AD #3673 - Cybertruck Launching in November; GM and Honda Taking Robotaxis to Japan; Silverado EV Delayed By a Year

This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

It's day thirty five of the UAW strike and it's all quiet on the labor front. No major developments to report, though four did lay off another

one hundred and fifty workers at an Axle plant. But even though there is

a lull in the action, stay tuned. You never know what UAW President

Sean Fain could do next, and that's going to be one of the topics on Autoline After Hours later today, we'll have labor expert Bob Shiravelli, who has great insight into how this strike is developing and how it could end up.

Meanwhile, there is big news from Tesla, which reported its third quarter earnings yesterday, and while analysts expected lower revenue and profits, the numbers were still a bit of a shock. Tesla actually sold twenty seven percent more vehicles

in the quarter compared to a year ago, and total revenue came to twenty three billion dollars, which was up nine percent from last year, but net profits came in at only one point eight billion dollars, down forty four percent from a year ago, and Tesla's operating margin was only seven point six percent, a massive drop from the seventeen point two percent it had last year.

Obviously, price cuts and plan production downtime really took their toll, and the stock price fell almost seven percent on the news. But we always learn a

lot when Elon Musk conducts an earnings call with Wall Street analysts, and here are some of the highlights we picked up on. Elon really played down expectations

for the cyber truck. He emphasized how complicated it is to build and predicted

it will take up to eighteen months before it reaches volume production and becomes cash flow positive. So we dug our own grave with cybertruck, he told analysts.

He said the cyber truck will not hit full line speed until twenty twenty five, but he also said it's our best product ever and pointed out it has a million reservations. Elon also said he's deeply worried that high interest rates

are making cars less affordable, and admitted that Tesla has started to advertise more, something that he used to brag that they never had to do. Tesla

is still going ahead with the plant in Mexico, but Elon says it's not going to go flat out and will watch the world economic situation and interest rates to decide how fast or slow it will go. But it wasn't all negative.

Production of forty six eighty battery cells in Texas we're up forty percent in just the last quarter. That's largely thanks to cutting scrap by forty percent,

and sells in the cyber truck truck have ten percent more energy density than the ones in the model. Why the company continues to make impressive gains and cost

reduction. The average cost of a Tesla is thirty seven five hundred dollars,

which is about two thousand dollars less than it was at the beginning of the quarter, and despite all that plan factory downtime. So it wasn't a good

quarter for Tesla, but it wasn't the end of the world either. Now

we'll have to see how and if the company can get back to its impressive growth rate in its industry best margins. GM and Honda are doing a lot

together. They're jointly developing fuel cells and working on autonomous vehicles. Here's the

latest. Honda, GM and GM's AV unit crews are forming a new joint

venture that will offer driverless taxi rides in Japan in twenty twenty six, initially quote dozens of origins, Cruise's purpose built Robotaxi will offer rides in central Tokyo, but they'll eventually grow that to a fleet of five hundred. Users will

have to go to specific pickup points before being taken to their destination, and will handle everything from handling to paying for a ride through a smartphone app.

Honda's initial investment in Cruise was seven hundred and fifty million dollars, but that will grow to two billion dollars over a twelve year period to help develop the technology. In twenty twenty one, Cruz started sending autonomous Chevy Bolts to Japan

in preparation for this new business that they just announced that's coming in twenty twenty six. All of the origin shuttles for the new JV will be made at

GM's Detroit ham Trammick plant in Michigan. And speaking of Honda and AVS,

it's expanding use cases for its autonomous work vehicle prototype. It showed how it

can help out on a farm, and now it revealed how it can take over repetitive tasks at an airport. The vehicle is electric and can operate on

its own, or a human can take over with a remote control and even program in certain routes that are driven a lot. It's capable of carrying up

to four hundred kilograms or eight hundred and eighty pounds and towing seven hundred and fifty kilograms or over sixteen hundred and fifty pounds, which makes it suitable for lawn mowing or carting around heavy loads. Honda didn't reveal the battery size,

but says it has a range of up to forty five kilometers or about twenty eight miles. The autonomous work vehicle was first shown in twenty eighteen, and

Honda says it's currently doing field tests with the hopes of bringing it to market one day. God Shiffler we pioneer Motion electrifying mobile manufacturing smarter, reducing CO

two emissions, making energy production clean. Scheffler Pioneer's Motion to advance how the

World moves. One casualty of the UAW strike could be GM's EV timeline.

