GM projects a $25,000 drop in EV costs by 2025 driven by battery price declines and higher production volumes. Tesla's Cybertruck finally debuts with mixed reactions, higher prices than initially announced, and new tech like a 48-volt system and bidirectional charging. Chinese automaker IM launches a high-performance EV sedan targeting Tesla, while CATL unveils an efficient skateboard platform boasting 5.9 miles per kWh. Fisker cuts production to conserve cash amid tough market conditions. Hyundai sets sales records, and VW sees promising EV sales in China after price cuts. Lithium prices plummet due to oversupply and slowing demand.
Topics:gm ev cost reductiontesla cybertruck launchbattery technologychinese ev marketev production challengesfisker production cutshyundai sales recordsvw ev sales chinalithium price declineev platform innovation
- GM Says EV Costs to Drop $25,000 By 2025 - China’s IM LS6 Targets Tesla Plaid - CATL Skateboard Hits 5.9 Miles per kWh - Fisker Desperate to Save Cash - Hyundai Group U.S. Sales Up Strong - Cybertruck Debuts to Cheers and Boos - Nissan To Stop Building Leafs In U.S. - VW ID Sales in China Growing - Lithium Prices Plummet - Daimler Uses Its EV Trucks in Logistics
"...sing over is that Tesla switched to a forty eight volt system for its power electronics, meaning for thi..."
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GM is struggling to ramp up production of its evs, but it still expects to turn a profit on them. In twenty twenty five. Chief financial
officer Paul Jacobson said GM will hit an operating profit margin of about five percent, including clean energy tax credits. He also said higher production volume will improve
margins. Jacobson said that GM's cost per EV unit will be about twenty thousand
dollars lower in twenty twenty four than they were this year, and that will go down another five thousand dollars per vehicle in twenty twenty five. That's GM's
costs. It doesn't mean all EV prices will drop that much, but even
so it is a stunning revelation. Part of the drop comes from falling battery
material prices, which GM says will fall by four thousand dollars a vehicle next year. And more on falling battery material prices. Later in the show,
a Chinese automaker called Innovation in Motion or IM, which is partly controlled by SAIC, just launched a sedan called the LS six that it says it wants to compete against Tesla's modelesque plaid. It has some pretty impressive specs, but
we think it still falls a bit short of the performance Tesla. It has
a semi nine hundred volt architecture that allows peak charging of three hundred and ninety six kilowatts, which adds about three hundred and sixty miles of range in just fifteen minutes. The top of the line model comes with seven hundred and eighty
seven horse power and can accelerate from zero to one hundred kilometers an hour in three and a half seconds. An entry level version with a five hundred volt
architecture, three hundred and fourteen horse power and a seventy one kilowad hour battery pack, starts at only thirty thousand dollars inside. The LS six features giant
screens and a steering yoke. And we'll probably hear more about IM because that's
the company that Audi is buying its new EV platform from. And speaking of
EV developments, in China, CTL, the largest battery maker in the world, came out with its own skateboard platform for electric vehicles. It boasts a
thousand kilometer range or about six hundred and twenty miles. It has an efficiency
rating of ten and a half kilowad hours per one hundred kilometers, which is an astounding five point nine miles per kilowad hour, and that has got to be the best in the world. It also charges pretty fast. Five minutes
of fast charging adds one hundred and eighty six miles of range. All the
critical components, including the bades, the motors, electronic controllers, suspensions, steering, and braking, are integrated into the skateboard to come up with a lightweight and low cost design that includes sell the chassis packaging for the battery.
EV startup Fisker desperately needs to save cash, so it's slashing its production.
It will build only ten thousand vehicles in twenty twenty three, down from the thirteen to seventeen thousand it previously forecasted. At its prior rate of production,
the company only had about seven months of cash on hand, and with higher interest rates and investor wariness of EV startups, it's going to be hard for the company to get more capital. Fisker says building fewer cars will help free
up three hundred million dollars of working capital. It shares rows seven percent on
the news, but even so, the stock is down seventy eight percent this year. It's trading at only a dollar fifty eight to share, compared to
twenty eight dollars at its peak two years ago. Most automakers in the US
will report their November sales later today and on Monday, But the Hondai group beat them all to the punch, and no wonder it wanted to. Hundai,
Kia, and Genesis all set sales records. Hyundai was up eleven percent
with sales of seventy thousand vehicles, Kia was up three percent with more than fifty eight thousand units, and Genesis jump twenty percent to nearly six thousand cars in SUVs. Once all automakers report their sales, analysts expect the industry total
to be up ten percent with ASAR of about fifteen point four million units.
