AD #3705 - Milestone: U.S. EV Sales Top 1 Million; EVs Reducing Global Oil Demand; VW Adds Bi-Directional Charging
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This is underligned Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
While it's official for the first time ever, Americans bought more than a million electric vehicles in less than a calendar year. The National Auto Dealers Association
reports that sales of evs in the US through November hit one million, seven nine and eighty four units. That's up fifty point seven percent compared to last
year, while the overall market including ice vehicles, was up twelve percent, So EV sales are growing four times faster than the rest of the market.
Interestingly, the NADA says that franchise dealers represented thirty nine point seven percent of all the new BEEV sold so far this year, and that makes us sit up and pay attention, because when the NADA starts tracking the market share of EV sold by f franchise dealers, it's a huge change, and all those evs are starting to have an impact on the demand for oil. The International
Energy Agency or IEA, says that evs now make up thirteen percent of global vehicle sales and that number will grow to forty to forty five percent by the end of the decade. All those electrics will reduce oil demand by five million
barrels per day, which is more than Canada produces, and Canada is the fourth largest oil producer in the world. The IEA says the world will hit
peak oil demand in twenty thirty, which is ten years sooner than it predicted in twenty seventeen. The US is tightening up its rules for which evs qualify
for the full seventy five hundred dollars tax credit. If evs use batteries or
materials from China, they won't qualify for the full subsidy, and starting next month, some Tesla Model threes will only qualify for half of the credit.
The obvious solution is to use batteries made in the US, but any company that wants to mine battery materials in the United States faces an entanglement of regulatory red tape. It takes ten years to get through all the permits needed to
open a mine in the country, compared to only two to three years in Canada and Australia. Automotive News reports that Ford and Rivian are urging the White
House to speed up the process while maintaining environmental standards, and the White House is urging Congress to update the General Mining Act of eighteen seventy two. The
Department of Interior says the US urgently needs a modernized approach to approving new mines.
GM wants its salaried workers back in the office. At the beginning of
the year, it told employees they had to be in the office three days a week, but they could choose which days. But now CEO Mary Barras
says they have to be in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at a minimum, as long as they live within fifty miles of the office.
The new policy goes into effect on January eighth. GM says it's making the
change quote in order to meet critical business needs and retain company culture. But
while GM is trying to get workers back into the office, Lamborghini is shortening the work week for people on the line. The automaker just reached a deal
with Italian unions where workers on two shifts will alternate a five day week with a four day week, cutting twenty two days from their schedule each year, and three shift workers will alternate between a five day week with two four day weeks, cutting thirty one days a year. Despite the reduction in work hours,
workers are getting a fifty percent increase in bonuses and a one time one thousand euro bonus. Lamborghini is also hiring five hundred more production workers to offset
the shorter week. The workpace at Lambeau must be quite leisurely. It sold
nine two hundred and thirty three vehicles worldwide last year, so we estimate it makes about two and a half cars an hour. It looks like Neo could
be giving up on making its own batteries. It had plans to supplement some
of its vehicle production with batteries that it developed, but now the CEO of the company says that it will outsource all of the manufacturing for its own batteries, and Reuters takes it a step further, citing sources who say no Neo will completely spin off its battery unit and seek outside investors. Vertical integration can
be a great thing because bringing development in house gives the company flexibility and higher profit margins. But vertical integration also takes a lot more investment money, and
if you don't have the money, you can't make the investment. And Neo
says it's making changes at its battery unit to cut costs and improve efficiency.
It also helps that China has the biggest and some of the best battery makers in the world, and the EV startup is likely to continue to lean on its current suppliers CATL and the CALB Group. Nearly half of Bosch's plans already
use AI in manufacturing for scheduling, monitoring, and quality control purposes, but now the supplier is launching several pilot projects to integrate generative AI into its manufacturing.
Will be used to create images, to develop solutions for optical inspection of parts, and to improve the AI that it's already currently using. Bosch says
the generative AI will reduce the rollout and set up of AI solutions from the current six to twelve months to just a few weeks, and, depending on the size of the plant and what it produces, Boss says, the technology can lead to cost savings of six to seven figures per year and plant.
Volkswagen is launching bidirectional charging on its ID family of evs in Europe. Any
model with VW's larger battery pack, which has seventy seven kilowad hours of usable space and ID software three point five or higher, now has the function models that have already been sold can also unlock bi directional charging with an update to the new software. However, VW doesn't say if it can be done with
an over the air update or if you have to take the VA into a service center at first. It will offer a vehicle to home function, so
your car can supply power to your house if you need it, which also requires an integrated home energy management system and a home power station. Customers could
also add in solar panels and a battery storage system as additional sources of power for a home. In the future, VW says it will add the ability
for its evs to add power back to the grid as well, and we think if more people actually knew you could earn money by doing that, ev adoption would pick up. Depending on where you live in the world and what
your utility offers. We saw estimates that people could make as little as one
hundred and twenty dollars in the US, but as much as three thousand dollars a year in Denmark with bi directional charging. And it's not just for evs.
Stationary storage systems can also be charged during low demand times and then sell electricity back when demand is high. I think that's why We're seeing so much
activity in this field, and now Dimler Truck is creating energy storage systems from old electric bus batteries. Twenty eight packs that are no longer suitable for use
in its Ecido buses are combined together for over five hundred kilowat hours of storage capacity. These storage systems could really be used for any number of applications,
but one interesting scenario Dimler presents is using the units to store new batteries as well. The idea is a fleet would have a new battery in the storage
unit so it only operates at low loads until it needs to be swapped out with an end of life battery, or it's there just in case of an emergency that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for tuning in.
Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for your Journey and by Intrepid Control Systems over the Air Engineering Boost your game. At CS January
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