AD #3729 - Ford Cuts F-150 Lightning Production, Boosts Ranger and Bronco; Jeep Teases Wagoneer EV; Cadillac Boosts Lyriq Sales, Adds Dealer

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

China is once again extending subsidies for new energy vehicles or ANYVS, which includes beevs, plugins, and fuel cells. This year and next year,

anyv's will be fully exempt from vehicle purchase taxes, and in twenty twenty six and twenty twenty seven, anyvs will be exempt from half of taxes. Automakers

sold nearly nine and a half million nyvs in China last year, a thirty eight percent gain, and this year ANYV sales are expected to hit eleven and a half million units, a twenty percent increase and a market share of thirty seven percent. So it's surprising to see China extend ANYV incentives once again since

the segment is going so strong. That suggests the government is concerned the slowdown

in its economy will hurt car sales. If we were to believe early forecasts,

we'd all be riding around in autonomous cars, watching movies, getting some work done or catching some shut eye instead of actually driving. But that's not

the case, and the supplier boss says that slow rollout is the reason it will have to make cuts in its software division. The company wants to slash

twelve hundred software development jobs by the end of twenty twenty six because autonomous driving has not taken off like it thought it would. But we think something else

could be going on here too. As traditional automakers begin developing software defined vehicles

or sdvs, they want to copy Tesla and write all their own software in house. Right now, one hundred and fifty different suppliers are writing software code

for one hundred and fifty different microprocessors in the average car, and automakers don't have access to all that code. So as sdvs catch on, suppliers are

worried that they could just end up building parts to spend and lose all that software business. The winter weather has been bitterly cold in much of the United

States this week, and there's been blaring headlines of problems with charging electric cars, like they won't charge at all. The worst case seems to have been

in Chicago, where sub zero tempts meant that public chargers would not charge the batteries, including Tesla superchargers, which are the best public charging system by far.

Some say that owners did not pre warm their batteries before charging. They

point out that the chargers will operate very slowly at first while the batteries warm up, and then charge faster when it gets to the right temp. But

when drivers see their car charge so slowly at first, they assume the charger is not working. And this is just the latest problem with public chargers,

which is why the US government will invest three hundred and twenty five million dollars to replace broken chargers, as well as reduced battery cost and I prove EV technology. It's all part of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program or NEV,

which is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. Ford is once again cutting production

of the F one fifty Lightning. It says quote to achieve the optimal balance

of production, sales growth, and profitability. It will reduce lightning production to

one shift, which will impact roughly fourteen hundred employees. Seven hundred of those

people will go to Ford's Michigan assembly plant, where it's adding a third shift to build the Bronco and Ranger. The remaining employees from the Rouge plant where

the lightning is built will be moved to other roles there, placed in another facility, or they can take advantage of a retirement program, but Ford really needs to start making more Rangers. Michigan Assembly was one of the plants shut

down by the UAW strike, and from October to December of last year, it didn't make more than five hundred Rangers in a month. The pickup ended

the year in the US with roughly thirty two thousand units sold, which is way behind the competition. Even the Honda Ridgeline, which had a pretty good

year for itself, easily outsold the Ranger. We want to know what drives

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Jeep is getting ready to launch its first EV for global markets, the wagoneer S, and it showed this teaser image to mark the occasion. From

what we can see, it looks pretty darn close to the concept that it showed in September twenty twenty two. It's a mid size suv that Jeep says

we'll have four y E off road capability, six hundred horse power, and we'll be able to do zero to sixte in about three and a half seconds.

Sales kickoff in the US and the fall of this year, followed by other major markets, including Europe. Hundai used to be a pretty big player

in China, but in twenty sixteen, when South Korea bought an anti missile defense system from the US called THAD, the Chinese government retaliated against everything from South Korea. It banned K pop bands from performing in China, it prevented

Chinese tourists from going to South Korea, and it strongly encouraged citizens not to buy any products from Korean brands. That started Hyundai's long slide downward in China,

and it's never recovered. So it's not surprising to see Yndai making a

major investment in the Indian car market, which is booming. It bought GM's

assembly plant there and is investing over seven hundred million dollars to boost its assembly capacity in the country. Hondai is already the second largest automaker in India and

this latest investment will bring its production capacity there to over a million units.

Cadillac had a strong year in twenty twenty three. Its overall sales in the

US were up nine point three percent, and it had its best year for seday and sales since twenty eighteen, including record years for the CT four and CT five. Its V series had a record year as well, up fifty

five percent. Its global sales were also up, but Cadillac didn't provide those

figures, and while it struggled to ramp up production of the lyric EV, it says it's now fixing those issues. Cadillac delivered nine thousand lyrics in the

US last year, which it claims makes it the best selling luxury compact EV.

In the fourth quarter, it delivered thirty eight hundred lyrics, accounting for twelve percent of its retail sales, and in China, lyric sales are up sixty percent year over year. Surprisingly, Cadillac has also added a few dealerships

in states where EV adoption is high, and despite talk of slowing EV growth, Cadillac says there's still strong demand for luxury evs. It seems like all

the high end luxury brands are doing well, but not Bentley. It's sales

dropped eleven percent last year. It sold thirteen thousand, five hundred and sixty

cars, down for more than fifteen one hundred and twenty twenty two, which was a record and sales were down across the board, including in the Americas, in China and Europe, but it did say more customers chose to personalize their vehicles and that business was up by forty three percent. Bentley blames challenging

market conditions for the sales drop, but other luxury brands had great years.

So that makes us wonder what's going on at Bentley, and that will have us keeping an eye on the Ultra Luxury brand going forward. But that brings

us to the end of today's show. Thanks for tuning in, and I

hope that you have a great weekend. Auto Line Daily is brought to you

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AD #3729 - Ford Cuts F-150 Lightning Production, Boosts Ranger and Bronco; Jeep Teases Wagoneer EV; Cadillac Boosts Lyriq Sales, Adds Dealer

Ford F-150 Lightning

Ford Bronco

Jeep Wagoneer

Cadillac Lyric

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