Stellantis shakes up leadership by replacing its North American COO amid questions about labor contract impacts and brand performance. Elon Musk aims to increase his Tesla stake to push AI and robotics innovation, while India debates EV import tariffs affecting local manufacturers. Volkswagen explores solid-state battery partnerships as production challenges persist. Foxconn expands EV ambitions with new ventures and manufacturing deals. Panasonic plans higher-capacity battery cells, and Lamborghini celebrates record sales driven by SUVs and hybrids. Mercedes prepares a versatile new electric van, and Daimler Truck sees EV sales surge despite low overall growth. Porsche teases the all-electric Macan debut.
Topics:stellantis leadership changeuaw labor contractelon musk tesla stockindia ev import tariffssolid state batteriesfoxconn ev manufacturingpanasonic battery improvementslamborghini sales recordmercedes electric vanev sales growth
- Stellantis Fires COO of North America - Musk Wants More Control of Tesla for AI and Robots - Indian Automakers Worry About Lower Import Taxes - VW Looks for More Solid-State Battery Partners - Foxconn Creates New Chinese EV Company - Panasonic Improving 2170 Battery Cell - Lamborghini Has Its Best Sales Year Ever - New Mercedes eSprinter Goes on Sale - Porsche Revealing New Macan on Jan 25th
"...ced that it will unveil the all new, all electric Macan in a little over a week on January twenty fifth. ..."
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In an unexpected and surprising move, Stillantis fired its COO of North America, Mark Stewart. His replacement is Carlos Zarlenga, who was the president of
Stalantis Mexico. Zarlenga will take over the North American operations on February first under
Mark Stuart. Stalantis North America, which is essentially the former Chrysler Group,
was the economic powerhouse of the company. In twenty twenty two, which is
the most recent full year financial data available, the Chrysler Group accounted for thirty one percent of the company's total vehicle sales, forty seven percent of its total revenues, and sixty percent of its total operating profits. So why would Carlos
Taverrez, the CEO of Stalantis, decide he needed to replace Mark Stewart.
The press release announcing the change cited the need to one least the potential of iconic American brands that suggest that Taveraz thought the christ the group should be doing better. The release also said that Zarlenga would work in close cooperation with the
brand CEOs, which may suggest that Stuart wasn't doing that as much as Taveraz thought he should be, and maybe Taveraz didn't like the fact that UAW President Sean Fain singled out Stialantis as the most cooperative of the Detroit three in agreeing to an expensive labor contract. But whatever the reason, this change is a
milestone in that there are no longer any Americans in senior management positions at Stilantis, even though it's American operations play an outsized role in the company. He's
the richest man in the world, worth over two hundred and thirty billion dollars, which is bigger than the economies of one hundred and fifty seven countries, and yet he wants more. We're taught talking about Elon Musk. Of course,
he says he needs to double his stock ownership of Tesla. Musk has
thirteen percent of all company shares, but in a tweet on x he said he wants about twenty five percent if he's going to make the company a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics. Otherwise he thinks it will need to happen outside
of Tesla. Critics were quick to point out that if he hadn't sold so
many shares to buy Twitter, he'd have a lot more Tesla stock, and up until now, Tesla's board has seemed to pretty much give Musk whatever he wants, and it's likely they'll give him a new compensation package to keep that AI and robotics work inside a Tesla. Wall Street analyst Adam Jonas at Morgan
Stanley says Tesla's Dojo AI computer could add six hundred billion dollars to the company's market valuation. India wants to see more EV investment in the country, but
if might have to give up its hefty import tariffs, which has local manufacturers worried. For years, It's been courting foreign EV makers, including Tesla,
to build and sell their vehicles in India, but Tesla wants it to reduce taxes on imports, which currently sits at one hundred percent for vehicles that cost over forty thousand dollars and seventy percent for everything else. So India is working
on a policy that could cut the tax to as little as fifteen percent, but it may also require local investment in manufacturing. Tesla has said it would
invest up to two billion dollars in an Indian factory as long as it could import up to thirty thousand vehicles at the fifteen percent tax rate. But last
year India only sold eighty two thousand evs, and that has local manufacturers Mahindra and Tata worried that foreign automakers will just take advantage of the lower import taxes, and they've called on officials to keep the higher rates. They're also concerned
that having more EV makers in the country will hurt their future fundraising efforts.
