General Motors faces rising labor costs and plans to offset them by slowing EV and autonomous investments, while considering a return to hybrids amid slow EV market growth. Used EV prices have dropped significantly, and hybrids are now among the fastest-selling vehicles. Hyundai introduces a novel 'uniwheel' hub motor design aiming to improve EV packaging. Meanwhile, BYD's affordable Seagull EV sees rapid sales in China, and battery swapping gains traction through new partnerships. The US midsize pickup market shows surprising sales dynamics, with Toyota reintroducing the Land Cruiser 70. Upcoming discussions will focus on the electric pickup segment's future.
Topics:gm labor costshybrid vehiclesused ev priceshyundai uniwheel motorbyd seagull salesbattery swapping chinaus midsize pickupstoyota land cruiser 70electric pickup market
- Union Contracts Add $9 Billion To GM’s Costs - GM Likely to Bring Back U.S. Hybrids - Used EV Prices Plummet - Car Dealers Ask to Ease EV Mandate - Biden Admin Could Ease EV Source Rules - Hyundai’s Impressively Clever Hub Wheel Motor - BYD Sells 200K Seagull EVs In Seven Months - NIO and Geely Partner on Battery Swapping - Sea Change in U.S. Mid-Size Pickup Segment - Toyota Reintroduces 1984 Land Cruiser
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New labor contracts at General Motors are going to add more than nine billion dollars in costs over the next five years. GM says the UAW and UNIFOR deals
will add five hundred and seventy five dollars to the cost of making a vehicle, but it says it's going to completely offset those costs with next year's budget.
A key way to do that will be by slowing down investments in electric and autonomous cars and cutting capital spending. In a guidance statement, CEO Mary
Barra said GM would develop cars more efficiently and cut fixed and variable costs.
She also said GM would deliver slightly lower profits this year of nine point one to nine point seven billion dollars, but that free cash flow would actually grow by two to three billion dollars and land in the ten and a half to eleven and a half billion dollar range. Barra announced that GM will buy back
ten billion dollars worth of stock and boost the dividend by thirty three percent.
And there's no doubt that stock sure needs help. It's down twenty seven percent
this year and down twenty three percent over the last five years. General Motors
is also facing up to market reality and will likely add hybrid models back to its US lineup. GM's strategy was to set hybrids aside and plunge headfirst into
evs to achieve mass market manufacturing scale, but GM has struggled to launch its evs. The EV segment in the US is growing slower than expected, and
now suddenly hybrids are red hot in the marketplace. GM says a final decision
on bringing back hybrids has not been made yet, but a source at GM told Autoline that the company is developing hybrids to sell in South America and that could use those power trains in the US in case they're needed, so it should be easy enough for GM to start selling hybrids in the US again.
Not only are sales of new evs starting to slow, used ones are too.
According to a new report from ic Cars, used EV prices in October are down thirty three point seven percent compared to a year ago, while the average used car is down only five point one percent, and used EV prices are now about the same as all used cars. Last October, used EV
prices were about fifty three thousand dollars. Now it's tumbled to just under thirty
five thousand dollars, and the average used car is nearly thirty one thousand, and even though used EV prices are falling, it's taking longer to sell them.
Last year, a used EV would be on the market for thirty seven and a half days on average. Now that jumped to fifty two point four
days in October. And it's the same story for new EV's, which take
nearly three times as long to sell as they did a year ago. But
those hybrids are picking up the slack and make up seven of the ten fastest selling new vehicles. And because of the slowdown and the EV market in the
US, a group of dealers is urging President Biden to pull back on EV mandates. The administration has proposed that two out at every three cars sold in
twenty thirty two must be electric, but a group of thirty seven hundred dealers calling themselves the EV Voice of the Customer sent a letter to the President saying the administration should ease up on the mandate because EV demand is slowing and consumers shouldn't be forced to buy them. But the administration is considering one area to
give evs a break. It's discussing giving automakers a temporary reprieve from battle resourcing
rules that would disqualify evs from the full seventy five hundred dollars tax credit if they use battery parts or minerals from foreign countries the US doesn't have free trade agreements with like China. The rules go into effect in twenty twenty four and
twenty twenty five, but the auto industry says it hasn't built up the supply chain in North America to meet the mandate. The Treasury Department is expected to
issue a guidance this week that will reveal details about how much content from non free trade partners is allowed. The tajin automotive technologies, we combine world class
composite materials expertise with cutting edge designs because frankly, there are better ways to lightweight vehicles. So lighten up with tajing automotive technologies. The formula prove better
mobility. Remember when in wheel hub motors seem like the next big thing,
or at least they did to me when I first saw them about ten years ago. Hub motors take all the drive and braking components of an EV and
package them into the space behind the wheels. The main benefit is a lot
more room, but no one has really been able to bring the tech to the market so far. We think Lordstown was the closest with the Endurance pickup.
