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AD #3672 - UAW Casualty: Stellantis Pulls Out Of CES; EU Battle of Direct Sales vs. Dealerships; BMW Surrenders, Goes with NACS

AD #3672 - UAW Casualty: Stellantis Pulls Out Of CES; EU Battle of Direct Sales vs. Dealerships; BMW Surrenders, Goes with NACS

Autoline Daily Oct 18, 2023 10 min
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About this episode

The ongoing UAW strike is causing significant economic damage, prompting Stellantis to pull out of CES and shift to online reveals. Ford announces leadership changes to support its growth plan. The episode explores the evolving automotive sales landscape, with BMW adopting direct sales alongside dealerships in Europe and integrating Tesla's charging standard. Political divides over EV fees in the US are highlighted, alongside BYD's strong profit growth. Hydrogen-powered internal combustion engines gain attention as a cleaner alternative for heavy vehicles. The episode closes with a historical nod to the first use of acrylic tail light lenses in 1948 Cadillacs.

Topics: uaw strike impact stellantis ces cancellation ford leadership changes direct sales vs dealerships bmw nacs integration ev registration fees byd profit growth hydrogen ic engines automotive materials history
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
It's day thirty four of the UAW strike and we're starting to see more damage to the auto industry. The Anderson Economic Group estimates that the cost of
the strike to the US economy is at seven point seven billion dollars, but it's actually higher than that because Anderson says its calculation included info up until October twelfth, which was six days ago. The total losses include OEM wages,
loss production, supplier wages and earnings, as well as losses at dealerships and with their customers. And another casualty is that Stillant has canceled its plans to
go to CES in January. Stillantis blames the UAW strike and says it has
to cut costs anywhere again. The company has used cs for major concept unveils,
including the fear Yacht, five hundred cento Venti, the Chrysler Airflow, the Chrysler Synthesis, the Chrysler Portal, the Poujo inception, and the ram Ev pickup. If it had any concepts to unveil at CEES this coming January,
we'll probably see Stillantis do some sort of online reveal instead. Meanwhile,
the Canadian union UNIFOR told Stillantis it has until October twenty ninth to sign a new labor contract or face a strike. Unifor has already signed contracts with Ford
and GM. Stillantis has more manufacturing facilities and employees more uniform workers in Canada
than any other automaker, so it has the most to lose. Ford announced
some organizational changes this morning. It says these represent the last cornerstones in its
Ford plus growth plan. Kumar Gajultra, who was running Ford Blue, the
IC side to the company, will now be the Chief operating Officer of Ford, overseeing all industrial operations including all IC and hybrid engineering, purchasing and manufacturing.
Andrew Frick, who has a sales and marketing background, will now take over Ford Blue. Doug Field, who is in charge of developing evs and
software platforms, will continue to do that, and the same goes for Ted Cannis, who runs Ford Pro the commercial side of the company. No change
there either. It's clear that the traditional dealership sales model has to evolve,
but direct to consumer sales are not for everyone either, which is why we think we're seeing companies that only use dealers start to also offer direct sales and companies that only offer direct sales start to open dealerships as well. In August,
Delantis announced that Strohan would be its first brand to offer direct sales and fixed pricing in Europe. Then last month Expunk said it would start phasing out
direct sales in favor of dealerships in China, and now we're seeing even more.
BMW will adopt direct sales and fix pricing in Europe in addition to its traditional dealerships. First will be the Mini brand at the beginning of twenty twenty
four, and then BMW will follow in twenty twenty six. Somewhat interestingly,
BMW will sell both new and use cars this way. Moving in the opposite
direction is Chinese automaker Neo Reuter's reports it's thinking about building a dealer network in Europe instead of just offering direct sales and operating a couple of stores as a way to speed up its sales, which have been lower than expected in Europe.
With so many companies going the other way from what they had been doing, we think it's inevitable that a hybrid sales model will be adopted in most of the world. In other BMW news, the group announced that it will
integrate Tesla's NAT connector into its evs starting in twenty twenty five, and will also gain access to its supercharger network in North America at the same time.
The new five series, including the all electric I five, which will launch in most markets before the end of November, will obviously miss out on this benefit for a little bit, but no doubt it will be added to the list of approved vehicles. BMW also tease the new wagon version the five Series
Touring, that will come out in the spring of next year, and says it will have all the same powertrains as the sedan. There's a big political
divide in the US over evs. Democrats are pushing to get more on the
road, while Republicans claim that nobody wants them, and now mostly Republican controlled states are charging big fees to EV owners. At least eight states are charging
two hundred dollars or more for annual registration fees, and all but one Pennsylvania, is controlled by Republicans. The GOP claims it's an effort to make up
for lost gas tax revenue since EV owners don't have to pay taxes on gas, but critics say it's an effort to discourage EV purchases. While gas tax
revenues have fallen over the last several years, that has more to do with gas powered vehicles being more fuel efficient, and according to state transportation officials, the extra EV fees won't do much to help fill the funding gap and they'll only boost budgets by point one to three percent. BYD says it's Q three
profits sword. The Chinese EV maker is forecasting that its Q three net profit
will range from one point three to one point six billion dollars, an increase of sixty seven to one hundred and two percent compared to a year ago.
It's incredible just how fast BYD is growing, and it shows that it has no problem making money on the vehicles that it sells. We learned at the
SAE Propulsion Conference that as many as fifty seven percent of the vehicles in the world could still have some sort of IC engine by twenty fifty, So one of the big questions will be how do you make them cleaner? The answer
might still be IC, but IC that runs on hydrogen fuel. Honda,
Toyota, Kawasaki Suzuki and Yamaha are all collaborating on a hydrogen powered ice vehicle that will compete in the off road to car rally. The engine is a
supercharged dual overhead cam four cylinder with four valves per cylinder, and this is just one test that they hope leads to the development of a hydrogen powered IC for small mobility applications. And there's a number of benefits including no worries about
when, where, or how long to charge, you get the same payload and range, and there's vastly reduced emissions. However, the best applications seem
to be for big buses, trucks and ships, generators, and construction equipment.
A diesel bus costs about one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, a hydrogen powered IC bus is about one hundred and eighty thousand, but a beev bus is roughly five hundred grand, and a fuel cell powered bus would cost about seven hundred thousand dollars. Hydrogen fuel is capable of powering all the IC vehicles
in the world with not a ton of mone modification, but the biggest drawback is it takes a lot of water to make hydrogen fuel, and before we go, we want to recognize a historical milestone in the use of new materials in the auto industry. The Society of Plastic Engineers or SPE, is honoring
the nineteen forty eight Cadillac Series sixty, sixty one and sixty two for being the first to use acrylic tail light lenses. It was made possible by the
invention of a new polymer discovered by doctor Otto Ram in nineteen thirty two called polymethyl metacrylate. The SPE says it was a game changer in automotive design quote,
replacing ground glass and enabling a renaissance of new lighting designs for all OEMs.
You know, plastic light covers are something that we take for granted today, but back then it was quite a breakthrough. And that little hit.
My story lesson brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for tuning
in. Autoline Daily is brought to you by Bridgetone Solutions for your journey Intrepid
Control Systems over the year engineering boost your game end by Scheffler. We pioneer
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