Tesla's delayed Mexico gigafactory and the shift of its $25,000 car production to Texas highlight challenges in expansion. The UAW is gaining momentum at Volkswagen's Chattanooga plant, signaling potential union growth. Germany's EV subsidy cut forces automakers to cover discounts themselves, complicating profitability. Trevor Milton of Nikola faces prison for fraud, while US EV tax credit rules spark political debate. Innovations like Tesla's 48V system and Nio's wire-controlled chassis promise automotive tech leaps. Chrysler plans a BEV in 2025, and Toyota launches a powerful plug-in hybrid Crown Sport. AI adoption in automotive R&D grows cautiously amid data security concerns.
Topics:tesla mexico gigafactoryuaw unionization effortsgermany ev subsidy cuttrevor milton nikola sentencingus ev tax credit controversyautomotive electronics innovationchrysler future ev planstoyota crown sport phevgenerative ai in automotivetesla cybertruck technology
- Tesla Mexico Takes a Siesta - UAW's Fain Shows Up on VW's Doorstep - Germany Yanks EV Subsidies - Nikola's Trevor Milton Gets Prison Sentence - Manchin Says No to All Chinese Battery Materials - NIO Takes Drive-By-Wire to New Level - Chrysler to Give Pacifica Significant Refresh - Toyota Adds PHEV to Crown Sport Lineup - Generative AI Slashes Forvia's R and D Costs - Sandy Munro on AAH
"... generative AI to do the work. The styling of the cybertruck sure has stirred up a lot of controversy, but it'..."
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This is Outline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
When is Tesla ever going to build that gigafactory in Mexico. In March,
it announced it would build an assembly plant in Nuevo Leon, and there was talk it would start building cars there in about a year, but not much has happened. Tesla has a reputation for building plants at breakneck speed,
but it hasn't been that way with this one. Right now, it's not
expected to open until twenty twenty five or even twenty twenty six. Part of
the problem is getting all the proper permits, but Elon Musk also deliberately slowed the investment in the plant, citing high interest rates and uncertainty with the global economy. Tesla's revolutionary assembly process, called Unboxed, was supposed to debut at
the Mexican plant to build a twenty five thousand dollars car that some are calling the Model Too, But now Musk says that the twenty five thousand dollars car will first be built in Austin, Texas. Speaking of Musk, maybe he's
a bit worried about the UAW making inroads into Tesla. The company is giving
workers at its battery plant in Nevada a ten percent raised in January, and some are going to get a raise of more than eight dollars an hour.
Meanwhile, the UAW seems to be making progress in its attempt to unionize Volkswagen's manufacturing complex in Chattanooga, Tennessee. UAW president Sean Fain was in Chattanooga to
deliver a letter demanding the company give up its union busting activities, something the company strongly denies. Faine's presence suggests that the UAW got fifty percent of the
workers at the plant to sign cards saying they want a union. He said
he would personally go to plants that hit that fifty percent threshold. In the
union's last live stream set, over one thousand VW workers had signed cards in the first week, and that one hundreds more had signed up since That first thousand represents over thirty percent of the workers at the plant, so it may have hit that fifty percent mark, but we still don't know for sure because the union is insane. It was hard enough for car companies to turn a
profit selling evs now, Germany has made it even harder. The country just
eliminated a six thousand, seven hundred and fifty euro subsidy for purchasing an EV.
It says the government can't afford to pay it, so a number of automakers say they will pay for the subsidy themselves. Tesla, Volkswagen, Stilantis,
and Mercedes Benz will give buyers the full discount for evs delivered by the end of the year. VW, Stilantis and Mercedes will also provide a reduced
subsidy for buyers who purchase an EV through early next year. No doubt other
automakers will be forced to follow suit to stay competitive, but this just blew a big hole in all their efforts to sell evs at a profit. Nicholas
founder and former CEO Trevor Milton is going to prison. Yesterday, a US
district judge in Manhattan sentenced Milton to four years behind bars for misleading shareholders about the development of the company's products and technology, but the judge did allow Milton to remain free on bail while he appeals the decision. Last year, a
jury convicted Milton of securities in wirefraud. Milton claimed he did not intend to
mislead investors and blamed his mistakes on his lack of experience as a CEO.
