AD #3621 - Pepsi Loves Tesla Semi; GM Says EVs Don’t Need Fewer Workers; Nissan Outearns Toyota In North America

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.

Autoline Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for your journey, Intrepid Control Systems over the year engineering boost your game, Scheffler we Pioneer Motion and by Tajin Automotive Technologies the formula for better Mobility. We want to know what drives

your 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.

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

AD #3621 - Pepsi Loves Tesla Semi; GM Says EVs Don’t Need Fewer Workers; Nissan Outearns Toyota In North America

Lucid Air

Ford E Transits

Opel Astra

About this episode

Original notes