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AD #3669 - U.S. On Track to Sell 1 Million EVs This Year; Ford Says Its “Reached Our Limit” In UAW Offer; Kia EV9 EPA Estimates Revealed

AD #3669 - U.S. On Track to Sell 1 Million EVs This Year; Ford Says Its “Reached Our Limit” In UAW Offer; Kia EV9 EPA Estimates Revealed

Autoline Daily Oct 13, 2023 10 min
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Ford declares it has reached its limit in UAW contract negotiations amid ongoing strikes, with GM and Stellantis likely nearing their top offers. Tesla faces unionization efforts in Germany, prompting wage raises at its Berlin plant. Ford and SK On boost wages at their US EV battery plants, while the UAW pushes for full contract inclusion. Kia reveals EPA ranges for its new EV9 SUV, and the US is on track to sell one million EVs this year, with Tesla's market share declining despite sales growth. VW reports strong EV sales globally but below targets, and BMW secures a massive battery deal to support its EV expansion.

Topics: uaw strike and negotiations ford labor offer limits tesla union efforts in germany ev battery plant wages kia ev9 range and pricing us ev sales growth tesla market share trends volkswagen ev sales performance gm software development initiative bmw battery supply deal
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This is out Aligned Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. After a surprise strike at its largest and most profitable truck planting Kentucky,
Ford held a special meeting yesterday where a top official set of its latest contract offer to the UAW quote, we have reached our limit. Its offer
includes a twenty three percent wage increase, a three year progression to top pay instead of eight, and cost of living adjustments or COLA. The Ford execs
said the company could move money around in its offer, but in terms of the total cost of Ford, it's at its limit. If we are to
take Ford at its word, then I've got to imagine that GM and Stalantis are approaching their top offers. And by the time you're watching the show today,
UAW President Sean Fain will already have done his live stream about the progress of negotiations. No doubt it was an impassioned speech, and I also think
it's safe to bet that he said they're still not there yet with a deal.
In the last round, GM and Stalantis were behind Ford in their offers, so it may seem that they are making more progress this time around.
But if they're also reaching their limits, then the UAW won't wait long to hit their biggest and most profitable plants. One thing's for sure, over the
next few weeks we should truly know how big some of the sticking points are to the union, like representation at JV battery, plants that aren't built yet, pensions in post retirement healthcare if they're not budgeting. Like we've said before,
at some point the automakers won't just sit around and could start to try and inflict their own pain on the union. And while there's been a lot
of attention on the uaw's fight for better wages in the US, Tesla is facing its own union battle in Germany. The ev maker's plant in the country
is not unionized, but earlier this week, German union IGMTTAAL claimed that one thousand workers at the plant have joined its effort to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions. The plant employs about eleven thousand people. IGMTTAL claims that
Tesla's wages are twenty percent less than factory workers at the other German car brands, so in response, Tesla said it will give workers at its Berlin plant a pay raise this year and will inform them in November how much it is.
Last year they got a six percent pay bump, and Ford is taking a similar approach with its EV battery plants in the US. The automaker and
its JV partner sk On announced their boosting wages at their planned EV battery plants in Kentucky and Tennessee. Workers will now be able to earn up to thirty
seven dollars and fifty cents an hour, up from a previous range of twenty one to twenty nine dollars an hour. The UAW wants to bring workers at
joint venture battery plants into the master contract agreement so they get full wages like workers at assembly plants. Ford seems to be resisting this a little bit,
but it said it has been bargaining in good faith with the UAW this week on joint venture battery plants, and with GM caving on the issue, both it and Stilantis will probably have to follow. 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, Kia revealed the EPA estimated ranges for the EV nine electric suv. The rear wheel drive model with the
optional ninety nine point eight kilowad hour battery pack is rated at three hundred and four miles, and the all wheel drive version with the same pack is rated at two hundred and eighty miles. The rear drive model with the standard seventy
six point one kilowat hour battery pack is rated at two hundred and thirty miles of range. The EV nine will start arriving at dealers showrooms sometime this quarter,
and Kia will start taking reservations next week. The EV nine starts at
about fifty six four hundred dollars including destination charges. The US is on track
to sell a million pure electric vehicles for the first time ever this year, according to Cox Automotive. In Kelly Bluebook, automakers set a record selling more
than three hundred and thirteen thousand evs in the third quarter, an increase of nearly fifty percent. That puts the total at eight hundred and seventy three thousand
so far this year, and Cox expects the US to pass a million EV sales in November. EV's accounted for seven point nine percent of the total market
in the third quarter, which is an all time high, and with more EV models coming, it's not surprising that Tesla's EV market share continues to tumble.
It was sixty two percent in the first quarter, but fell to fifty percent in Q three. However, its sales are still up twenty six percent
so far this year, and Cox says its share could go back up with deliveries of the cyber truck expected to start sometime this quarter. Of the legacy
brands, BMW is doing the best, with EV's accounting for fifteen point six percent of its total sales in the US, ahead of Audi, Volvo, Vulcan, Swagon, and Mercedes, which are all in the twelve percent range.
And speaking of EV sales, the Volkswagon Group says its global electric car sales are up forty five percent so far this year. The automaker is sold
five hundred and thirty one thousand, five hundred evs through the first nine months of the year, accounting for about eight percent of its total sales. That
includes the VW brand, Audi, Sayat, Kupra, Porsche, Scota, plus its commercial and truck brands. The VW group's EV sales were fueled by
big gains in Europe in the US up sixty one and seventy four percent, respectively, but its electric sales in China are only up four percent so far this year. While these are good numbers overall, VW says its EV sales
are below its targets because demand is weaker than it expected. GM is making
a little more progress towards soft where to find vehicles. It's launching a program
called Use Services to the Connected Vehicle Systems Alliance, a global software developer community.
GM will leverage this large group of developers to set software standards for interfacing with the various systems in a vehicle. This will speed up the time it
takes to develop and put new software into vehicles. GM hopes to eventually create
an entire ecosystem that can use third party software like from these developer communities as a way to reduce its engineering costs. BMW'SBV sales in the third quarter were
nearly eighty percent higher compared to last year, and it's securing a massive battery order so it can keep up with its electric transition. Reports out of China
say BMW will get batteries for its evs in Europe from s Fhalt, a subsidiary of Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor. But it's the term of the deal
that are most shocking. BMW is said to be paying s Folt roughly thirteen
billion dollars for nearly ninety gigawatt hours of batteries, and even if every single one of those battery packs was one hundred kilowatt hours, which is on the big side, that would be enough to power nine hundred thousand evs. BMW
also has battery deals with CTL in Eve Energy, and so far this year it's sold a little more than two hundred and seventeen thousand BEVs around the world, and that kind of makes me wonder how a company like BMW sells so many more electrics than giants like Ford and GM. That brings us to the
end of today's show. Thanks for tuning in, and I hope that you
have a great weekend. Al Online Daily is brought to you by Bridgetone Solutions
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