AD #3754 - GM Cruise to Restart Operations Soon; VW Considers Electric Pickup for U.S.; PHEV Sales Booming in China

This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive INDUS stream. Carlos Tavares, the CEO of Stalantis Sure, had a good year.

His total compensation for twenty twenty three came to thirty nine point five million dollars. That's fourteen point seven million more than he made in twenty twenty two,

and he got that money because of the record profits the company delivered last year, which was over twenty billion dollars. The compensation includes a base salary

of over two million dollars, short term incentives of more than six million, long term incentives of eight million, and retirement and fringe benefits of two point seven million. Now that doesn't mean that Tavares will be handed a check for

thirty nine and a half million dollars, since some of those benefits have invested yet, but he will take home over twenty five million bucks. And speaking

of executive compensation, GM is modifying how it gives out executive bonuses. Up

until now, it was based on EBIT profits and free cash flow. The

Detroit Free Press reports that going forward, sixty percent of the bonuses will be based on those financial results, but forty percent of it will now be based on hitting ev production targets, rolling out software and services, and ramping up GM Cruise and right on Q. Bloomberg reports that GM Cruse is going to

resume operations soon. It suspended all of its robotaxi operations in the US because

one of its cars dragged a pedestrian after they were hit by another vehicle in San Francisco. Bloomberg says it will probably resume operations in Dallas or Houston,

Texas, and at first it will have safety drivers on board until it determines that it's regained the trust of the public and safety regulators. GM Creuse has

also been gathering on operating in Atlanta, Seattle, Miami in Raleigh, North Carolina, so it will likely be targeting those cities as well. Several years

ago, GM CEO Mary Bara told investors that Cruz would be generating a billion bucks a year in revenue by twenty twenty five and fifty billion by twenty thirty, so she'll be ready to get those robotaxis back on the streets as soon as possible. The race is on between the US and China to see who

leads an autonomous technology and China is moving fast. Beijing just became the first

capital city in the world to offer robotaxi rides between the airport and downtown business districts, and it's not just a little demonstration project. Pony Ai by dew

we Ride and auto x now have permission to run robotaxis from three hundred different pickup and drop off sites in the city out to the Daxing Internet National Airport, which typically involves trips of about thirty miles. While Ford is seeing a

slowdown in demand for its electric passenger vehicles, it's a different story for its e transit commercial van. Navin Kumar, the CFO of its ford Pro commercial

unit, says that state and local governments and small businesses are opting for the e transit at a higher rate than the gas version. Kumar says those customer

segments represent about half of ford Pro's business, and Ford's commercial unit is a strength for the company. Last year, it made seven point two billion dollars

in pre tax earnings, and this year, Ford is forecasting it to grow to eight to nine billion dollars. That increase will be driven by subscriptions and

services, which ford Pro expects to grow to twenty percent of earnings in two years. At the Chicago Auto Show recently, the CEO of VW's North American

operations set a VW branded pickup for the US market was not in the plans anymore, but according to Wards Auto, he was only talking about an ic EBAs truck. It reports the automaker is working on its own EV pickup that

will share a platform and other major components with the vehicles from Scout, and VW doesn't think it will step on Scout's toes with a different positioning and brand profile, but we think that could be hard to pull off. Engineering development

for the platform is being done by Magna, and early targets include things like four wheel drive capability, torque vectoring, and tank turns. And while VW

will get a version of the truck, it's rumored that Audi will get a sibling to the Scout SUV and they all would be built at Scout's new plant in the US in South Carolina. But remember we're talking years down the road.

The Scout vehicles are currently scheduled to come out in twenty twenty six.

In VW's future, electric models, including the pickup, are in the early stages of Design. Mazda announced pricing for the new CX seventy mid size crossover

in the US. It starts at just under forty two thousand dollars, and

the plug in hybrid version starts at fifty five thousand, seven hundred and seventy five dollars. The p HAVE power train combines a seventeen point eight kilowate hour

battery with a two and a half liter four cylinder engine which produces three hundred and twenty three horse power and three hundred and sixty nine pound feet of torque.

It has an all electric range of twenty six miles. The standard version

comes with a three point three liter in line turbo six with a forty eight volt mild hybrid which produces two hundred and eighty horse power and three hundred and thirty two pound feet of torque. It gets an EPA estimated twenty five miles

to the gallon combined. A more powerful version of that setup is also offered,

which produces three hundred and forty horse power and three hundred and sixty nine pound feet of torque. MASTA says it's the most powerful mass production gasoline engine

in its lineup. All of the power trains are mated to an eight speed

automatic transmission and are standard with all wheel drive. The CX seventy will start

arriving in showrooms this spring. P HAVE sales are booming in China. While

b EV sales were up twenty one percent last year, p haves shot up eighty three percent. Bloomberg reports that b EV sales fell thirty nine percent in

January compared to December, while p HAVE sales only fell sixteen percent, so they're showing more resilient. Bev's still out sell p haves two to one,

but p haves are more popular in smaller cities and rural areas. China's goal

is to have beev's account for ninety percent of all electrified car sales by the end of next year, but thanks to the popularity of p haves and e revs, battery electrics only account for sixty six percent of all electrified vehicle sales.

Toyota is extending a shutdown of two production lines at two plants in Japan run by subsidiary companies until March first. The automaker originally suspended production at the

end of January because it discovered irregularities and diesel certification tests. One of the

lines builds the companies all Fired and Vellfire minivans, while the other one produces the high Ace van. Toyota will decide on March first if it will restart

production. In the US, the state of New Jersey is offering big bucks

for school buses with bidirectional charging. It launched a three year pilot program that

provides districts with up to three hundred and twenty thousand dollars to buy an electric school bus and a bi directional charger. They're allowed to lease or buy anywhere

from two to twenty four buses, and they should see their energy bills go down since they'll be using power from the buses. And even if the district

doesn't want to go with bidirectional charging, they can still get two hundred and seventy thousand dollars to buy or lease an electric school bus with a level two charger, but they may want to go with that bi directional charger. Minot's

Karwa Rhombus Energy, which makes bidirectional chargers, told Autoline that school buses can earn ten thousand dollars a year by charging when rates are low and selling that electricity back to a utility when the rates are high. BYD has come out

with an even cheaper version of its Dolphin EV. Thanks to a smaller thirty

two kilowad hour LFP battery pack, it was able to cut the price by almost five percent to just under fourteen thousand dollars. The model also features a

seventy kilowat electric motor and provides up to three hundred and two kilometers or one hundred and eighty seven miles of range on the Chinese test cycle. Other versions

have options for forty five and sixty five kilowat hour batteries, as well as a more powerful one hundred and thirty kilowat electric motor. You know, I'm

pretty impressed with BYD's pricing power and its ability to expand so quickly into global markets, which now also include Saudi Arabia. It just launched five of its

models on the market and now operates in seventy countries and regions around the world.

That brings us to the end of today's show and this week, and I hope that you have a great weekend. Auto Line Daily is brought to

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AD #3754 - GM Cruise to Restart Operations Soon; VW Considers Electric Pickup for U.S.; PHEV Sales Booming in China

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