The discussion covers contrasting views on EV production labor needs, with GM expecting to hire more workers despite industry trends. Lucid slashes EV prices amid inventory challenges, while China dominates global BEV sales. Pepsi's Tesla Semi fleet showcases advanced charging and efficiency details. Luxury brands Audi, BMW, and Mercedes reveal distinct EV strategies, and Cadillac's ultra-luxury Celestic pricing is unveiled. Opel introduces a novel seat belt safety system. Japan aims to secure lithium supply for EVs through new partnerships. Finally, Nissan outperforms Toyota in North American profit per vehicle, raising questions about Toyota's regional challenges.
Topics:ev production laborlucid price cutschina bev markettesla semi fleetluxury ev strategiescadillac celestic pricingopel seat belt technologyjapan lithium supplynissan vs toyota profits
- GM Says EVs Don’t Need Fewer Workers - Lucid Enters the Price War - China Made 61% Of Global EVs In H1 - Pepsi’s Experience with Tesla Semi - Audi, BMW, Mercedes Follow Different EV Strategies - Cadillac Celestiq Starts At $340,000 - Opel Develops Anti-Lock Seatbelt - Japan Moves to De-Risk China Dependence - Nissan Outearns Toyota In North America
"...t debuted in the Mocha and is now standard on the Astra Electric, and Opal calls it an anti lock braking ..."
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This is aut Aligned Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. Everyone knows that you need fewer workers to make electric cars. Ford
says that evs require forty percent less labor and that has the UAW concerned about more job losses. But curiously, General Motors doesn't see it that way.
Gerald Johnson, the head of GM Manufacturing, says he doesn't believe they need fewer workers to produce evs, and he even expects GM to hire more workers next year. That kind of flies in the face of what everyone else is
saying about making electric vehicles, and maybe that means GM is going to start insourcing more work. EV startup Lucid tried to avoid jumping into the EV price
war, but it finally had to throw in the towel. The base version
of its Air Sedan now costs eighty two four hundred dollars a drop of five grand, and it slashed the prices of the more powerful Touring and Grand Touring models by twelve thousand, four hundred bucks. They now start at ninety five
thousand and one hundred and twenty five thousand, six hundred dollars, respectively.
Lucid says the price cut will remain as long as supplies last, but that also suggests it has too many vehicles in inventory. Lucid will report at second
quarter earnings later today, and analysts expect more losses due to a drop in production caused by supply chain issues. China is by far and away the number
one market for b evs. According to the China Passenger Car Association, seven
point two million b evs were sold globally in the first half of the year, and sixty one percent of them were sold in China. Not surprisingly,
Tesla in BYD are the top two b EV auto makers in the world, and they're followed by SAIC Volkswagen and g Lee Slash Volvo. Pepsi has been
operating a fleet of twenty one test less semis in California for some time now, and a group called the North American Council for Freight Efficiency produced a video that has some really interesting details about the project. The site in California has
had to bring in almost three megawatts of additional power over a three year period for its electrification efforts, which also includes other evs like ford E Transits.
The testless semi chargers run off of their own dedicated service one because it allows PEPSI to more easily calculate things like fleet rates and EV credits, but also to allow them to charge at up to seven hundred and fifty kilowatts. Officially,
trucks can charge from zero to eighty percent and forty five minutes at that rate, but drivers also say it can take twenty to thirty minutes to go from roughly five to ten percent to ninety five percent. Most of the trucks
make eight to twelve stops a day over twelve hours and travel under one hundred miles, but three of them also do what they call long haul, which is two hundred and fifty to four hundred and fifty miles a day and quote fully loaded, although it doesn't specifically say what they're loaded with to be able to travel that many miles with a load. The testless semis feature a tandem
axle. One is a high torque and is primarily used to get the truck
up to speed, and the other axle is meant for cruising. An efficiency,
PEPSI says that its entire fleet uses less than one point seven kilowatt hours per mile, and that it will continue to build out more dedicated charging sites at other locations, which is now planning for eighteen months to two years in advance the Taging Automotive Technologies. We combine world class composite materials expertise with cutting
edge designs because frankly, there are better ways to lightweight vehicles, so lighten up with Taging Automotive Technologies. The formula for better Mobility, AUDI, BMW,
and Mercedes all want to sell a lot or electric cars, but each of them has their own different strategy. Mercedes has the most aggressive plans.
After twenty twenty five, it's only going to come out with evs, and while it wants to go all electric globally by twenty thirty, it thinks thirty percent of its sales in the US market will still have internal combustion engines.
BMW is not as aggressive. It wants half of its global sales to be
electric by twenty thirty. Audi, also going electric, is trying to make
its model names less confusing, so all evs will have names with even numbers, and ice vehicles will have odd numbers, so for example, in A six would be electric, while in a seven would be pissed and powered BMW uses the letter I to identify its EVS as in I seven, while Mercedes uses EQ as in EQS or eque. And speaking of electric luxury cars,
Melissa Grady DS, the chief marketing officer of Cadillac, announced on LinkedIn that the price of the hand built Celestic will start at three hundred and forty thousand dollars. When we first learned about the Celestic almost two years ago, we
speculated that the car would cost around four hundred grand, and after customers choose the options and custom features that they want, that's probably where the price will be. Cadillac is supposed to start building and delivering the cars this year,
but you're probably not going to see one anytime soon. Production of the car
will be less than two a day. Opal is using a new piece of
technology that we had never seen. It's a new seat belt system that debuted
in the Mocha and is now standard on the Astra Electric, and Opal calls it an anti lock braking system for the seat belt. It uses sensors to
determine how bad an accident is and then electronically controls the seat belt to maintain the proper tension over the course of the entire crash. Opal says this can
help reduce injuries, especially to the upper body. Japan is the latest country
trying to reduce its dependence on China for materials needed to make EVS. Writers
reports. The Summatomo Corporation is partnering up with Australian mining company Liontown to study
producing lithium hydroxide in Japan. It's used in batteries and other products. They'll
take about two years to figure out how much lithium concentrate they need to ship from Australia and build up a supply chain so it can then be turned into lithium hydroxide in Japan. We keep wondering what's going wrong with Toyota's North American
operations. Here's why. Last quarter, Toyota sold six hundred and eighty two
thousand vehicles in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Meanwhile, compare that
to Nissan, who sold three hundred and twenty eight thousand vehicles, So Toyota sold twice as many as Nissan, and Toyota brought in over twenty eight billion dollars in revenue compared to only eleven billion for Nissan. Again, more than
twice as much, But Toyota only made eight hundred and forty one million dollars in profits while Nissan made nine hundred and twenty eight million. Or to put
it another way, Nissan made two thousand, eight hundred dollars on each vehicle it's sold, while Toyota made twelve hundred bucks. So Nissan made one hundred
and thirty three percent more per vehicle than Toyota did. This all comes from
both companies' latest financial reports. And when you see numbers like that, it
makes you wonder what's going on. But we're gonna leave you pondering Toyota's North
American possible issues. Thanks for making Autoline of Party your day to day.
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