AD #3671 - UAW Tells Ford to Pound Sand; Tesla China Slips to 5th Place; Audio Speakers with No Rare Earths
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This is Outoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
It's day thirty three of the UAW strike, and yesterday at Ford's iconic Rouge plant, bill Ford practically pleaded with the union to bring the strike to an end. Here's what he had to say. We can stop this now,
and I call on my great EAW colleagues, some of whom I've known for decades. Many are close personal friends. We need to come together to
bring an end to this acrimonious round of talks. Chairman bill Ford went on
to warn that the supplier community will start to collapse with an expanded strike, and MIMA, the Motor Equipment Manufacturers Association, which represents the supplier community, says the strike is already hurting them. Thirty nine percent of suppliers have laid
off line workers, up from thirty percent last week. Half of the suppliers
who haven't laid off any workers say they will start laying them off in the next two weeks, and eighty percent of mima's members say they are worried about the financial stability of the suppliers that supply them. Even so, the union
shows no signs of backing down, just the opposite. Sean Faine, the
UAW president, immediately shot down bill Ford's plead with this post on acts.
Bill Ford knows exactly how to settle this strike, Fein wrote, instead of threatening to close the rouge, he should call up Jim Farley, tell him to stop playing games and get a deal done, or we'll close the rouge forum. The last UAW strike in twenty nineteen against General Motors lasted forty days,
so we think Faine may want to go at least forty one days to prove he's tougher than the last generation of union leadership. And now we move
over to Tesla, where analysts are predicting that third quarter sales and profits will be down. Even so the damage will likely be limited. Morgan Stanley forecast
that gross profit margins will be seventeen and a half percent, down from eighteen point one percent. But in China, Tesla could be facing bigger problems.
Car News China reports that last week byd Liatto, GAC and Wuling all out sold Tesla with any of these in China. Now, those are numbers that
are based on insurance registrations, and it's only for one week, and several of those brands sell more than just b eves, so the numbers could change a lot by the end of the month. But it sure is surprising to
see that Tesla has slipped into fifth place for new energy vehicles in China.
We want to know what drives you are testing. OTA Connected Car Diet,
ggnostics, Remote Testing. Intrepid Control Systems is here to help you work from
anywhere. Intrepid Control Systems driven by your data. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation,
a lobbying group in the US that represents most of the major automakers, is once again criticizing the Biden administration's proposal to boost the fuel economy standards.
NITZE is proposing to increase requirements two percent per year for passenger cars and four percent for trucks and SUVs from twenty twenty seven until twenty thirty two. This
would result in a corporate average fuel economy or CAFE target of fifty eight mpg for an automaker's fleet, and the Alliance says this will result in vehicle prices increasing three thousand dollars on average by twenty thirty two because all the fines automakers will receive for not being able to comply. Last month, the alliance claimed
automakers will face more than fourteen billion dollars in fines for non compliance if Nitze doesn't revise the proposal. Toyota continues to show more future EV concepts that it
will display at the Japan Mobility Show at the end of the month. This
is the Coyobaco, a boxy little van that shares its name with a special type of shipping container and can be adapted for a number of uses. Toyota
shows how it could be used for delivery or as a small shuttle in a commercial setting, as well as for private owners to carry all their gear or to convert it into a wheelchair accessible van. The interior features two display screens,
one thin one mounted up high and near the windshield, and another just in front of the rectangular steering wheel. Toyota didn't provide any details about the
powertrain other than to say it's a BEEV, but it did reveal it's about four meters or thirteen feet long and only about one point eight meters or under six feet wide, so it would fit nicely into most tight spaces. Another
EV startup is filing for bankruptcy. Last week, it was for Chinese evmaker
WM Motor, and today Volta Trucks is doing the same. The commercial EV
startup that was founded in twenty nineteen announced it will file for bankruptcy in Sweden, which is where it's headquartered, and it will do the same in the UK, where it has other operations. Volta says it had difficulty raising cash
after its battery supplier Proterra filed for bankruptcy back in August, which reduced Volta's production targets. But there's also a lot more competition in or coming to the
electric truck segment. We have more details about a Stalantis partnership with Chinese automaker
Leap Motor that we first reported about in late August. Car China reports that
Stalantis is wrapping up its investment to buy a vehicle platform from Leap Motor that supports both BEEV and extended range electric vehicles. Leap Motor has already shown its
own model on this platform and SUV called the C ten, but the company always hope to supply it to other automakers that now include Stalantis. But previous
reports say that VW standalone JETA brand in China is also getting the platform, and as we know, the Volkswagen brand signed a deal to get an EV platform from Xpun and Audi is turning to SAIC for an EV platform. So
a number of foreign companies are turning to Chinese automakers to speed up their electric transition. Automakers want to reduce their reliance on rare earth elements because the market
is dominated by China and there are environmental concerns over mining them. That's why
a UK based car audio company called Warwick Acoustics has developed speakers that don't use rare earth elements. While there is a lot of focus on reducing rare earth
and evmotors, Warick says as much as thirty percent of the rare earth content in a premium EV is actually in the audio system. Instead of a magnet,
Warwick speakers replaces them with a one millimeter thin electrostatic panel, which reduces the weight by ninety percent compared to a conventional speaker. It also says its
panels are made from one hundred percent by mass upcycled and recyclable materials, which makes it even more sustainable. Warwick says it's in the final stages of making
them for its first customers, but it did not say what companies will use it. If someone were to design a new age version of early Dustbuster minivans,
we think you get something like this, the all new le Auto Mega MPV. It's the company's first pure BEEV and features of roof mounted lidar in
eight hundred volt electronic architecture and a Quillen battery from CATL And no matter what you think of the looks, Li Auto teases that it will have excellent aerodynamics.
And I wanted to let you know that we launched an all new website at www, dot auto line, dot TV. It's cleaner, easier to
read and search, and it's all part of our effort to help keep you informed on the global automotive industry. But with that we wrap up today's show.
Thanks for making autoline a part of your day. All Dooline Daily is
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