AD #3696 - EV Market Share Overtakes Diesel in Europe; PHEV Sales Take Off in China; Robot Dogs Help Hyundai Build Cars
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This was Outoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
For a while it looked like sales of electric vehicles were slowing down in Europe. Not anymore. The European Automobile Manufacturers Association reports that last month registrations
of evs shot up more than thirty six percent to more than one hundred and twenty one thousand vehicles. Through the first ten months of the year, Europeans
have bought one point two million evs, up fifty three percent from last year.
Evs now have a fourteen percent market share, surpassing diesel's market share for the first time. But hybrids did even better. Their sales shot up more
than thirty eight percent in October. Europeans bought two point two million hybrids through
the first ten months, and they now account for twenty eight point six percent of the market. However, plugin hybrids having done so well, sales fell
five percent last month and they lost two points of market share, now down to only eight point two percent. Sales of gasoline cars grew eight percent,
but that was lower than the overall growth in the market, so they lost two points to share as well, and so the European market has hit a historical inflection point. Over half of the market now comes from sales of evs,
hybrids and plugins. But in China there's a different story going on.
Sales of hybrids are falling while sales of plug ins are soaring. According to
the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, sales of PEA house were up seventy two percent for the first nine months of the year, while sales of hybrids were down fifteen percent. And while the total numbers are still low, sales of
extended range evs shot up one hundred and fifty seven percent. So sales of
p HI and E revs are growing faster than sales of pure electrics EV sales we're up fourteen percent this year, but phebs and erevs we're up eighty five percent combined. And by the way, Reuter's reports that BYD has eight of
the top ten selling PHAs in China, and it points out that BYD is exporting phs to South America, where there isn't much of a charging infrastructure.
It's fascinating to see sales of plug in hybrids growing so fast in China, and that's a trend we're going to have to keep an eye on. Well.
Now it's Nissan's turn. It's following Toyota, Honda, Hondai and Subaru
to boost wages for its non union factory workers in the US. Nissan will
give them ten percent raises in January. Nissan says it's also eliminating wage tiers.
It looks like all the non union automakers in the US are boosting wages in response to the record deals that the UAW sign with the Detroit automakers.
Obviously they want to keep the union out of their plans, but organizing them is now the uaw's top priority. Something it hasn't succeeded in doing after forty
years of trying. Is Tesla growing too fast for its own good. In
twenty nineteen, the evmaker launched its own insurance company, Tesla Insurance, because it believed it could offer customers a better service. Other insurance providers at the
time were charging much higher rates for evs, mostly over concerns of higher repair costs, so Tesla Insurance came out and undercut most of their prices. But
Reuter's reports that understaffing issues have led to a number of complaints, including not being able to get a hold of anyone, having to make multiple callbacks and having to wait weeks or even months to get paid for acclaim. Tesla Insurance
continues to expand into more areas and hire more workers. Right now, it
doesn't seem like enough to cover its growing customer base, and I think that Tesla could find itself in a similar race to build out an adequate number of service centers. That's one advantage that the legacy automakers still have. At CES
January ninth through twelve, twenty twenty four, and Trupid's looking forward to seeing you at our booth three six sixty six, Las Vegas Convention Center in the West Hall. We'll be demonstrating the latest and greatest in the software defined vehicles
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There's strengthened numbers, they say, and so two Chinese automakers are joining forces to promote battery swapping. Neo is the leader when it comes to swapping.
Yes, yesterday we reported it has opened more than twenty one hundred swap stations in China, and today Neo inked a deal with chan Gan Auto to partner on battery swapping. The two of them will jointly develop battery swapping evs,
build and share swapping networks, and they'll look to establish battery swapping standards.
This is Neo's first battery swapping partnership with another automaker, and gas Goog reports that the company is in talks with four to five more automakers on potential collaborations and obviously, the more companies that adopt it, the easier and faster it will spread. And speaking of battery partnerships, Stalantis and Chinese battery maker Coatl
signed a deal to make LFP battery sells and modules for Stalantis's evs in Europe.
The two companies are also considering forming a joint venture. There aren't many
more details other than it will be a long term collaboration, but deals like this with European automakers will be how Chinese battery makers get into the EU with no problem. Hyundai recently said it was going to start making vehicles. That
quote leaves behind the traditional conveyor belt manufacturing approach. We speculated it might follow
Toyota and have vehicles drive them cells down sections of the manufacturing line, but it's launching what is called a cell based production system. Vehicles still go through
normal manufacturing at some parts of the plant, but it also breaks out other sections into their own cells. Just before this point, the vehicle bodies are
placed on autonomous robots that can take them around to each cell, which typically has fewer to no human workers. Hyundai says its new plant in Singapore has
about two hundred robots, including those dogs from Boston Dynamics, that can do about half of all the tax performed at that plant. It's even incorporating digital
twins so it can valid eight changes in the virtual world before doing anything in the real world, and once changes are confirmed, Hyundai can have robots physically move all the components on the production line. Earlier this year, the plant
started making the Ionic five and the autonomous ROBOTAXI version of that ev It starts making the Ionic six sometime next year, and in the future it will make other mobility products, including purpose built vehicles. Right now, it only has
the capacity to make thirty thousand vehicles a year, but it will also use the site as a customer experience center for new buyers, where they can even get a test drive on a rooftop track. Ford may have pushed a little
too hard into evs. The Illinois State Motor Vehicle Board said that Ford broke
state franchise dealer laws when it changed its dealer requirements for selling evs. The
dealers argued it was unnecessary that some of them had to install all up the five level two chargers, invest in training, and eventually install level three chargers.
But now Ford is adjusting it so dealers only have to put in two to three level two chargers. It cut the training requirement in half, and
it got rid of the mandate for level three chargers. Even though it's making
the changes, Ford says it's appealing the decision and still stands by its voluntary EV program. Youch. Toyota, which is usually seen as a squeaky clean
company, just got fined sixty million bucks for illegally blocking customers from canceling additions to their financing that drove up their monthly payments. Customers complained to Toyota Motor
credit that dealers lied to them saying the extra charges were mandatory, or rushed through the paperwork so that customers weren't aware of how much they were really paying.
If customers wanted to cancel the additions, they were directed to a hotline, or staff tried to convince them not to cancel, or never gave them a refund. For its part, Toyota did not have to admit to doing
anything wrong, but it will pay the fine and that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for making autoline a part of your day.
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