AD #3675 - Mercedes EVs Piling Up on Dealer Lots; Hyundai Partners with Saudi Fund to Build ICEs and EVs; Toyota Unveils More Concepts

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

It's day thirty nine of the UAW strike, and we're seeing the automakers offering even more in their contracts. Just a few days after GMS had a

manufacturing Gerald Johnson laid out how much some members could earn and wondered why they were on strike. GM, along with Stilantis, brought their offers more in

line with Ford, which includes a twenty three percent pay bump from all three.

Even so, it was still not enough to end the strike. UAW

president Sean Fain said this was a sign that the Detroit automakers have more room to move on their offers. He also said the biggest moves come right before

a tentative deal is reached and questioned how GM workers at Arlington and Flint Truck STILLANTIS workers at Sterling Heights and Cocomo, Indiana, and FORD workers at the Rouge plant feel about the current offers. If you didn't know, those are

some of their biggest and most profitable facilities. But even without those plants on

strike, it's still costing the automakers millions of dollars every day. And STILLANTIS

announced it's backing out of even more auto shows after already canceling at CES plans.

It says due to ongoing costs of the strike, it won't go to SEMA or the LA Auto Show. STILLANTIS had already started to tease vehicles it

was going to have at SEMA, so it was putting resources and efforts into those shows. But I think Sean Fain tipped his hand in his latest live

stream as to why he's pushing so hard for record contracts. He officially said

the UAW is going after nonunion plants. He said those are our future union

family, and that thousands of non union workers are reaching out and wanting to join their movement, stating very sternly, quote, we're going to organize non union auto workers everywhere. Fain will clearly use these record contracts to go after

non union workers and says it will use the stand up strike to take on corporate greed. But we wonder why Sean Fain and the other UAW officers aren't

working for five hundred dollars a week like its members on strike. Fain specifically

gave thanks to its members that have been on strike since the beginning, but John posted a video on Friday wondering why he doesn't share the pain. We'll

provide a link to that if you'd like to see it. Hyundai is forming

a joint venture with the Saudi Public Investment Fund. They're going to build a

new plant in Saudi Arabia that aims to build up the fifty thousand IC and electric vehicles a year. Hyundai says it will invest more than five hundred million

dollars into the project, but the Saudi Investment Fund will hold a seventy percent stake in the JV, while Hundai gets the remaining thirty percent. Construction is

scheduled to start next year, while the cars aren't expected to start rolling down the line until twenty twenty six. But that wasn't Hyundai's only investment into Saudi

Arabia. It's teaming up to build a hydrogen ecosystem there. As part of

the deal, Hyundai will provide fuel cell commercial vehicles, mainly buses, to the Saudi Public Transport Company, while another company called APQ will secure the hydrogen in the area. The buses they develop will be specifically suited for high temperature

climates. Toyota continues to show even more concepts for the Japan Mobility Show.

I don't know how many this is now, but it seems like every day there's another one, and today we have several. First is the land Cruiser

se Toyota imagines how a vehicle like this could broaden the land Cruiser brand's appeal with an all electric three row suv with quote highly responsive handling. It also

showed an all electric mid size pickup truck concept called the EPU. I always

find trucks with no cut line between the cabin and bed to look a bit interesting, and I also kind of like how the floating display screens on the dash overlap one another. The land Hopper is well, I'm not really sure

what to call it a scooter, a moped, a bike, but whatever you want to call it, it's a foldable, three wheeled electric thing that can be ridden in short distances. And the last thing we're gonna highlight is

a new steering wheel concept called Neo Steer. Like a motorcycle, it moves

the throttle and brake control trolls to write by where the hands grip, and takes advantage of a more retangular shape to improve forward vision. This would also

allow someone with disabilities to drive without any modification to the car. I'd love

to try it out. Tesla announced that it will exceed it's seven to nine

billion dollars spending target this year. The EV maker is burning through more cash

than expected due to plant upgrades and new model introductions. It had to retool

factories to make the updated version of the Model three in its ramping up to build the cyber truck. Tesla says it will be a couple of years before

it returns to the seven to nine billion dollars spending range. Another reason it's

spending more is because it's advertising in an effort to boost sales, which is something it had avoided in the past. Elon Musk post it on X earlier

today that it's advertising on a quote small scale and will do so at a large scale as we figure out what works best. Mercedes is starting to have

a hard time selling evs in the US. While its EV sales have increased

more than fourfold so far this year and now account for fourteen percent of its total sales, Edmunds reports that evs are starting to pile up on dealer lots.

It says that in September, the average number of days it takes to sell an EV jump to eighty two days compared to thirty eight days for BMW.

Automotive News spoke to Mercedes dealers who say the company is unwilling to offer sales programs for evs, and one dealer said the automaker is sending evs to them whether they ask for them or not. Mercedes says it does plan on

slowing production of its higher priced evs and will ship more lower priced evs to dealers, as well as more plug in hybrids and IC models, but that will take until the middle of next year before dealers see a difference in inventory.

And here's a bit of a shocker. A new study from a UK

based climate action group called Possible claims that new ice vehicles emit more pollution than a vehicle from a decade ago. But that's because consumers are buying more SUVs

than cars, and those vehicles are heavier and get worse fuel economy, and as a result, they emit more co Two, the researchers say that the least polluting car you can buy in the UK on average is a seven year old vehicle Jaguar Land Rover is making it easier for owners of classic models to get parts for their car. Each brand just launched their own new official store

on eBay that will sell authentic OEM parts for models that have been out of production for at least ten years. Currently, the online shops have more than

five thousand items available and that will increase in the future. JLR says the

parts are recreations of original items using original drawings, materials and tooling, and most of them are produced by the original supplier. But that brings us to

the end of today's show. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.

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AD #3675 - Mercedes EVs Piling Up on Dealer Lots; Hyundai Partners with Saudi Fund to Build ICEs and EVs; Toyota Unveils More Concepts

Toyota Land Cruiser

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