AD #3734 - Toyota Targets Rolls-Royce and Bentley; Car Dealers Beg Biden To Delay EVs Again; Lincoln Slashes Dealer Network

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

Move over Rolls, Royce and Bentley. Toyota wants a piece of your

action. According to Forbes, Toyota will spin off its Century models into a

standalone global luxury brand that's going to compete at the top end of the luxury segment, well above Lexus. Forbes was told the plans by an unnamed Toyota

executive at the Tokyo Auto Show, and Wards also reports that the company has filed trademarks for the Century name in several different countries. The Toyota Century Sedan

has been around since the late nineteen sixties and is currently made for the Japanese market, typically used to show for around business executives or politicians, but last September, Toyota also revealed the Century Suv that costs one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and earlier this month at the Tokyo Show, it introduced a bespoke version of the SUV called the GRMN that costs two hundred and twenty grand.

The SUV is the model that's said to first be going to global markets like Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas, and will be offered in both right and left hand drive, and these models could be extremely profitable for Toyota, which dovetails nicely with our next story about Japanese auto workers who almost never go on strike and they probably won't this time either, but they're demanding record bonuses from Toyota, which expects to post an eye popping operating

profit of more than thirty billion dollars when its fiscal year closes at the end of March. Auto workers in Japan don't get paid by the hour. They

get paid by the month, and at the end of the fiscal year they get a bonus, which works out to several months of pay. Toyota's union

is demanding seven point six months of pay for the next bonus, up from six point seven months last year, and it will probably get it. In

the past, Japanese auto workers have been known to wear black armbands to signal their displeasure with management instead of calling on a strike and walking off the job, and that sure shows a different cultural approach compared to what unions do in the US, the EU or in South Korea. Five thousand US dealers sent

a letter to the Biden administration asking it to hit the brakes on new emission standards that will force evs to hit sixty seven percent market share by twenty thirty two. Last November, four thousand dealers sent a similar letter but never got

a response, so maybe more is better. They're asking the Biden administration to

wait until battery supply chains outside of China get developed, and they want to wait until the public charging infrastructure gets fully built. Here's our auto line insight.

The dealers are probably right that getting beev's to sixty seven percent market share by twenty thirty two is too ambitious of a goal, but the supply chains and infrastructure are never going to get built unless there's enough evs to justify those investments. Speaking of dealers, Linking is getting rid of more of them.

Automotive News reports that the automaker dropped one hundred dealerships last year, and it's going to cut another one hundred this year. That will leave the company with

four hundred dealerships in the US, or about forty percent fewer than it had in twenty twenty one. Lincoln wants more standalone dealers, so it's offering buyouts

to most that are also paired with a Ford showroom. By trimming its network,

Lincoln hopes to boost sales and increase its dealership throughput. Lincoln's sales in

the US have been declining for years. In twenty twenty three, it sold

nearly eighty two thousand vahicles, which is four thousand fewer than it sold in twenty eleven. Less than expected EV demand in Europe could push back IC bands.

The EU had planned to ban new ices after twenty thirty five, but Porsche's CFO thinks it could be forced to reconsider this plan due to a slowdown in EV orders and says there could be a delay in the ban. You

may remember that several countries successfully lobbied to exempt new IC cars sold after twenty thirty five in Europe as long as they run on some sort of climate neutral fuel, and Porsche is one of the bigger players in the development of synthetic fuels. 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. Renault

says its hydrogen and fuel cell division, called hi Via, is starting to make the transition from a pioneer in the segment to a volume producer. It's

going to deliver around fifty versions of its H two tech vans, which are based on the Renault Master Van, to an area around the French Alps by the end of this year. That same area eventually plans to have fifteen refueling

stations, four hundred hydrogen powered commercial vehicles, as well as eighty heavy duty trucks, fifty of which will be retrofitted units. Along with generous regional subsidies

of roughly twenty four thousand to thirty seven thousand euros to buy a commercial fuel cell vehicle, it's hoping to accelerate the rollout of the segment. High Via

is also applying its hydrogen fuel cell system to another version of Renault's Master Van.

I believe this is a longer wheelbase version which allows users to carry more weight and gives them more conversion options. As for its setup, it features

a thirty kilowat fuel cell stack, four hydrogen tanks mounted in the floor, and a fifty seven kilowat or roughly seventy five horse power electric motor, but it also features a thirty three kilowatt hour battery pack mounted under the front seats, so it can run on pure electric power as well. And if you'd

like to learn a lot more about the viability of fuel cells, you'll want to check out the latest episode of Autoline After Hours. Charlie Freeze, who

runs all of GM's fuel cell development, is on that show, and he has some terrific insights. One thing he talked about is how GM is working

on making hydrogen on site like for fleets. That would significantly cut the cost

of hydrogen since it wouldn't have to be transported. He doesn't see much application

for fuel cells and light vehicles, but talks about the opportunities in forklifts, mining trucks, aircraft trains, long haul trucks, and emergency back up power.

Honda released prices of the Prologue EV in the US. The base version,

with a single motor and an EPA range of two hundred and ninety six miles, is priced just to Shade under forty eight eight hundred dollars including destination, and you can walk that up to a fully loaded dual motor all wheel drive version at just under fifty nine thy three hundred dollars. Honda is also

offering several charging packages, including a five hundred dollars credit for putting a Level two charger at your home. Even though Honda announced pricing, it doesn't expect

prologs and showrooms until sometime the spring, and it will only be sold in ZEV states plus Texas and Florida, which have turned into EV hotbeds. According

to Honda, the vehicle will be built by General Motors, and though GM has hit a lot of teething problems building its ultim based evs, Honda says there's a lot of pent up demand for the vehicle and it's content that the prolog will hit its sales targets. GM's autonomous unit Cruise is in hot water.

Yesterday, in a blog post, it revealed that it's under investigation by both the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and that's over an accident from last October where one of its vehicles dragged a pedestrian after they were struck by another vehicle. NITZA is also investigating the same accident.

CRUZ commissioned a report from an independent law firm, which found the company didn't intend to mislead investigators. However, it cited quote inadequate and uncoordinated internal processes,

mistakes and judgment in US versus THEM, mentality with government officials, and a fundamental misunderstanding of regulatory requirements and expectations close quote. A separate technical review

by an independent engineering firm found that the vehicle and the accident had mapping error issues and incorrectly identified the pedestrian it hit as a side impact collision. Since

the accident, Cruz has fired nine executives, and its CEO and co founder both resigned. The company has also suspended its driverless operations in the US.

And here's an interesting one. BMW is using automotive technology and principles to help

improve German loisures. Since twenty sixteen, it's been installing sensors on test sleds

that record things like speed, acceleration, steering movements, YAH rate, and more, and then pumps that into a software program to analyze the data.

BMW says that it's collected so much information that it can even help identify the ideal racing line and proper sleds set up. But that's the end of today's

show. Thanks for making Audoline a part of your day, and I hope

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Chevrolet Spin

Toyota Century

Ford Edge

Master Renault Master

Honda Prologue

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