Volkswagen is in talks with France's Blue Solutions on solid state batteries because its current partnership with Quantum Scape has been hit by delays. Blue Solutions make solid state
batteries for Diamler's electric buses, and it also signed a development deal with BMW.
A number of automakers, including Toyota and Nissan, are developing solid state batteries because they have more energy density and shorter charging times compared to lithium ion batteries. However, companies are running into challenges to produce them in high volumes
for passenger vehicles, which is delaying when they'll hit the market. We want
to know what drives your testing Ota connected car diagnostics, remote testing. Intrepid
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by your data. Taiwanese contract manufacturer fox Con is expanding its EV efforts.
It just established a new EV company in China called fox Con New Energy Automobile Industry Development, which in addition to developing evs, will also produce its own motors and other vehicle components. Fox Con, which makes iPhones for Apple,
has been ramping up its EV plans over the last couple of years. In
twenty twenty two, it purchased GM's former plant in Ohio from Lordstown Motors and built a small number of its Endurance pickups for the startup until it filed for bankruptcy last summer. Fox Con also makes electric tractors for Monarch, and it's
in talks with Fisker to build its upcoming pair EV at the plant. Its
other EV efforts include Foxtron, another EV brand it established to showcase its technology and capabilities, and it has developed EV concepts with Italian design house Pinin for Ana and chip maker and Vidia. Panasonic is going to come out with a
new and improved version of its twenty one to seventy battery cell sometime later this year or next. According to Bloomberg, the cells are expected to be more
energy dnse than the version it makes today, which is used in some versions of the Tesla Model three and y. The company's CTO of Panasonic says it
will also increase production output by ten percent this year and quadruple its capacity to two hundred gigawatt hours by twenty thirty. A more energy dense cell means an
automaker could use less of them to get the same amount of range and potentially bring down the prices of eves. Last year, Lamborghini celebrated its sixtieth anniversary,
and now it's celebrating another milestone. The luxury brand set a sales record
last year and delivered more than ten thousand vehicles for the first time in its history. It sold ten thousand, one hundred and twelve VA hicles to be
exact, which is a ten percent game compared to twenty twenty two. The
Ears Suv accounts for most of that with more than six thousand deliveries, followed by the Hurricon with nearly four thousand sold last year. Lambeau also says its
first plug in hybrid. The Revuelto, which was launched in twenty twenty three,
is popular with customers and it has enough orders to cover production into late twenty twenty six. Mercedes is getting ready to launch the new version of the
eastprinter van in Europe. It will come in two body shapes, lengths and
motor sizes, as well as three battery packs. Power will come from either
a one hundred kilowatt or one hundred and fifty kilowatt electric motor, which is one hundred and thirty four or two hundred and one horse power. The smallest
battery is fifty six kilowatt hours, which provides up to two hundred and twenty kilometers or one hundred and thirty six miles of range. That model is going
to start at over seventy one one thousand euros including the value added tax or VAT. An eighty one kilowad hour battery that provides up to three hundred and
ten kilometers or one hundred and ninety two miles of range will be available, and so will a one hundred and thirteen kilowad hour pack that provides up to four hundred and forty kilometers or two hundred and seventy three miles of range.
Mercedes isn't giving pricing for those models yet, but a decked out version with the biggest battery including VAT should easily creep near one hundred thousand dollars, which sounds a bit crazy for what is basically a work van. Are we seeing
the tipping point between EV and IC big trucks two Last year, Dimler Truck sold over five hundred and twenty six thousand vehicles, but only a little more than thirty four hundred were electric. However, like BMW yesterday, most of
Daimler Truck's sales growth is coming from evs. Those total sales we're only up
one percent, while evs were up two hundred and seventy seven percent, So I think we're going to see a lot more company sales growth coming from evs.
We knew it won't be long, and Porsche just announced that it will unveil the all new, all electric Macan in a little over a week on January twenty fifth. Will provide a link for anyone that wants to keep the
data in their calendar. That brings us to the end of today's show.
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