AD #3741 - Soaring Hybrid Sales Bring Toyota Record Profits; GM Says Dealers Will Make Money on EVs; Aston Wants 4th CEO in 4 Years
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
Toyota is rolling into twenty twenty four full of optimism. It blew through
last quarter's guidance and now expects to post a thirty three billion dollar profit when it closes the books at the end of its fiscal year on March thirty first.
One reason why it's doing so well is that hybrid sales shot up forty six percent last quarter. Toyota's fourteen percent operating profit margin is now well ahead
of Tesla's nine percent. And another thing that's helping the Japanese automaker is the
falling value of the yen, which is down twenty five percent versus the US dollar over the last five years. That has significantly lowered the cost of making
cars and components in Japan. If you work for Laurence Stroll, the chairman
of Aston Martin, you better show results and fast. In the last four
years, Stroll has gone through three CEOs and now he's looking for a fourth.
The current CEO, Amadeo Felisa, who came from Ferrari, didn't deliver the kinds of results that Stroll was looking for financial results through the third quarter of last year, which is the most recent available, show that sales were up eight percent and revenue was up twenty one percent, but the company is losing money. Its stock is down eighty five percent since twenty twenty, and
production of the new dB twelve sports car, which Aston has a lot riding on, was delayed because of bugs in the infotainment software. Laurence Stroll is
reportedly contacting CEOs at other brands to see if they want to run Aston, and he's probably looking for someone younger than Felisa, who turned seventy eight this year. Car dealers in the US want the government to tap the brakes on
EV's, saying the auto industry is trying to transition too fast to electric cars and that there's not a lot of customer interest for them. But GM president
Mark roy says there's money to be made. Quote, We're going to give
dealers the opportunity to make money on EV's and he's not just talking about selling evs. Since electric vehicles require less maintenance, dealers are concerned they won't make
as much money on service, but Royce says eves still need breaks, tires, alignments, and are not problem free and that quote, we will rely extensively on dealers to service those vehicles and make money on it end quote.
Even so, dealers think the government and auto industry should focus more on offering affordable hybrids and plugin hybrids, and as we reported last week, GM announced part of its plan for North America is to bring pehaus back to the market.
Stillantis is looking to cash in on data collected from its connected vehicles.
The head of mobili Sites, the automaker's data and connected services unit that it created last year, told Reuters that it's looking to sell anonymize data packages to service providers. The company is currently in talks with customers to get their permission
to sell the vehicle data. The types of data could sell includes info on
how an EV's battery status changes in different road and weather conditions, or assessing road conditions to determine where repairs are needed. The company also says it's open
to making data available to researchers and government agencies. Traditional automakers are scrambling to
find new ways to bring in more revenue, and selling data has really caught their eye. Ford is getting its EV owners ready to use Tesla's Supercharger network.
Last week, CEO Jim Farley revealed that the company will start giving out free Tesla adapters this spring, and now Inside EV's reports that Ford owners won't have to use the Tesla app to charge their evs. Owners will just need
to create an account with Ford's Blue Oval Charge Network, which will allow them to make payments through the Ford Pass app or the vehicle's touchscreen that also allows owners to find superchargers through their vehicle's infotainment screen. Ford says its payment system
will work for V three and later superchargers. Mercedes is launching the new all
electric E sprinter van in North America. In Europe, it's available with three
battery sizes fifty six, eighty one and one hundred and thirteen kilowatt hours, but in North America it will only be available with the largest pack, which provides up to four hundred and forty kilometers or about two hundred and seventy three miles of range on the WLTP test cycle. North America will also be limited
to the long panel van with high roof aary in at first, but two body styles and lengths will be offered as well, and Mercedes says it will be available at a later date as an open model for the first time, which we think would be a chassis cab version. Power comes from a rear
axle electric motor that makes either one hundred kilowatts or about one hundred and thirty four horse power or one hundred and fifty kilowatts or two hundred and one horse power, and when it comes to carrying stuff around, it has up to four hundred and eighty eight cubic feet of cargo space and has a max payload rating of a little over twenty six hundred pounds or nearly twelve hundred kilograms.
Pricing for the less powerful version in the US starts at just over seventy four thousand dollars including destination, while the one hundred and fifty kilowatt version starts at a little over seventy seven thousand, six hundred dollars. The bad news keeps
on piling up for Volvo and Jeely's premium EV brand. Pollstar car rental company
Hurts said that it's pausing plans to purchase tens of thousands of vehicles from the brand this year. In twenty twenty two, Hurts announced it would buy sixty
five thousand Polestars over a five year period. The deal was estimated to be
worth three billion dollars. So far, Pollstar has delivered thirteen thousand models to
Hertz, but Hurts is pulling back on its EV plans because of a drop in resale values and higher than expected repair cost. It's also selling off some
Teslas in its fleet. The Financial Times reports that Pollstar allowed Hurts to pause
the deal this year as long as it keeps the current poll Stars for more than a year and doesn't sell them too cheaply. How do you make charging
evis more convenient for owners? Well, one way is to automate the whole
charging experience, and that's why Continental developed this garage robot to charge electric vehicles.
In Kante's vision of the near future, a driver arrives at home and gets out of the car, which autonomously drives into the garage and parts over a flat robot on the floor. Under the car, A small door slides
open to reveal a charging port, and the robot positions itself directly under the port. The robot then raises its connecting plug and begins charging the vehicle.
While other similar ideas use inductive charging, Continental decided to use a physical connector to reduce charging losses. Kante doesn't have a firm order for the charging robot
yet, but says several luxury car brands are interested in the concept develop the robot in conjunction with a startup from Austria called Voltario. Audi is coming out
with an even more powerful, even more exclusive, even more expensive version of its RS six station wagon. This is the RS six Avant GT Audi Squeeze
nearly thirty more horsepower out of the car's four liter twin turbov eight. It
now makes four hundred and sixty three kilowatts or six hundred and twenty horse power, and it will do zero to one hundred kilometers an hour in three point three seconds. Other major highlights include a rework differential, stiffer stabilizers, and
adjustable coil over suspension. It also features unique styling inspired by old Audi rally
cars, and it drops a few pounds thanks to a carbon fiber hood in front fenders. Deliveries start in the second quarter of this year and pricing starts
at over two hundred and nineteen thousand euros. That's a rap for today's show.
Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day. Auto Line Daily is
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