Battery raw material prices are expected to drop, benefiting EV makers like Rivian and Lucid, though Mullen Automotive faces delisting due to poor stock performance. GM's recent contract offer to the UAW was rejected as insulting, while Ford fast-tracks wage increases for some workers. Acura showcased the all-electric ZDX, highlighting its striking design and dealer requirements, but rejected GM service crossover. Former Argo AI founders launched Stack AV, focusing on autonomous trucking with major funding. China's auto sales rebounded in August, with Tesla's Model Y leading. Cadillac revived its Goddess emblem in a new form on the Celestiq.
- Rivian Expects Big Drop in Battery Raw Material Prices - Mullen Automotive in Trouble - UAW President Calls GM’s Counter Offer “Insulting” - Ford Fast Tracks 8,000 Workers to Top Wage Rate - Acura Doesn’t Want GM Techs to Service New ZDX - Argo AI Founders Form New Autonomous Trucking Startup - Tesla’s Sales Soar in China - Cadillac’s Goddess Makes Return on Celestiq
"... to thirteen point two percent in August, and the Model Y was the best selling vehicle in China. Cadillac's..."
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It looks like some relief is on the way for EV makers. Rivan
CFOs says she expects to see a significant drop in battery raw material prices that will start to have an impact late this year and into twenty twenty four.
Prices went up in recent years due to short material supplies and strong consumer demand for evs, but as those two things have started to turn in the other direction, prices are coming down. So if automakers are spending less to build
cars, they're putting more money to the bottom line, which is especially good news for EV startups like Rivan and Lucid, And hopefully some of those savings will be applied to the sticker price of evs, because right now they're too expensive for most people to afford. However, the drop in battery material prices
probably isn't going to be enough to save EV startup Mullen Automotive. The company
announced that it received a delisting notice from the Nastic Exchange for its stock falling below the one dollar minimum. Mullen is appealing to get another one hundred and
eighty days to turn things around, but as of this morning, its stock was trading at forty two cents a share. Mullen is a bit of an
interesting company, but it either failed to bring out its vehicles altogether or in very small numbers. It snatched up a number of failing EV startups, including
the codea EV, Bullinger Motors, and Electric Last Mile Solutions or ELMS, and it even tried to launch its own vehicle called the five. However,
things are not looking good for the company. We reported yesterday that it would
probably happen, and General Motors did make a counter offer to the UAW.
It offered workers a ten percent pay increase and two additional three percent annual lump sum payments over the years. It's also offering a six thousand dollar inflation related
payment, five thousand dollars in inflation protection over the life of the contract, and a fifty five hundred dollars ratification bonus. But UAW president Sean Fayne was
not impressed and called the proposal quote insulting and says it will reduce the annual profit sharing workers receive. So this isn't a good sign that a deal is
going to be made. Before the contract expires next week on September fourteenth,
but Ford is also trying to come out and appease the union. It announced
that it fast tracked nearly eight thousand UAW members to its top wage rate.
They'll receive an extra four dollars and thirty three cents an hour on average, which works out to nine thousand dollars a year with overtime. It says that
could increase to ten thousand dollars. Under the current contract, it takes eight
years for a worker to earn the top wage, but some of these fast track workers have been with Ford as little as four years, and that eight year gap is a provision that the union is looking to eliminate with its new contract. At Scheffler we Pioneer Motion electrifying mobility, manufacturing smart, reducing CO
two emissions, making energy production clean, Scheffler Pioneer's Motion to advance how the World Moves. Acura invited us out to a local event yesterday where we got
to talk to some of the team that helped put together the all new, all electric ZDX. Here's the things I found interesting. First, I got
to talk to the exterior designer about the piano black roof on the Type S version. In person, this is a very striking feature of the car.
With all the pillars and even the roof rails in that deep black, it almost fades away into the background, but a semi polished accent, which was carried over from the concept helps draw your eye back in, and the designer set it helps give motion to the cabin. This is only a feature found
on the Type S, which is the quickest and most powerful Accura suv.
Ever, all models have the platinum colored lower accent, and the lower Aspec version will come with a body color roof. The ZDX is one of two
evs that Honda is getting from GM's All Team platform. The other is the
Prolog and like some GM vehicles, Acura says the ZDX will allow for hands free driving, but instead of being called Supercruise like GM uses, it will use the name for Acuras eight S technology, which is called Accura Watch.
The EV will be sold in all fifty states, but dealers that wanted to get their hands on a ZDX had to agree to install chargers and train their staff before the EV launches, which will be early next year. Part of
the learning curve for them will be a new digital sales model that will allow customers to make the entire purchase online, which will be the case with every accurate EV going forward. And lastly, I asked about crossover repair service between
Honda and GM, meaning GM could work on Honda evs and vice versa.
There's a shortage of mechanics, especially good EV tex and I figured they might want a bigger service net, but Accura shot that down pretty quickly. The
brand wants nothing to do with GM service centers. And if you'd like to
learn more of the specs of the new ZDX, we covered that in a previous show and will provide the link. The founders of our Goo AI,
the former autonomous driving unit backed by Ford and Volkswagen, are forming a new self driving company called Stack a V. But instead of developing robotaxis, the
new startup will focus on autonomous trucking. Bloomberg reports that Stack is backed by
a more than one billion dollar investment from Japan's soft Bank. Like Argo,
Stack is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and it already hired one hundred and fifty employees. I suspect many of those employees came from Argo AI, and
it has a test fleet of trucks on the road right now. As you
may remember, last year, Ford and VW shuttered Argo because they say autonomous vehicles are still years away from reaching mass production and they didn't want to invest to keep it going. But Argo's founders say self driving delivery trucks show potential
for automation. China's car market had been slowing over the summer, with sales
dropping in June July, but last month they were back up. According to
the China Passenger Car Association, automakers sold one point nine four million passenger vehicles in August, up two point two percent from the year before and an increase of eight and a half per cent from July thanks to tax incentives and other discounts. Sales of new energy vehicles, which includes BEVs, phaves and fuel
cells, shot up thirty four and a half percent last month and accounted for nearly thirty seven percent of the market. Tesla was a big benefactor and its
market share nearly doubled to thirteen point two percent in August, and the Model Y was the best selling vehicle in China. Cadillac's Goddess is making its return
on the new handbuilt Celastic, but not as a hood ornament, A reimagined version of it appears on the front fender and on a controller on the center console, as well as above the vehicle's charging port. The goddesshood ornament was
first introduced in nineteen thirty and was on most models until the nineteen fifties.
But that brings us to the end of today show and this week I hope that you have a great weekend. Autoline Daily is brought to you by Bridgetone
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