AD #3750 - UAW Threatens Another Ford Strike; Biden Backs Off EPA ICE Emission Regs; Stellantis Could Make Chinese EVs In Italy
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
Shawan is off on the media launch for the new Ram fifteen hundred and I'll be filling in for the next couple of days. Sales of electric vehicles
are slowing dramatically in China, the US, and the EU, and that's having a major impact on the automotive industry. It's affecting environmental policy, raw
materials, pricing, and stock market valuations that we'll get into in today's report.
And let's start in the US, where the Biden administration dropped something of a bombshell over the weekend. It's going to back off on emissions regulations for
ice vehicles that were designed to push ev market share to sixty seven percent of the new car market by twenty thirty two. Though we don't have specifics of
the new rules, they would require a slower ramp up in sales through twenty thirty but still require a steeper ramp up after that. Automakers and car dealers
have asked the Biden administration to ease off on the new emission regulations, but what seems to have convinced the administration to act. Was pressure from the UAW
to ease up because it fears eves will lead to job losses, and with the presidential election looming on the horizon and the fact that the president needs the union support, looks like the UAW got what it wants. Meanwhile, the
drop in EV growth is wreaking havoc on prices for the raw materials needed to make batteries. Prices for lithium are down a staggering ninety percent and the price
of nickel has been cut in half. Glen Core, a giant mining company,
is shutting down a nickel mine in New Caledonia in the Pacific. BHP,
the biggest mining company in the world, says it may have to close a nickel mine in Australia. The Wall Street Journal reports that investments in new
two lithium mines, especially in the US, could slow dramatically if prices stay low. But there is something of a silver lining, or maybe I should
say unickel lining or a lithium lining. Lower prices for raw materials will make
it cheaper to make EV batteries and that could help spur demand and start the cycle all over again. And that slow down in EV sales is wreaking havoc
on EV startups that are really struggling. Fisker was warned by the New York
Stock Exchange that it is in non compliance with the exchange's rules because Fisker stock dropped below a dollar a share for thirty consecutive days. Three years ago,
the company's market cap reached a high of seven point nine billion dollars, but as of Friday, it tumbled to only two hundred and ninety three million dollars.
And if that's not bad enough, Fisker is facing a safety investigation from Nitze because of four owner complaints of and I quote here unintended vehicle movement or vehicle roll away and that involves the ocean EV. Nitza says, the owner's
site, the inability to shift into park, and or the vehicle not shifting into the intended gear. This is the second probe Nitsa has launched into the
ocean. It opened the first one in January over allegations of breaking loss when
traveling on low traction surfaces or bumpy roads. And in online forums, owners
have complained about various software issues. And it's not just Fisker that's struggling.
Tech Crunch reports that Faraday Future could lose its LA headquarters for failing to pay rent. The landlord says it's on nearly owed nearly a million dollars and it
filed a lawsuit to get paid. It's also being sued by another landlord for
an office that at least in San Jose, California, which claims that Faraday owes it one hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars. So, like I said,
this slowdown in EV sales is having an impact that is rippling through the entire automotive industry. As we reported last week, Ford CEO Jim Farley said
the company is going to have to revisit its manufacturing footprint because of the animosity from last falls UAW strike. Ford makes more vehicles in the US with more
UAW workers than any other automaker, but the cost of the contract, along with all the vitriol hurled its way by UAW president Sean Fain, is causing Ford to reconsider making so many vehicles in the US. U Faine immediately fired
back and threatened to shut down Forward's Kentucky truck plant, which is the company's most profitable plan. That plant still does not have a local agreement even though
the national agreement was settled last October. The issues at the plant involved health
and safety issues. But here's our outline insight. One of the few things
that a UAW local can strike over is health and safety, and in the past the union has used that issue to strike a plant, even if the real underlying issue had nothing to do with health and safety. Italy wants Stilantis
to make more vehicles in the country. In fact, Italy has toyed with
the idea of taking a stake in Stillantis to get what it wants. So
Stillanta's CEO, Carlos Tavara says they're committed to boosting production in Italy to a million vehicles a year by the end of the decade, and that's up from seven hundred and fifty thousand vehicles last year. For now, the Italian government
is backing off buying part of the company, but says it would be open to doing so if the auto maker requested it. You know, it's not
unusual for a government to have a steak in an auto maker in Europe.
France already owns six percent of Stilantis, as well as part of Renault and Volkswagen is partly owned by the German government, and you know Stella may turn to China to boost production in Italy. Automotive News reports that Stilantis may make
Leap Motor evs at Fiat meet a Fury plant. It's considering producing one hundred
and fifty thousand evs a year at the plant, which could start in twenty twenty six or twenty twenty seven, and the vehicles would be sold in Europe by Stealanta Steelers. Last year, Stalantis body twenty one percent stake in Leap
Motor for one point five billion euros. The Daytona five hundred was postponed yesterday
because of and it's going to run again this afternoon. But the big news
in NASCAR is that the teams have hired a lawyer to negotiate their dispute with the France family over money. The France family controls NASCAR, and it wants
to negotiate with each of the thirty six teams separately, while the teams want to negotiate as a block. Even more, they want their teams to be
treated as franchises, just like in other major sports such as American football, basketball, baseball, or hockey, and they want a greater share of any incremental revenue. So far, NASCAR will not negotiate, which is why the
teams hired Jeffrey Kessler from the law firm Winston and Strawn LP, who, by the way, is the same lawyer that successfully litigated to get financial payments to college basketball and football athletes, who also successfully litigated to get equal pay for the women's US national soccer team, and who got more favorable free agency rules in the NBA and the NFL. Obviously, the teams want to show
NASCAR they're not messing around and that it had better come to the table.
Say, did you know that new car sales in the US are about the same as they were in the year two thousand, even though the population the US has increased by fifty three million people since then. And keep in mind
that immigration is the only thing that's keeping the US population growing, so the vast majority of those fifty three million people have a driver's license. This is
what the experts are calling peak auto. New car sales are unlikely to go
much above where they were even before COVID hit. We've posted a video about
peak auto on our website and YouTube channel and you can learn a lot more about it there. You all know about autonomous cars and trucks and buses,
but how about an autonomous powerboat? Not so much for pleasure bruising, but
for docking your boat, especially in really tight situations. As you come towards
your marina. All you do is press a button and the system takes over.
The system was developed by Brunswick, the boat builder with brands like Boston Whalers, Cray Bayliner, and Harris Pontoons, just to name a few, and it was developed with apex Ai, which is an embedded software company.
Brunswick plants to make this technology available on other boats and for a variety of different applications, and that brings us to the end of today's report. Thanks
for watching. Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for your
journey and by Intrepid Control Systems over the air engineering boost your game. We
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