You may remember that Trevor was a guest on Autoline after hours before many of these accusations came up, and a number of you called them a fraud then, and we should have paid more attention to that. If you were one
of those people, pat yourself on the back because you saw right through that fraudster. While you could say companies like General Motors, Bosch and Iveco that
did deals with Nicola were taken for a ride 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 the software defined vehicles and journal architectures, automotive Ethernet technologies like ten based, two one S and multi GI Gibbit CUS CS twenty twenty four, Las Vegas Convention Center in West Hall, Booth three six sixty six, or visit intrepidcs dot com slash sales. Earlier this month,
the US Treasury Department issued its EV tax Credit guidance which limited the amount of materials batteries can contain from China, but it did exempt some trace minerals from China and other foreign entities of concern for two years, because most EV's would have been ineligible to qualify for the incentives. However, Senator Joe Manchin
is unhappy with that exemption and is trying to get it reversed. He says
it will hurt tax payers and make it easier for Chinese companies to receive ev tax credits. However, it's not clear if the Senate can override a Treasury
guidance, so yesterday Manchin asked the Government Accountability Office for a legal opinion on the matter. So we'll have to wait and see how this battle ends up.
We just saw a massive step forward in automotive electronics with Tesla switching to a forty eight volt system in the cyber truck, and if Neo can deliver on its promises, we'll see another leap two years from now. The Chinese
Evy startups new flagship sedan called the ET nine is said to be launching in twenty twenty five with a fully wire controlled chassis car. New China reports that
means most of the car's critical parts, including the throttle gearshifts, suspension, steering, and brakes, will all be controlled with electronic inputs instead of mechanical.
The luxury model will also feature its own computing system called the Vehicle Management Computer that will handle all of these functions, and when combined with the fully wired chassis, it will make integrating other technologies like autonomous driving even easier.
The ET nine is meant to compete against high end luxury cars from Audi, BMW and Mercedes, and it will use tech like this to set itself apart from the crowd. If you hadn't heard, the final Chrysler three hundred rolled
off the assembly line recently, which leads Chrysler with only one model in its lineup, the PACIFICA minivan, and according to brand CEO Christine Fuel, it's only going to have one model for about a year. Last month, she
revealed Chrysler will come out with a BEEV in twenty twenty five, inspired by the airflow concept, and it will keep the hybrid version of the Pacifica around until the end of the decade. Fuel is providing even more details about these
plans and says a quote pretty significant refresh of the PACIFICA will come out some point after it launches the BEEV. While we don't have too much to go
on, she says it will be more than just a moderate refresh. Toyota
revealed the new plug in hybrid version of the Crown Sport. We've previously shown
the standard hybrid model, and it either has some of the biggest breaks in the entire world, or there's a misprint in the press release. It claims
the p have will have twenty inch ventilated disc brakes and twenty inch aluminum opposing six piston calipers fitted into twenty one inch wheels. We googled biggest breaks,
and the optional carbon ceramic breaks on the Lamborghini Urus are listed as the biggest at four hundred and forty millimeters or seventeen point three inches. So we've reached
out to Toyota to see if its numbers are correct, and while we wait on a response, we can give you some of the other details on the car. It provides all wheel drive from a two and a half liter engine
and an electric motor that combine for two hundred and twenty five kilowatts or about three hundred horse power. While Toyota doesn't say how big the battery is,
it says it provides up to ninety kilometers or roughly fifty six miles of range.
The model will also offer bi directional charging and a fifteen hundred watt external power supply. Sales of the crown Sport PEV are starting now in Japan with
a base price right around fifty three thousand dollars. Automakers and suppliers are playing
around with generative AI to figure out how to boost their protoctivity. Autoline has
spoken to various suppliers who are using AI to write code and for VIA says it thinks AI can cut its R and D costs in half before the end of the decade. But automakers and suppliers have also told Audoline that using chat
GPT is dangerous because once you allow it to access your data for analysis, that data is now in the public domain. So all these companies are using
their own private, internal generative AI to do the work. The styling of
the cybertruck sure has stirred up a lot of controversy, but it's probably the most technologically advanced vehicle ever made, and that's what we'll be talking about on Autoline after hours this Thursday, with Sandy Monroe to leave from Sino, Auto Insights will be with us and so will Joe White from Reuters, and they're going to bring a healthy dose of skepticism with them, so don't miss out on this show. And a programming note here, Thursday will be the last
day of the year for Autoline, but we'll hit the ground running on January third as we gear up for the convention madness called CES. And that's all
for today's show. Thanks for tuning in. Auto Line Daily is brought to
you by Bridgetone Solutions for your journey and by Intrepid Control Systems over the air engineering boost your game.
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