It's delaying production of the Chevy Silverado EV at its Orient plant in Michigan by a year. The truck was scheduled to go into production late next year,

but now it won't start rolling down the line until late twenty twenty five.

GM is delaying production to quote better manage capital investment while aligning with EV demand.

Here's our translation. This strike is costing us a lot, and we're

not as optimistic as we were before on how many people will buy an EV.

The Orient plant also builds the Chevy Bolt, but that's going out of production at the end of this year, meaning the plant could be idled for two years. The Silverado EV is also built at GM's Hamtramick plant in Michigan.

Currently they only make the work truck version, but the retail version starts later this year. GM isn't the only one thinking that EV mania is cooling

off. Hyndai cut the lease price of the Ionic five and six in the

US by fifty dollars a month, so in Ionic six is now two hundred and ninety nine dollars a month and the Ionic five is three hundred and forty nine dollars per month for thirty six month leases. But this also means that

the Ionic six is now forty four dollars a month cheaper than leasing a Tesla Model three, and even the rich are not as keen on EV's as they were just a while ago. EV startup Lucid only delivered fourteen hundred and fifty

seven air sedans in the third quarter, just slightly ahead of the fourteen hundred and four it delivered in the previous quarter. However, productions slipped to fifteen

hundred and fifty vehicles in Q three, down from the two thousand, one hundred and seventy three units it built in Q two. So with GM delaying

Silverado EV production, Hyundai cutting EV lease prices, and Lucid's week sales, this could be a danger sign for EV sales in the US, but car dealers could be a big part of the EV problem. Some GM dealers are

significantly marking up the price of the new Chevy Blazer EV. According to Cars

Direct, several GM dealers in the US are charging as much as ten thousand dollars more than the MSRP. With the up to seventy five hundred dollars federal

tax credit, the starting price should be below fifty one thousand dollars, but with the markup, customers will have to fork over more than seventy grand.

GM and Ford have had issues with dealers doing this with evs in the past, and we think it's ridiculous that it's still happening. Stalantis is taking a

page out of Ford's book and is carving out its commercial vehicle division called Stalantis Pro One. It will cover several brands including Stroan, Fiat, Opal,

pougeat Ram and Vauxhall. In addition to commercial vehicles, the new business will

offer fully connected vehicle technologies, which Stillantis expects to generate five billion euros in revenue a year by twenty thirty. By the end of this year, one

hundred percent of its new vehicles will be connected, and by twenty twenty six they will all have over the air update capabilities. Stillantis expects that forty percent

of its commercial vehicle sales will be beev's by twenty thirty, and it's also partnering with a company called Quinnomic to electrify older models in customers fleets. And

as part of the launch, Stilantis will reveal a new van lineup for each brand on Monday, including a hydrogen powered vehicle. Toyota is showing off yet

another concept for the Japan Mobility Show. The IMV zero is a modular truck

that's about seventeen feet long and less than six feet wide. Toyota doesn't say

what kind of powertrain it has, but it shows how it can be modified for a number of applications, from a food truck to an ambulance, and even an extra cab on the back to expand its two seat passenger capacity.

The Japan Mobility Show kicks off on October twenty sixth. The Hyundai Group plans

to launch an eve tall service and is making a couple of moves to get there. Its air mobility division, called Supernal, announced a partnership with Korean

Air for help in designing and testing EV tolls, or electric vertical takeoff in landing aircraft. Supernal also announced another partnership, and this one is to design

and manufacture a landing gear system for the aircraft. It plans to launch EV

tolls in the US in twenty twenty eight, followed by Europe shortly after that.

That's it for today, Thanks for watching. Altoline Daily is brought to

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