AD #3691 - Transplant Raising Wages to Block UAW; Big Supplier Hit by Cyber Attack; Fisker Slashes Its Production Forecast

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

Toyota was the first foreign automaker in the US to raise wages for its hourly workers after the UAW strike. Then Honda did it, and now Hondai

will too. Non Union workers at Hyundai's assembly plant in Alabama will get a

fourteen percent raise right now, and by twenty twenty eight their wages will have increased by twenty five percent. We think the other transplant operations including Nissan,

Kia, Subaru, Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen, and Volvo will likely follow, as well as Rivian, Lucid and maybe even Tesla. This is a

familiar pattern. After every UAW contract gets settled, non union automakers raise their

wages just enough to keep the union out. One of the big worries about

that UAW strike was the financial pressure it was putting on smaller suppliers, and we may have just seeing the first casualty. A company called Unique Fabricating,

which makes plastic, rubber and foam components, filed for Chapter seven bankruptcy, which is where a company closes down and liquidates all of its assets. It

has plants in Michigan, Georgia, Kentucky, Mexico, and Canada, and the bankruptcy filing threatened to shut down assembly plants at Stilantis and General Motors.

So Stilantis and its seat supplier, Young Fung got a court order to seize all the equipment from Unique Fabricating so they could continue to make the parts.

But even with that equipment, it's going to disrupt operations until everything is back up and running again. And here's where the story takes a darker turn.

Right in the middle of all this going on, Young Fung was hit with a cyber attack yesterday. Not only did it shut down part of its operations,

it caused production disruptions at Stillantis. Young Fung is not divulging many details,

but whoever launched the cyber attack probably knew it was hitting the company at a very challenging moment. Evie's startup Fisker is struggling. The automaker reported it

lost ninety one million dollars in the third quarter and it slashed its production forecast for the year. Fisker now expects to build between thirteen and seventeen thousand vehicles,

down from the twenty to twenty three thousand it previously forecasted. The company

is cutting production so it doesn't build up too much inventory. But Wall Street

wasn't happy with the news, and its shares tumbled fourteen percent yesterday. It's

no secret that Tesla wants to expand its operations into India, and it's making moves to do so. The Financial Times reports that Tesla's and talks with the

Indian government to reduce tariffs for electric vehicles. Currently, in ev costing under

forty thousand dollars is slapped with a seventy percent tariff. In evie's more than

forty grand are hit with a one hundred percent tariff. The new proposal would

slash that tariff down to fifteen percent for five years, but Tesla would have to commit to building an assembly plant in the country. And in other Tesla

India news, during a visit to the automaker's plant in Fremont, California, India's Trade minister said Tesla is about to double the number of components and imports from the country. We want to know what drives your testing. OTA Connected

Car Diagnostics, remote testing, Intrepid Control Systems is here to help you work from anywhere intrepid control systems driven by your data. Have a problem with your

car, Mercedes will now send a mechanic right to you. It's launching a

mobile service in Germany where attack pretty much shows up anywhere you want them to and they can perform maintenance, small repairs and other checks on the vehicle.

The service is available for most electrified Mercedes and Smart models and costs nearly seventy euros just for them to show up, plus any repairs. If successful,

Mercedes plans to expand this to other markets as well. More all electric people

movers are hitting the European market. Renault is launching the traffic Etech, which

comes with a fifty two kilowad hour battery pack that provides nearly three hundred kilometers or about one hundred and eighty miles of range, and it will have a starting price of thirty three thousand, five hundred euros. Bougeau also has a

couple of new models. The E Rifter and E Traveler. Both feature updated

styling and come in either a standard or long wheelbase configuration. The smaller E

Rifter is also available in five or seven seat variants and comes with a fifty kilowad hour battery pack that provides three hundred and twenty kilometers or almost two hundred miles of range. The E Traveler can seed up to nine and has two

battery sizes, either fifty kilowad hours, which provides two hundred and twenty four kilometers or roughly one hundred and forty miles of range, or seventy five kilowad hours, which provides three hundred and fifty kilometers or two hundred and seventeen miles of range. Toyota is partnering with the San Diego Gas and Electric Company to

study bidirectional charging using a Toyota BZ four X. The two companies will research

how vehicle to grid or V to G technology can improve services for customers and help out the electrical grid. Their research will focus on both charging and discharging

vehicles to and from the grid, but bidirectional charging can also be used to take electricity from one EV and put it into another, power a home or charge a stationary storage battery. The title for most expensive Ferrari ever sold is

changing hands on nineteen sixty two three point thirty LM two fifty gto by Scaglietti, just sold for a total of fifty one point seven million dollars at auction, which beat the previous record set in twenty eighteen a forty eight point four million. Its pedigree includes an entry at the twenty four Hours of Lama that

year, a win at the nurburg Ring, and the only factory gto race by Scooteria Ferrari. And as much money as this is, it doesn't even

come close to the most expensive car ever sold. That title belongs to a

nineteen fifty five Mercedes three hundred SLR Uhlenhut Coop which sold for one hundred and forty two million dollars. But that car was also purchased by Mercedes, and

I believe it wanted to have and keep that title. Pollstar is giving its

customers what they want, and that's more of its upcoming electric sports car that's coming out in twenty twenty six. The Pollstar six, which takes inspiration from

its precept concept, was supposed to be limited to five hundred examples, but once those five hundred examples, which it already has reservations for, are built, the Pollstar six will enter regular production and the company will build as many as customers want. Highlights of the model include a folding hardtop, dual motors

that provide six hundred and fifty kilowatts or over eight hundred and eighty horse power, and it will do zero to one hundred kilometers an hour in three point two seconds. That brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for

making autoline a part of your day. Auto Line Daily is brought to you

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