However, the Hyundai group might have a solution that it calls uniwheel or what I like to call hub motor light. Instead of packaging all the drive
in braking components behind the wheel, the uniwheel only features the gear reduction system for the electric motors, which are much smaller than typical EV motors, in place much closer to the wheels. It says it went through a lot of
design iterations before coming up with a setup that allows the wheel to move in all directions while still providing continuous power. While the uniwheel takes up more space
than a real hub motor, it takes care of problems like not having to worry about exposing the wiring for the motors, and it is still smaller than a traditional EV drive system, which will clear up interior room and or the possibility for more batteries. No word on when we might see this tech,
but Hyundai shows how it could be used for a wide variety of vehicles, including a sporty one with torque vectoring. It says it has tested the system
up to one hundred and twenty kilometers an hour or over seventy four miles an hour, and up to twelve hundred newton meters or over eight hundred and eighty pound feet of torque, but it's still developing the system and working on the right gear ratios for mass production, although it did say it's filed eight patents related to uniwheel in South Korea, the US, and Europe. While that
was fast, it only took BYD seven months to sell two hundred thousand units of its small electric car, the Seagull. The model sells for about ten
thousand, five hundred to twelve thousand, five undred dollars, but even at that low price, we believe BYD is still making a profit with that much volume. The real test for BYD will be trying to maintain the Seagulls growth.
Wooling was able to keep its little electric the Mini Evy, going by coming out with a number of different versions, but even its popularity has begun to taper off. Battery swapping sure seems to be gaining momentum in China.
Last week, Neo signed a deal with Changhan to partner on battery swapping, and now it's signing another deal, this time with Jili. Like its deal
with Changhan, Neo and Gili will jointly develop battery swapping models, build and share swapping stations, and work to establish battery swapping standards. So what do
you think could battery swapping be the solution to range anxiety and charging time.
Yesterday we covered the official unveiling of the Toyota Tacoma, and that got us focused on what's going on in the mid size pickup segment in the US market.
There's been a sea change that kind of caught us off guard, and we think you'll be surprised by the sales numbers. The Tacoma continues to dominate
the segment with sales that are three times more than the second place Chevrolet Colorado.
And then look who's in third place, none other than the Nissan Frontier, followed closely by the Jeep Gladiator, and amazingly, the Honda Ridge line is handily out selling the Ford Ranger, which in turn is not that far in front of the Hyundai Santa Cruz. The GMC Canyon rounds out the segment
in last place, but the sales rankings could change soon. All new redesigns
of the Colorado and Canyon just hit the market, and Ford is about to unleash an all new Ranger. Even so, Nissan and Honda are doing a
whole lot better than we ever expected to see. Toyota is reintroducing the land
Cruiser seventy, which first came out in nineteen eighty four, and it just went on sale in Japan, and at its core, not a whole lot has changed since then. It still features an old school ladder frame with leaf
springs in the back, coils up front in solid front and rear axles, but with a few modern amenities thrown in. The lighting is a definite upgrade,
so is the interior, and it comes with a two point eight liter diesel that makes one hundred and fifty kilowatts or about two hundred horse power.
That engine is made it to a six speed automatic transmission. Pricing for the
land Cruiser seventy starts at roughly thirty two thousand, five hundred bucks. Tomorrow,
Tesla officially delivers the cyber truck to retail customers and that will shine the spotlight on electric pickups. But like we're seeing elsewhere in the EV market,
that electric pickup segment might turn out to be a lot smaller than expected.
And that's what we'll get into on Autoline after ours tomorrow with Warren Brown of RFQ Insights and Sam Abu well Submit from Guide House Insights, and we might have a little surprise in store. So be sure to tune in tomorrow to
learn who's got the right strategy for the electric pickup war That's a wrap for today's show. See you. Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Bridgetone
Solutions for your journey, Intrepid Control Systems over the air engineering boost your game, Borg Warner Propulsion solutions that support a clean, energy efficient world, Scheffler we Pioneer Motion, and by Tajent Automotive Technologies the formula for better Mobility see as January ninth through twelve, twenty twenty four and Trumpet's looking forward to seeing you at a booth three six sixty six Las Vegas Convention Center in the West
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