AD #3718 - EV Startups Ditching Direct Sales; U.S. Battery Production Surging; Chevy Bolts Going for Under $20K

This is underligned Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

Automakers are reporting car sales for twenty twenty three, and General Motors is once again the sales leader in the US. The automakers sold two point six

million vehicles last year, up fourteen percent from twenty twenty two. Toyota was

number two with two point twenty five million vehicles sold, which is a six point six percent gain. As of this show, not all automakers have reported

their sales, but overall US sales are expected to be around fifteen and a half million units compared to thirteen point nine million in twenty twenty two, and it's the highest number since the pandemic. Electrified vehicles, including hybrids and PHEVs,

accounted for seventeen percent of sales, with beevs totaling about eight percent, and according to a new report from Urban Science, b EV demand is growing in pockets around the US. California still leads the way in b EV sales.

Last year. Three out of the five top market areas for b EV

sales by volume, we're in California, and four of the top five markets by b EV share are also in California, but sales are growing in other areas as well. The b EV share in Seattle Tacoma was twenty point four

percent, thirteen point eight percent in Las Vegas, and twelve percent in Washington, DC, and in two counties in Washington the share is forty percent, and one county in Texas and another in Georgia are at a fifteen percent share.

We've heard that EV startups can cut costs by avoiding franchise dealers and selling cars directly to consumers. Well that was the theory, but Fisker and Vinfest

are throwing in the towel with their direct sales model and are turning to dealers instead. Fisker was going to build its own network of showrooms and delivery centers,

but it turns out that was more expensive than signing up with existing dealers.

It found it didn't have the money to buy all the land, pay all the sales salaries, and have acres of inventory sitting around waiting for customers.

It also found that it wasn't very good at delivering vehicles to customers.

Last year, Fisker made ten thousand evs but was only able to get forty seven hundred of them into customers' hands. After three years of the auto industry

struggling with a chip shortage, guess what's happening now there's too many chips.

Mobili, which makes cameras and chips for eight s and autonomous vehicles, warned investors that it's going to get hammered in the first quarter as automakers cut orders to sell off access inventory the walls. Street Journal reports that the stock prices

of chip makers nxp On, Semi, Texas Instruments, and wolf Speed are all down on expectations of a chip glut, and so it goes from famine to feast, and the same thing will probably happen with EV batteries. Battery

experts predict there will be a glut of EV batteries in the early twenty thirties, but it's still all systems go for US EV battery production. According to

a study from the Environmental Defense Fund, the US has already locked in enough battery capacity to outpace the anticipated demand for evs in twenty thirty, estimating over one thousand gigawatt hours per year by twenty twenty eight, and it will be needed for an EV scene that's ruvving up, hitting twelve percent of total US vehicle production in twenty twenty three, up seventy percent from the previous year.

Forty five battery facilities are in the pipeline, boasting an average capacity of twenty three gigawatt hours per year, and this push has not only accelerated US investment in EV manufacturing and job growth taling over one hundred and sixty five billion dollars in the past eight years, but it could also create one hundred and seventy nine thousand direct jobs, along with eight hundred thousand more in the broader economic landscape. Ford continues to mess with the pricing for the F one fifty Lightning.

The commercial version, called pro now starts at just under fifty seven thousand dollars including destination charges, which is five thousand dollars more than a twenty twenty three model XLT, which is the base version that a retail customer can buy, is almost sixty seven thousand dollars, an increase of ten grand. The

Lariat trim line is also up by two thousand dollars, but there are price drops for the top two trims of seven and five thousand dollars. Platinum trucks

now start at eighty seven thousand dollars and platinum blacks start at ninety five thousand.

However, with price tags over eighty grand, both models do not qualify for the federal tax credit, while the other versions of this truck do.

And before we get into more news about the federal tax credit, I'd like to point out it's not just the price of electric trucks going up. Ice

truck prices are on the rise too. Ram announced new MSRPs for the fifteen

hundred pickup and every trim is up. The increase is as little as eight

hundred and fifty five bucks for the base Tradesman model, but it steadily goes up from there to the Longhorn edition, which is just over seventy seven five hundred dollars including destination charges, or more than fourteen thousand dollars over last year's price. Now back to those tax credits. New guidelines for battery sourcing requirements

kicked in on Monday, which means a number of evs lost access to the full US tax credit. GM is one of those companies with its ultim based

evs, but it doesn't want the change to dissuade people from buying its electrics, so it told dealers that it would cover the seventy five hundred dollars for eligible evs, but it might not have to do this for too long.

GM believes the sourcing requirements will change again, which will make its evs eligible again sometime early this year. And while many vehicles have lost access to the

full credit for purchases, it's still available for evs that are leased. And

the one GM vehicle that didn't lose access to the credit is the Bolt, and it's quite the bargain. With a starting price just under twenty seven five

hundred dollars including destination, someone could buy a Bolt for under twenty grand with the full credit, and GM is offering leases on the Bolt that start at two hundred and ninety nine dollars a month, but you better act fast.

GM ended production of the Bolt in December, so once the existing models are sold, there's nothing to replace them, but a new ultim powered version of the Bolt will come back to the market. However, it's not expected to

be out until twenty twenty five. The plant that made the Bolt it's being

retooled to make the electric Silverado and Sierra pickups solid state batteries for evs could be a game changer in terms of range, charging time, and cost.

VW says it's extremely encouraged by the latest test results. It tested solid state

batteries from its partner Quantum Scape and found that after one thousand fast charging cycles, the battery only degraded by five percent. That's the equivalent of driving over

three hundred thousand miles. The auto industry's target for solid state batteries has been

seven hundred charging cycles with an expected twenty percent degradation. Of course, it's

one thing to get results like this in a test lab. It's another thing

to make these batteries in high volume production. Even so, the results are

still very encouraging. Analysts expected oil prices to increase last year because of conflicts

in the Middle East and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but that didn't happen.

According to the Wall Street Journal, oil and gasoline prices were down five and twenty four percent respective last month, and that's largely due to record fossil fuel production in the US. Oil exports reach four and a half million barrels a

day in November, which is more than iraq Opek's second largest producer and us LNG exports are also expected to hit a record in December. Software to find

vehicles or sdvs are one of the hottest topics in the auto industry today.

Alex Partner says that OEMs are spending anywhere from eleven to seventy five percent of their R and D budgets on sdvs, and that's what we'll be talking about this afternoon on Auto Line After Hours. Mark Wakefield from Alex Partners will be

on the show, and so will Sam abu El Submid from Guide House Insights.

So joined John and Gary to learn why automakers and suppliers are pouring so many resources into developing software to find vehicles. But that's all for today.

Thanks. Tuning in Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Bridgetone Solutions for

your Journey, Intrepid Control Systems, over the Air Engineering Boost your game, and by Tajin Automotive Technologies the Formula for better Mobility. 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 for better Mobility see Yes 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

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