At CES January ninth through twelve, twenty twenty four, and Trepid'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 a soft We're
defined vehicles and Zornal architectures. Automotive Ethernet technologies like ten based two one s
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It's two years later than intended, but Tesla made its first deliveries of the cyber truck to retail customers yesterday. Public reaction ranged from cheers to booze.
Some people love it and some can't get past the radical styling like Ford's Lightning and Chevy Silverado EV. Pricing for the cyber Truck is coming in significantly
higher than initial announcements from the company. The base rear wheel drive version will
have a starting price of just under sixty one thousand dollars before destination charges and any incentives, but that truck won't be available until twenty twenty five. The
first versions to launch next year are the all wheel drive model that starts at roughly eighty grand and the cyber Beast, which comes in just shy of one hundred thousand dollars. No word on battery sizes just yet, but the rear
wheel drive model has an estimated two hundred and fifty miles of range, will do zero to sixty and six and a half seconds, and have the ability to toe up to seventy five hundred pounds. All wheel drive bumps range up
to three hundred and forty miles and towing to eleven thousand pounds, and drops the zero to sixty to four point one seconds. The eight hundred and forty
five horse power tri motor Cyberbeast has three hundred and twenty miles of range, will do zero to sixty and two point six seconds, and also has eleven thousand pounds of towing capacity. When Tesla first announced the cyber truck, it
said it would have over five hundred miles of range, but in order to get clear close to that figure, it's also offering a range extender, which is an additional battery pack that takes up about a third at the cyber truck's bed. It's estimated to boost the range of the all wheel drive model to
over four hundred and seventy miles and the Cyberbeast to over four hundred and forty miles. Elon Musk says this range extender is intended for long trips or when
towing. One of the most important aspects of the cyber Truck that I think
too many people are glossing over is that Tesla switched to a forty eight volt system for its power electronics, meaning for things like headlights and interior components.
A system like this allows you to send a lot more power to those electronics without raising the current, which means you can use much thinner and lighter wiring.
It's estimated that Tesla could cut the amount of wiring in the cyber truck by seventy percent. Another first for the company is by direction charging. This
includes the ability to send power to your home or another EV, which can also be done through a set of plugs in the bed that put out up to nine point six kilowatts of power. Rounding out the highlights of the cyber
truck are a new steer by wire system in four wheel steering as well.
But with models finally hitting customer hands, I'm sure it won't be long before we're learning even more. Nissan will not build the next generation Leaf in the
US. Automotive News reports that US production of the current gen will end in
twenty twenty five and the next gen will be built in England. And that
makes a lot of sense to US. Putting all that production in one plant
will slash its manufacturing costs, and even though leafs made in the UK won't be eligible for the full seventy five hundred dollars federal tax credit for retail customers in the US, it can still be applied to cars that are least looks like Volkswagen might be starting to turn the corner on selling electric cars in China.
Last month, it sold fifteen thousand of its ID family of evs, with the ID three accounting for twelve thousand of that total. That's VW's best
EV sales month ever in China, and it could be close to making a profit on those evs. Remember Tesla did not start posting a net profit until
it began selling roughly seventeen thousand Model threes a month. However, sales of
the ID three in China languished until VW slashed the price to under eighteen thousand bucks, so VW probably needs a lot more sales to make a profit on that car. A new ID three is about to hit the market, along
with the upscale ID next, and VW desperately needs to sell a lot more evs in China. It used to be the biggest car company in the country,
but it's losing market share every month. The price of lithium in China
isn't just tumbling, it's falling off a cliff, and the rest of the world tends to follow. China prices are already down nearly eighty percent this year
to a little over sixteen thousand dollars per metric ton, and analysts predict they could fall by thirty percent or more next year. The problem is too much
supply. Companies expanded manufacturing to keep up with demand, but now that demand
is slowing down, including in the energy storage sector, and an increase in recycling and new battery chemistries could also have an impact on lithium demand. Daimler
Truck North America announced its integrating electric trucks into its own logistics operations. It
will initially deploy four Freightliner E Cascadia trucks that are going to pick up parts from various supplier locations in the Pacific Northwest and deliver them to Daimler Truck's consolidation center in Portland, Oregon. The parts will then be shipped to its manufacturing
as well as its aftermarket distribution centers across the US and Canada. But that
brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for making autoline a part
of your day and I hope that you have a great weekend. Auto Line
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