The six

gen Camaro is riding off into the sunset, but not without at least one last special edition. Chevy is launching a version of the ZL one Camaro that's

called the Garage fifty six Edition in honor of the NASCAR Camaro that will race at Lama this weekend. Garage fifty six is the name given to a single

entry class that's reserved for the weird, innovative, and or extraordinary vehicles that race organizers can't put into another class. NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet,

and Goodyear have all teamed up to field the Lamack Camaro. It's about five

hundred pounds lighter than a regular NASCAR car, and it features real headlights, real tail lights, a larger fuel cell, carbon brake rotors, and specially designed Goodyear race tires. And as viewer Lambo twenty fifteen pointed out in the

comments yesterday, it's three seconds faster than any other GT car in testing, which is quite a big margin. Every quarter, cos Automotive does a survey

of US car dealers to figure out how they're feeling, and the latest results show that dealers are slightly more upbeat right now, but they're worried that sales will start to slow down in the third quarter. A weakening economy and high

interest rates, which could damp and consumer demand, is what has them on edge right now. But the chief economist at Cox Automotive, Jonathan Smoke,

points out that the dealer's sentiment survey was conducted before the debt ceiling agreement was settled in Washington, DC, and with that behind us, he sees car sales going up this summer. Meanwhile, in China, the government is launching

a campaign to try and get car sales back to pre COVID levels. Even

though car sales are growing this year, they're far below where they were before the pandemic broke out. China's strict COVID lockdowns took a toll on the economy,

and while consumers spending on services is bouncing back, that's not true for big ticket items like new cars. And that's even though forty car brands have

caught their prices to try and stimulate demand. And even more worrying for China's

auto industry is that sales of new energy vehicles and including beevs and pehaves, have plateaued for the last five months. Sustainability is a big focus in the

autowindustry today and now Bridgestone, which is a sponsor of Autoline, has started a test to recycle used tires with Japanese oil company Anios. The process uses

paralysis to obtain oil and recycled carbon black from the used tires, which will then be used to make new tires. Bridgestone is aiming to use these recycled

materials in mass production by the end of the decade. And that brings us

to the end of today show. And don't forget to check out Autoline after

hours at three pm Eastern Time today and we'll see you right back here again tomorrow. Autoline Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for your journey,

Intrepid Controls Systems over the year engineering boost your game, and by Scheffler We pioneer motion. We want to know what drives your testing. OTA Connected Car

Diagnostics, remote testing. Intrepid Control Systems is here to help you work from

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